20 Dossier | Ryvid May/June 2025 | E-Mobility Engineering The ambitious founders of Ryvid have created a range of motorbikes designed to electrify the mass market in the Far East, then take over the streets of every major town and city on the planet, reports Will Gray Is this the future of mass mobility? Ryvid was founded by three California-based engineers who grew up in Vietnam. Their birthplace has now become one of the most polluted places on Earth, ranked plum last of the 180 countries in last year’s Environmental Performance Index. In early January, it was home to not one but two of the world’s five most polluted cities. Across Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s greenhouse gas emissions from road transport are second only to those of Indonesia, and they have been increasing by an average of around 15% per year over the past decade. The 74 million motorcycles on the roads of Vietnam represent one of the major contributors to this increase – and that is exactly why Ryvid exists. Founder and CEO Dong Tran explains: “In Vietnam, motorbikes are the only way to get around and there’s no age limit to ride, so as a kid I rode a lot of scooters. When we were starting the company, we were looking at transportation as a whole and thinking what can we, as a company, create that can make the biggest difference 10 years down the line. “Is it a car? Is it a UTV? A power sports vehicle or a small little moped? And we landed on the fact that in 10 years, the majority of the world will probably still be on a smaller-type moped, a small vehicle, and making that type of vehicle as an EV made a lot more sense to us than creating a big truck or SUV, just because of the power density.”
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjI2Mzk4