Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - Carr-e (CARR·e: Lightweight and versatile electric vehicle applied to urban logistics)

Teaser

Urban transportation and displacement of goods, equipment and people, including last-mile delivery, is getting a great deal of attention in the media and from investors. The cost of global parcel delivery, excluding pickup, line-haul, and sorting, amounts to €70 billion...

Summary

Urban transportation and displacement of goods, equipment and people, including last-mile delivery, is getting a great deal of attention in the media and from investors. The cost of global parcel delivery, excluding pickup, line-haul, and sorting, amounts to €70 billion, with China, Germany, and the United States accounting for more than 40 percent of the market.
Urban Freight Transportation (UFT) represents 8% to 15% of the total consumer goods transport amount. When taking into account the whole logistics chain, the LGVs (Light Good Vehicles) represent 42% of the total delivery activity. Major urbanisation requires new and innovative ways to target problems of overcrowding, energy consumption, resource management and environmental protection.
Carr-e is expected to contribute to a reduction of 15K tons of fuel per year and 37K tons of CO2, in line with the European Commission policy goal for UFT of “essentially CO2-free city logistics in major urban centres by 2030”.

Work performed

Carr-e focuses on cargo mobility and can transport a payload of 160Kg (1person + 80Kg of cargo) autonomously for 90Km. Current freight transportation in European cities lack of characteristics to address modern concerns, such as minimum (or zero) CO2 footprint, low running costs, reduced parking space, traffic congestions and environmental pollution. We intend to cover all those areas by providing a multifunctional and environmentally-friendly pedelec that will provide the following features: compliance with standard EN 15194, no driving license or helmet required, modular architecture, low-emissions electric propulsion.
We have built a prototype for design validation, and 3 more will be built and handed to customers for real environment testing. On top of this, we have undertaken a Financial and Business plan, including a FtO analysis.

Final results

If we consider that e-commerce heavily relies on UFT and that Business to Customers (B2C) sales are growing at a rate of 14% per year, reaching €423.8B in 2014, urban logistics need to find solutions that are cost-effective, productive, efficient and environmentally sustainable. To this end, Carr-e represents an innovative and disruptive approach for Urban Freight Transport.
Aimed at supply chain stakeholders, SME companies and public authorities, we are expected to generate a turnover of €3.3M by Y5, with a cumulative of 11.4M.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.spiritdesign.com/en/work/in-house-developments.