March 6, 2010

Electric bike to the rescue.... to jump-start your car

Dealing with a dead car battery is not something people are happy about.  For those who have auto insurance with Porto Seguro - Brazil's most innovative insurance company - things are little different.  You call their 1-800 number, tell them where your car is located and you may end up being rescued by an electric bike (apparently service is restricted to certain metro areas).  What a fantastic way for the insurance company to reduce operating costs, get through chaotic traffic found in metro areas like São Paulo, jump-start the car using the bike's battery and help the environment.  Absolutely brilliant.

The interesting thing is that Porto Seguro is also marketing the electric bikes, which they co-developed in collaboration with engineer Felicio Sadalla (an engineer who designed Brazil's first electric bike a few decades ago) and Pro-X bike manufacturers.  This morning, I met Patricia Collese from Porto Seguro who showed me the bike and told me the story of how the project got started.















I found this video on YouTube (in Portuguese) covering the story...




3 comments:

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Claudia Borges said...

Olá Carlos Ricardo! Meu nome é Claudia Borges.
Estamos tentando tanto olhando pra frente buscando tecnologias para oferecer melhores serviços com menor custo e algumas respostas estão lá atrás.
Um meio de transporte que fez parte de nossa infância hoje é inovação pela re-invenção de seu uso.
Precisamos olhar mais para o simples.