Volt Electrics: Electrifying the E-Bike Market

“Taking part in The Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme was an absolute blast! I was given so many opportunities that I never thought I would ever get: speaking at Business Hall of Fame, taking part in the Entrepreneurs In Action event and connecting with so many talented and successful business men and women,” says 17 year old CEO Volt Electrics, Grayson Ashby.

Volt Electrics are the creators of sustainable and affordable e-bikes which utilise recycled laptop batteries and old bikes that were otherwise destined for landfill. The business now has four battery pack products and has secured placement opportunities with AvantiPlus.

“The idea grew from taking part in the EVolocity Build an Electric Vehicle competition. We built a go-kart for a school project and once we finished realised that the big, heavy lead acid batteries were slowing us down. We realised that with the early Tesla cars using the same batteries that are now in everyday laptops, Lithium-Ion 18650, we could create a power pack out of recycled cells that was more than capable to power an e-bike,” he says.

The journey hasn’t been without challenges but the Volt Electrics team has faced each one head-on.

“We overcame a lot of challenges. At the start we had a very DIY ‘rig something up and hope it works’ approach for our manufacturing tools, for example we needed a spot welder for connecting our nickel plates along the top of our battery. Niels Grosmann, our R&D guru, fashioned a welder system out of two nails, a length of wire, a car battery, a relay and an LED. Worked perfectly!

We would love to gain some insight into battery production and development, however it is a very expensive area to invest into, something that’s better left to the big players like LG and Samsung. However that's not going to stop us creating longer lasting and environmentally friendly battery systems; we have a way of gaining sneaky partnerships with some awesome companies!” says Grayson.

There have been many highlights along the way as well.

“The highlights would have to be along the Kiwi “Number 8 Wire” mentality. Being able to create a lot of our manufacturing gear and products in-house and at a cheaper price, allowed us to get more people into cycling: reducing carbon emissions, getting more people out of peak hour traffic and most of all getting fit! Everyone can agree that that is what has made the experience so awesome!

The list of things we have learnt is endless. From importing to marketing to accounting and technology; this mission has set the team up with skills that we can use and remember for life, hopefully allowing us to put them to use in future start-ups!” he says.

We asked Grayson if he had any wisdom to impart to other budding entrepreneurs.

“We would encourage any young entrepreneur to go out and give it a go! Try do a few easy things on the cheap first, it will allow you to focus startup capital into more important areas that you cannot wing e.g. health and safety certificates if you were creating a food product.

Apart from that, just go out and get it done! Connect with as many people as you can and always be ready to talk about your business, you never know just how much talking to one person can start an awesome ball rolling, something that happened many times for me throughout the year!”

It sounds like this group of young Kiwi entrepreneurs has a great future ahead and we’re looking forward to seeing the impact they have on whatever they turn their attention to next.