ION Mobility’s M1-S motorcycle
(This is a news series for Southeast Asia’s “soonicorns” or potential unicorns to share their startup journeys with the region’s startup community).
The electric scooter market in Indonesia is not picking up like in India, mainly because there are few appealing offerings, said ION Mobility Co-Founder and CEO James Chan.
Moreover, the much-mooted subsidies are not fully implemented in the country or the region.
“There are no performance- and design-equivalent offerings that can strongly compel riders in Indonesia or Southeast Asia to make a switch,” he said in an interview with e27. “Besides this, the archipelago doesn’t have a subsidy scheme similar to India’s FAME, which is way more mature and established.”
ION Mobility, established in 2019, is a smart electric motorcycle company currently focused on the Indonesian market. It soft-launched its first model, M1-S, in Jakarta last November and has been receiving pre-orders.
According to him, M1-S offers a “completely digital experience” with advanced features, such as reverse gear, high-quality digital display, connected bike, and an integrated bike-rider-ride-app experience. Plus, the model has the power of a 250-cc equivalent motorcycle (benchmarked to be neck-to-neck against the Xmax 250 from 0-60kph) in the body of a 155-cc equivalent maxi-scooter but is priced lower than the 155cc and 250cc petrol equivalents, while achieving equal- to superior-total-cost-of-ownership to 155cc equivalents in two to three years.
Also Read: Indian two-wheeler maker TVS joins US$18.7M Series A round of ION Mobility
In Jakarta, ION is setting up a factory and experience centres and is completing the tooling and production preparation, including the ongoing commissioning of the factory. “The Jakarta plant has the capacity to produce up to 50,000 M1-S per year in the first phase. It will contain a full battery pack line alongside the M1-S assembly line, ensuring that the M1-S will be the highest local content EV motorcycle in Indonesia by end-2023,” Chan boasted.
In his opinion, the Indonesian market is flooded with players that white-label or completely outsource design and development to China or other European players, with minimal in-house design and engineering value-add beyond assembly, sales, and marketing. “We, on the other hand, have adopted a full-stack end-to-end approach approach. This is the only way to manage cost well, even at a low scale, while maximising outcomes and ensuring maximum margins.”
Early this year, ION Mobility secured US$18.7 million in a Series A financing round led by India’s two-wheeler major TVS Motors. “TVS has been more-than-helpful in ways that no VC can be. Its 40-plus years of experience — first by learning from partnering with Suzuki and later on their split-up and with its India-specific realities and innovation driving its capabilities and processes in motorcycle design, engineering and manufacturing — has allowed us to reduce 11kg weight from M1-S quickly,” he shared.
“This helped us save cost and improve range and performance. We have also aligned on some common parts by tapping into TVS’s Indonesian supply chain networks. Its support relates directly to our goal of delivering an automotive-grade M1-S towards the end of this year,” he added further.
Drawing a parallel between the Indian and Indonesian markets, he remarked the former has a conducive funding ecosystem. “SEA doesn’t have the same funding ecosystem for hardware-first companies like ours. There’s not even enough talent for more than one such company.”
Chan also said ION Mobility is receiving inbound interest (for US$5 million more investment) to close its Series A round, but the company is not in a rush. “We, however, will appreciate the extra capital going into 2024. To date, we’ve remained extremely capital-efficient.”
“We need to raise more, especially next year, after starting the delivery of our units and supporting their use on the roads of Indonesia. We also have early plans for a proper Series B round in 2024 while keeping an eye on the unstable macroeconomic climate,” he stated.
Early this year, the company said it had an ambitious plan to convert the 200-plus million motorcycle users from petrol to electric to drive a sustainable future in Southeast Asia. How do you plan to achieve this goal? “One motorcycle at a time, starting with Indonesia. The 200 million conversion is a long-term goal. We have a long way to go towards that lofty goal,” he signed off.
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Image Credit: ION Mobility
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