Pony and Comodule started a French revolution in shared mobility
French company pony is on a mission to fundamentally change the way people move, with their turquoise-colored sharing bikes and scooters available on the streets of France, Italy and Belgium. All it takes is downloading the pony app to get access to any of those vehicles and enjoy a hassle-free commute. Pony’s fleet is a combination of dockless scooters and both regular and electric bikes, including their stand-out vehicle, a two-seated e-bike called The Double Pony. In fact, it is the first two-seated e-bike in the world designed for sharing. You can pick up your kid from school and put them in the back seat or even take your date out for a romantic bike ride. To operate their fleet, the connectivity for pony’s dockless e-bikes is enabled by Comodule’s IoT solution.
To indicate that the company has huge potential, in 2021 pony was chosen amongst the 10 best European startups for sustainable mobility by The European Startup Prize for mobility.
Challenging the business model of the shared vehicle industry
Pony is making waves with something other than just their high-quality vehicle fleet. This young company is revolutionizing the shared mobility business model. They are the first fleet to decentralize ownership of its vehicles, making it possible for everyone to buy their own pony vehicle and put it up for sharing on the pony app to earn money. Local people can purchase a vehicle directly through the pony app or on the adoptapony.com website. The revenue of each ride is then split in half between them and pony. Thanks to the connectivity, pony step-parents can at any point of time see the health and location of their beloved pony.
Essentially, this lets people take control of the mobility infrastructure of the city they live in and provides a direct relationship with the shared mobility industry.
A connected fleet to run the business smoothly
As a pioneer in connecting shared fleets to the internet, Comodule offers the expertise and IoT solution to pony’s dockless e-bike fleet. “We were initially intrigued by the one-of-a-kind financing model pony has put in place with their “adoptapony” program. But having taken a closer look, we find pony is a pioneer from more than one perspective. They are a team with strong sharing industry experience and technical expertise with clear expectations for IoT connectivity. And having such a vehicle as double-pony available, that just adds another layer of fun to emissionless commute.” says Rivo Riistop, Senior Sales Manager at Comodule.
Comodule’s IoT hardware is integrated into pony bikes and connected to Cloud Platform, enabling full connectivity between bicycles, the fleet operator, and riders. The end-to-end connectivity solution makes it possible to control the vehicles remotely, locate every bike and gather necessary data on vehicle and user behavior.
To maintain the fleet, pony uses Comodule’s Service Platform, a web-based dashboard that gives a detailed overview of the status of each module and vehicle. It is a great tool for troubleshooting and launching firmware updates to IoT, the main controller and battery BMS.
“We are very grateful to the talented team of Comodule. They have been very helpful in designing our electric bike and successfully launching our fleet. Comodule’s iOT and Service Platform provide our team with reliable and scalable connectivity solutions that fit our use case.”
Empowering micromobility is in the DNA of both companies
Comodule is excited to work with pony since both of the companies share the same mission - to get more people moving on light electric vehicles and reduce carbon footprint. Pony lives up to this mission by making shared electric vehicles available for everyone and even inviting people to be part of the business. Comodule joins that idea by empowering emissionless transport through vehicle connectivity.
Interested in launching, scaling, or improving your fleet?
