Batribike opens “sustainable battery production” facility with Danish partners

Electric bike specialist Batribike has opened what it describes as “Europe’s first sustainable battery production” alongside its Danish business partners Promovec.

Production began last month at a facility that its powered by a mix of renewable energies, something that is leading the company towards a zero emissions production target.

Following Batribike‘s partnership at the end of 2017, by 2018 Promovec CEO Jesper Lundqvist had started a new company, Viridus, as a joint venture between Promovec in Denmark and Greenway in China.

It is this link that will now see around 50,000 batteries roll off the production line by the end of the year. The cells are automatically sorted and resistance in the cells is optimised before moving to a state of art spot welding robot.

Further targets to offset the battery production and shipping impacts include a drive to only use eco-friendly packaging by the close of 2019 and to have a recycling agreement in place.

“In many ways, it’s paradoxical that electric bicycles, which in themselves are an environmentally friendly mode of transport, still use black batteries that are transported right across the globe to reach the European bicycle manufacturers. We need to change this in order to take better care of the world. The consumers have also become more aware of their climate footprint, and bicycle manufacturers are starting to notice this,” says Jesper Lundqvist, managing director of Viridus.

Driving the UK business forwards, Russ Masters recently joined the UK arm, a move that Batribike told CI.N has given the business a shot in the arm in terms of its bike shop footprint.