America’s dependency on foreign oil has been a problem for years. 45% of America’s crude oil comes from overseas. This number has come down since its peak in 2005, but it still causes the US to send our young men and women and money overseas in the war effort. This is a problem that Erik Kauppi and John Harding are addressing in their mission, with Current Motor Company. Current Motor is an company that produces and sells highly efficient, electric, Super Scooters. These scooters are 100 % electric, so they use no gasoline. The scooters are meant to provide fuel efficiency, convenience, and low-maintenance ownership, all for a reasonable price. However Current motor is doing so much more for the local, national, and global community.
Current Motor’s Super Scooters look like a mix between a full motorcycle, and a european scooter on the outside, but on the inside, there’s so much more. Erik Kauppi is currently the Co-Founder and Chief Engineer of Current Motor. He has vast experience in engineering and manufacturing vehicle electronics, and data acquisition systems. Kauppi has been interested in this kind of thing since he was very young. Kauppi tells me, “When I was in kindergarten I wired up my kiddie car with lights and a horn and stuff and took it to show and tell, and in school I was working on bicycles until I was old enough to drive, then I was out in the parking lot working on everybody’s cars, you know. I’m probably lucky I didn’t get into airplanes”, he jokes, then continues on to say “fixing things is fun but its even more fun to make them better.”
Kauppi attended Kettering University Engineering school, worked as a manufacturing engineer at Ford motor company, worked with data acquisition systems on racecars, and for 20 years, was the president of Corsa Instruments. Corsa is a data acquisition system producer that provides advanced electronics used in a wide range of different vehicles. Even with all of his success in his field, Kauppi was excited to start working with one of the first fully electric vehicles to be sold in the U.S.
Before the Nissan Leaf, and before Tesla, John Harding was on the hunt for an electric scooter to model his own after. After tinkering and testing Chinese scooters, Harding found what he was looking for. Click here to hear Erik tell about how they struck a deal with an Asian scooter company.
“One of our competitors did spend over $100 million designing a whole bike from scratch”, Kauppi chuckles, knowing his plan was superior. Kauppi and Harding were determined to spend little money, and get to market quickly in order to get their product to the customers. Here’s where the genius comes in. The plan was to buy as many parts for the bike beforehand as possible, then put the bike together. After stripping the gas version of the frame they would use and rebuilding it with its electric parts, there was tinkering, adjusting, testing, fixing, and trying new parts. After all their effort, it finally worked. They were in business.
Ordering the frames in bulk, Kauppi and Harding got to work. After building a
good amount of the prototype Super Bikes, they sell the early-stage bikes to “Test pilots” all over the country in order to get feedback on the bikes. “It’s like beta testers in software”, says Kauppi. Click here to hear the rest of the process.
Current Motor is helping in many ways. Globally, these bikes are an instrumental step in weaning the country off of our dependency on foreign oil. Within Michigan, Current Motor is employing many people, helping the state economy rise, and unemployment shrink. If it is within your budget, Current Motor can help you by giving you access to a low-cost, high-efficiency, and not to mention personalizable electric scooter. While cars pollute more every year as they wear out, an electric vehicle being produced will cause some pollution, but it’s a one-time thing, and will pollute less and less every year. Current Motor’s Super Bikes start at around $9,995
