The idea of a “factory in a box” picks up where the failed electric vehicle company Arrival left off.
Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Pegg sees a second chance when he looks at Daisy, Helixx’s 3D-printed prototype delivery car. And McDonald’s is giving him ideas on how to get there.
The prototype is an interesting proof of concept. It was shown to the world for the first time this week at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Standard PLA+ filament has been used to 3D print almost every part of Daisy on 14 household printers from Creality. There are clear layer lines on the steering wheel that show this is a printer that is almost professional grade.
But Helixx’s story isn’t so much about a cute little boxy van that will only cost $6,000. It’s about changing everything we know about how to make cars.
Helixx wants to build tens of thousands of these runabouts in temporary factories next to some of the world’s busiest and most crowded towns. The really interesting thing is that Helixx’s multi-tiered revenue plan has very little to do with making things.
Yes, it sounds a bit like the plan of the late EV company Arrival, which Pegg knows a lot about. Before he helped start Helixx in 2022, Pegg was the head of a product line at Arrival and was also in charge of developing lightweight vehicles there. He is now working on some of those core ideas with Helixx, which raised $20 million in a Series A round in June based on a $100 million pre-money value. Last year, the company got $1.3 million in starting money.
Pegg, who has worked in and around the car logistics game for 25 years, says that Arrival and Helixx are not the same in some important ways.
McDonald’s And EVs Meet
One of the main ideas behind Arrival was automation. Helixx, on the other hand, is mostly about getting companies up and running quickly by hiring people who need little training.
“This idea is a lot like a McDonald’s franchise.” “McDonald’s doesn’t teach you how to be a chef, and you don’t need to be a chef to know how to use a grill,” Pegg said. “They show you the steps to take.”
Pegg talked about McDonald’s five times in an hour-long chat, which shows how important the fast-food franchise model is to Helixx’s idea. And, just like when you’re selling burgers with little room for error, volume is very important.
To begin with, Helixx wants to work with partners who want to get into the last-mile mobility-as-a-service business and who want to make all the vehicles. Helixx will charge a fee to give you access to a full platform that handles everything from finding parts to managing a fleet and even fixing up old cars. These services are based in part on the Siemens Xcelerator platform.
Pegg said, “It all starts with a license.” A company needs to pay about $50 million to join the site. This means that plans can be made to set up a “factory in a box,” which could make cars in as little as 180 days from scratch.
That then opens the door to a second way to make money: selling the parts that go into the workshop and make the cars.
Helixx finds materials and parts for the client and takes care of the details of the supply chain. Once cars are ready to be sold, Helixx charges a monthly service fee of about $80 for each car made. The business also gets $500 for every car that is put into service.
Helixx also wants to keep track of user data from all the cars. This could be a valuable resource that could be sold to anyone interested in city planning or fleet logistics.
The Helixx cars are meant to be used for business. The company sees a chance to use the vans in places like Jakarta or Bangkok, where tuk-tuks or auto rickshaws are common. These are the three-wheeled monsters that fill the air with their shrill cries and exhaust from two-stroke engines.
EV Car In Specifics
Daisy, whose real name is the Helixx Cargo, is all electric but can’t be charged. At least not straight away. At least in theory, Daisy will use lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) cells that can be swapped out. But don’t watch it if it makes you think of Better Place. This company’s answer is more like Gogoro than that startup’s, which used complicated, automated swapping stations.
Helixx’s electric vehicle’s battery pack is made up of separate modules. Each module weighs 25 pounds and has a capacity of 2 kWh. Users can just put in as many as they need, up to six at most. When they run out of power, users will not charge them, but instead pull up to a place that looks like an Amazon Locker and swap them out by hand.
The car is a L7E Heavy Quadricycle in Europe, which means it can only go 55 miles per hour at its fastest. Pegg says it will be less than 1,200 pounds, which is less than a quarter of the weight of a Ford E-Transit, and it will only have the most basic features. Pegg wants to go back to a time when cars were easy and windows could be rolled up.
“We want to get a user who needs a workhorse to do his job and bring home more money,” Pegg said. “We were able to flip those traits around and ask ourselves, ‘What does the driver really need?’”
Sign Up For Drive
Those drivers will need to subscribe in order to use one of the Helixx EVs. Customers who pay a monthly fee will be able to use a car for a certain number of hours or days each month.
Pegg said, “Like a Netflix subscription, whether you use it or not.” He says that this will help Helixx and its franchisees escape the uneven revenue peaks and valleys that other mobility services have to deal with.
Pegg also thinks that 95% of the system will be used. He said, “This isn’t a vehicle of convenience.” “This is for the drivers who need these cars to do their jobs and bring more money home to their families.”
The local franchisee can make changes to meet demand because the plants will be able to grow as needed. Pegg, however, said that Helixx is not willing to talk to anyone who is not ready to build a factory that can make at least 100,000 cars per year. He estimated that this would require about 50,000 square feet of room.
That number might seem like a goal; it’s about one-fifth of what Tesla’s Fremont factory makes in a year in a place one-hundredth the size. But Helixx’s little car is much smaller and less complicated than even a Tesla, so it might be easier than it seems at first.
It’s not true that Helixx’s plants will be full of 3D printers. That was only a prototype. In a real production, about 20% of the car will be made of polymers, but it will be shaped using more standard pressing methods. Another 45% of the van’s basic parts, like the frame and suspension made of metal, will be cast and bought in the area.
Another 20% of the car, which will include basic electronics and systems, will come from more advanced suppliers in the area. One-source parts, like airbags, battery cells, or other equipment that needs to be certified or made with great accuracy will make up the last 15%.
Pegg says that Helixx’s work on the supply chain service and solutions will make sure that all of that is sourced in the most cost-effective and time-efficient way. He hopes that OEM partners will help with some of this. For this Series A round, Helixx is aiming straight for the corporate venture capital arms of car companies like Toyota and Hyundai.
Pegg thinks that Helixx can help these automakers break into a new subscription model for cars by making it much cheaper to join. Helixx’s cars would be much cheaper than subscription services like Care by Volvo, which are about the same price as buying and insuring a car.
This $6,000 van, Daisy, is named after “Daisy Bell,” the first song a computer sang. But this is just the start. Pegg says that in time, other cars could be released, and franchisees could just download them and start making them right away in their modular factories.
Also Read: As Netflix Said No, Other App Developers Are Talking About Releasing Vision Pro
“Of course, as long as you have a license.”
What do you say about this story? Visit Parhlo World For more.
