28 was designed in such a way. There are, in fact, two other far more interesting use cases for it. “The ability to use the battery off the bike was something we really wanted to offer,” says Tran intriguingly. “It has wheels and a little handle that pops up, so you can actually roll it off the bike and use it as a portable power station, like a generator. You can take the battery and go camping or use it to power anything you want. “In Vietnam, there’s a lot of brownouts. They don’t have a solid electrical grid, so having some battery power is actually very beneficial. Also, because the battery is self-enclosed, with a 3.3 kW onboard charger, you can plug it in anywhere; in fact, you can even roll into a Starbucks and plug it in there for free! It’s amazing!” The other benefits of the removable battery are serviceability and manufacturing complexity, and Tran continues: “The battery is often one of the biggest issues on electric motorbikes, but also one of the biggest potentials for upgrade. Yet, for a standard manufacturer, battery replacement takes months because they have to take the whole bike apart to get it out. “We anticipated that. So, with the removable battery, replacing it is as simple as shipping it back to us. We ship out a new battery in a crate, the owner pops it on basically the same day they get it, they put the old battery back into the crate and they ship it back to us. We’ve already done that with some of the bikes that are out there and it’s such a simple process.” Finally, because the Ryvid range is interchangeable, the same battery can be used for other bikes. So, in the same way that a power tool manufacturer builds loyalty by selling other tools in their range without the battery, if someone buys one bike, they can buy another without the battery and swap the battery between them, cutting out one of the major costs. Innovation in frame design The frame design was driven by the team’s desire for simplicity, and the innovation here came from Tran’s aviation experience but also from his work with a rather offbeat company that created unusual 3D paper model sculptures, designed in CAD and handmade from a single pre-folded, precreased sheet of paper. Instead of following the welded frame approach seen in most traditional motorcycles, Ryvid explored the potential to manufacture from a folded sheet of metal, as Tran explains: “When we designed the airplane, nothing was welded, everything was bonded, faceted and riveted. That was beneficial for weight and strength and it also kept the costs down. “Glue has become really good now, and riveting technology is much more accurate, so we leveraged both of those on the motorcycle. It seemed straightforward but, in hindsight, the process was anything but! To mount our entire front end, for example, we had to figure out how to attach it without welding it and make sure it could last 100,000 miles. “We went through many, many iterations, but what we ended up with was essentially a frame made from a flat sheet that is laser cut and folded with a CNC press. That makes it extremely strong, because it’s a box structure, but it can be iterated very quickly, it can be made out of any material and it can be made anywhere. “We tried it out of aluminium, stainless steel 316 and stainless steel 306. We could do it out of titanium if we really wanted to! We ended up choosing 360 stainless, mainly because it is the most corrosion resistant. But the game changer is that we can put a frame together in about 20 minutes with a rivet gun, some fasteners and no specialist skills.” The suspension components are fairly similar to any petrol bike of this type, although the fact that the electric bike is slightly lighter means the set-up can be slightly softer and offer a more comfortable ride, with some additional tuning work on the front internals to provide a real motorcycle feel, and adjustment to the rear spring rate to account for anti-squat. The seat, which is also easily attachable, is no ordinary bike seat. It is a movable design that is electrically actuated, giving the rider the ability May/June 2025 | E-Mobility Engineering Meet the founders The three Vietnam-born US-based engineers and one US-based investor who formed the founding team at Ryvid have a wide range of diverse and interesting backgrounds, as CEO Dong Tran explains: “I’m an automotiveturned-aerospace designer with an engineering background. I worked with Honda, General Motors, BMW Design Works and in Toyota’s small micromobility department in Tokyo, then did a stint at Icon Aircraft, an aerospace start-up which had turned into a fairly large company of almost a thousand people by the time I left. “After that, I started my own company working on product development, from design all the way through engineering, prototyping and production design. We worked for a lot of different companies, including some electric mobility companies including Zero Motorcycles, Polaris, and that’s where the idea for Ryvid popped up. “The other founders were in similar fields. One was in the aerospace supply chain, another a mechanical engineer designing a lot of the tools and equipment that make semiconductors, and the fourth, our investor, has a military background. He was a Commander on the US Virginia Class submarines. So, we are a pretty interesting group of guys! “I’m the only ‘bike nut’ hardcore motorcyclist and after riding scooters in Vietnam, I came to the US and got a 750 GSXR! I just thought it was the biggest bike you can get! So, first I went big, but then I went really small, I went into dirt bikes, then the Honda Guam when that first came out and then mopeds, so I really got back to the roots of small bikes. “Everyone had their own passion, but right from the start we were all aligned on one thing, which was sustainability— not in the sense that it’s just simply electric, but we were really interested in sustainability as a holistic approach. How do we design and manufacture the whole product so that it is sustainable? And that is what drove the entire design.”
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