UK-based startup Helixx has announced an innovative approach to delivering a range of four affordable mini commercial electric vehicles to provide clean, sustainable mobility for service businesses in fast-growing, densely populated urban centers. Engineered in the UK and designed to be built virtually anywhere in the world in licensed Helixx Mobility Hubs, the vehicles will be offered on a subscription basis for commercial users from $0.25/h.

According to Helixx, economically and technologically developing cities across the world are experiencing dramatically increasing population density. The company cites a United Nations prediction that 6.6 billion people will be living in urban areas by 2050 and that growing populations mean that a fundamental shift towards more efficient mobility systems is vital.

Helixx was founded Helixx was founded by engineer and vehicle concept designer Steve Pegg, CEO, and hypercar designers Jowyn Wong, Chief Vision Officer, and Jakub Jodlowski, on the premise that small, safe, affordable, zero-emission vehicles that are built locally within a fully managed circular manufacturing Industry 5.0 ecosystem offer the potential to unlock opportunities for economic growth by solving mobility and air quality challenges.

The company provides a technology aggregation and enablement platform to empower local businesses to manufacture, supply, maintain, and recycle innovative, low-cost, superior-engineered, commercial mini EVs virtually anywhere in the world, to end dependency on heavily polluting, unsafe mini ICE vehicles currently in use. Its Helixx Mobility Hubs are designed to keep carbon emissions to a minimum while empowering local enterprises to make, sell, and support vehicles over their lifecycles.

“Helixx was born to meet the challenge of transforming the quality and standard of mobility for citizens in heavily congested cities,” said Pegg. “The vehicles offered by Helixx are the key to replacing the heavily polluting combustion-powered vehicles relied upon in developing nations today.”

The Helixx range is designed by Wong and Jodlowski, whose portfolio includes hypercars for manufacturers such as Apollo and De Tomaso Automobili. The company’s vehicles are based on a single proprietary common lightweight platform with an integrated smart electric drive and swappable battery modules. They are engineered to comply with L7e heavy quadricycle categorization and regional regulatory requirements while exceeding the product category’s minimum recommended safety requirements.

 “The design of the Helixx vehicles serves multiple functions,” said Wong. “Firstly, it ensures that the vehicles are aesthetically pleasing, fit for purpose to meet the needs of local businesses, and comfortable for drivers and passengers. Secondly, our approach also drives simplicity into the product design. This facilitates effortless assembly, either by people or automated intelligent robots, reducing the manufacturing carbon footprint massively.”

The range is initially comprised of four body styles designed for production simplicity through the innovative, flexible Helixx assembly process. The Cargo is a commercial goods vehicle designed to support the booming demand for last-mile delivery fleets with 2100-L cargo volume, 500-kg maximum payload, 110-cm rear door width, and a 140-cm cargo length—and the capability to carry a majority of ISO pallets in targeted markets. With a 1.64-m2 bed and 500-kg maximum payload, the Truck is a pickup intended for construction businesses and urban developers. The closed-body Ride and open-body Tuk will carry four occupants with 108 cm of leg room, offering a top speed of 50 mph and an electric driving range of 70 mi.

All four vehicles feature cabins are designed to offer a premium space for driver and passenger comfort in urban services. They offer a zero-emission driving range with rapidly swappable, LFP (lithium iron phosphate) battery packs that minimize the need for high-voltage charging and ensure that any vehicle can operate almost uninterrupted for 24-h duty periods with near-zero downtime and flexible range-on-demand. A 12-kWh battery configuration can facilitate a range of up to 200 km.

“For the past four years, we have researched the market to ensure the creation of sustainable zero-emission vehicles that meet the demands and needs of the world’s developing economies,” said Pegg. “But arguably more importantly, we tasked ourselves to find a solution to how such vehicles could be deployed wherever they are needed in the world with maximum speed and energy efficiency and minimum cost and complexity.”

The solution is the Helixx Mobility Hub, which can be commissioned and operated almost anywhere in the world through a licensed partnership. The localized, licensed manufacturing and operations hubs are rapidly deployable to facilitate the delivery of the first models within 180 days.

The software-first approach of the Helixx digital manufacturing ecosystem is intended to deliver new levels of production simplicity, reducing complexity, energy usage, and manufacturing cost by at least 50% compared with current industry standards. This will ensure ease of assembly in an efficient, ergonomic, and clean environment free of toxic chemicals, paint, or high-temperature metal processing. Operators can also subsidize revenue streams through the company’s data-as-a-service model and on-vehicle digital advertising.

The company will fully manage the entire onboarding process for hub partners, from the establishment of the factory and equipment installation to training staff and ongoing commercial support with local fleet operators. It will also orchestrate all raw materials and components and production processes through a digital platform that prioritizes local sourcing and supply chain flexibility for resilience and full traceability of environmental impact including Scope 3 emissions.

Potential hub owners will be prompted to answer a few simple questions about the amount of space available to them and the number of vehicles they need to produce. The Helixx system will then prescribe the most effective manufacturing methodologies including the number of staff needed, cost, and optimum production volume.

Helixx hubs will be fully flexible and scalable in nature. For example, a 5000-m2 building will be required to support the manufacture of 100,000 units per year.

Following successful testing of the concept hub in Oxfordshire, UK, in partnership with Siemens, Helixx will establish pilot hubs in the UK and Singapore. The company is in discussion with customers in the Asia Pacific region, with India, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), and South America to follow.