Innovators revel in ride of their lives
IN the past decade Fiik Skateboards has gone from a focus on electric skateboards to a huge range of electric mobility devices, including scooters, bikes and even “golf caddies”.
The expansion has seen the business, founded in 2010 by Mathew and Daniel Quinn, become a significant exporter to markets as diverse as the US, Europe and South Africa.
Now the company is poised to enter the rideshare market in Australia with its e-scooters under the Ride Fiik brand.
It plans to launch 1000 of its e-scooters to the market as soon as coronavirus-related restrictions are lifted in China, where it has its manufacturing base.
The progress of the company is a long way from its humble beginnings.
It was Daniel, the son of OzKleen founder Tom Quinn, who in 2000 bolted a 65cc Stihl chainsaw to the back of a skateboard, in an early experiment at motorising skateboards.
Those trials turned into the first Fiik boards called the Big Daddy and Street Surfer.
They were off-road boards with a top speed of close to 40km/h and designed to travel over rough terrain and because Fiik was an early adopter of the technology, enormously popular.
Mathew flew to China, where he is now based, to oversee production and now supervises the company’s operations in Wuyi, while Daniel looks after the business in Australia.
Fiik general manager Grant Stedman said the early versions of the boards were much heavier and less reliable.
That is mainly due to the transition from sealed lead acid batteries to lithium.
Mr Stedman said changing from lead to lithium batteries for the Big Daddy skateboard removed 9kg of weight.
“As lithium has become cheaper and better it has become more affordable to release more compact and durable products,” he said.
They include one of Fiik’s most popular products today – its Mini Fiik board aimed at teenagers. When it was launched the board (which now sells for $399) weighed 15kg and had a top speed of 12km/h. The weight now has been slashed to 3.5kg and the top speed increased to 16km/h.
Mr Stedman said a key reason for Fiik’s success had been its constant innovation resulting in new products such as its Kush electric scooters, Drifter, an electric drift trike and the motorised golf cart – the Golf Skate Caddy.
Mr Stedman said the Drifter trike (which sells for $2500) took three years of testing and development before it was released to the market.
Drifting is a driving technique where the driver intentionally oversteers resulting in the vehicle moving sideways while maintaining control.
“Guys who grew up with the Green Machine (trike) love it,” Mr Stedman said.
“It targets the inner bogan in all of us. We took it to SummerNats in Canberra – a huge car show there and the guys were going nuts for it.”
Fiik has also sold thousands of its Kush electric scooters to export markets around the world. The latest market where Fiik is looking to make inroads is the rideshare sector.
The company has already provided thousands of electric scooters to Frog, which operates in the US and Portugal.
Mr Stedman said it was in the final stages of launching its own rideshare platform in Australia.
“When the rideshare market started to take off we were contacted by a number of companies, including Lime and a few other companies,” he said.
“We have built more than 30,000 rideshare scooters that have been exported globally. That gives you an idea that the rideshare business is massive.”