Immotor introduces smart, portable electric scooter

Frustrated with gridlock and pollution from cars, Daniel Huang wanted a better solution for his daily commute. The idea of Immotor GO, a portable electric scooter with three wheels, was born in February 2016.

Immotor stands for "I am Motor", meaning that individuals become their own personal transportation, minimizing waste of material, effort or energy.

The scooter, with a maximum speed of 20 miles per hour, can go up to 20 miles on a single battery charge, and weighs about 27 pounds. By folding it and putting it in a carry sleeve, it can be taken on public transportation and use it as a first and last mile commute solution.

A rider can use a smartphone to control headlights and horn, and play music via an on-board speaker. Putting a sim card in the GO would bring in more features, including GPS tracking, parental controls and to grant scooter access to other users via a smartphone app.

"It has three wheels so it's easily balanced," said founder and CEO Daniel Huang at the GO's launch event in New York in October while making a turn on the GO effortlessly. "There is no learning curve and you will be enjoying the ride within seconds of stepping on."

The scooter's other innovation is its removable, self-diagnostic "super battery". It is Huang's answer to the challenge of personal transportation makers: supplying power safely. Explosions that have occurred with hoverboards have put personal transportation devices in doubt.

Huang came from a background of battery innovation. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Mophie, the top portable battery case company in the US.

Safety routines from "accident awareness" to "safety intelligence with auto-shutdown" help the battery protect against short-circuiting and hard impacts. Immotor claims it's safe enough to take on an airplane.

The battery's built-in operating system can detect the amount of power required by the device to which it's attached and regulates draw accordingly, optimizing for energy efficiency.

The super battery can not only supply to the scooter, but also can be detached from scooter and used as a power source for other devices. For example, by connecting a USB charger it can charge a phone or a laptop.

Immotor is based in Shenzhen and Irvine, California. A Chinese team of 50 focuses on product development and production, and an American team of five people works on marketing the GO and Super Battery.

The company recently received $5.5 million pre-series A funding from Silicon Valley- and Shanghai- based GGV Capital and Yunqi Partners in Shanghai.

The company also raised $132,761 from 271 backers on crowd-funding platform Indiegogo by the end of November.

Backers can now pre-order the GO for $749. Immotor said the retail price will be around $1,199 after it starts mass production in March 2017. The first scooters will be delivered by April.

"The Indiegogo project is not meant for funding or pre-sale, but a market research," said Huang. "It's very beneficial to hear about what people think because personal transportation is still a very young market."

In a survey to the backers, Huang learned that more than 70 percent liked the scooter for its portability. He passed the feedback to his designers to further improve the feature. The team also took the prototype for road testing in major cities of the two countries.

"The San Francisco landscape is quite challenging, so we upgraded the motor power from 250 watts to 350 watts," said Huang. They are on schedule to build the final prototype in December before GO goes into mass production.

Huang, who is from Guangdong province and has been living in the US for 20 years, sees Immotor's combination of manufacturing in the East and sales and marketing in the West as an advantage for success.

"Basing in China gives us access to great manufacturers, engineers and designers. And the cost of production is lower," he said. Its US-based sales and marketing team is the brand's face to the world.

Immotor will participate in the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to put itself in front of global consumers.