Are all those prizes given to young, innovative companies mere harbingers of good things to come? EasyLi, finalist of the last Grand Prix for Innovation of the City of Paris in the eco-innovation class, is surely forward thinking, but they’re affecting change today. The start-up, for which this event was a huge boost, has since the beginning of this year offered a range of storage choices for urban use with an innovative approach.

Urban vehicles and intelligent urban furniture

Easyli dubbed their battery range CityPower, a name as apt as it is evocative. It recovers energy revolving around the lithium-ion batteries for urban use, much in vogue with the current craze for electric vehicles. The company gears its products primarily to manufacturers of urban vehicles such as scooters and electric bikes or smaller delivery vehicles, excluding the manufacturers of electric cars. “We do not aim to directly service major automakers, who have integrated these skills internally. However, there are many urban vehicle manufacturers today who do not have this skill and need partners on energy storage,” explains Francois Barsacq, president of Easyli.

Easyli’s second target is all intelligent, urban, and energy autonomous equipment, such as the next generation of information kiosks and bus shelters, a less mature market but one that’s destined to evolve rapidly. Efficient storage systems are becoming essential in the development of peri-urban solar streetlights, which to avoid laying miles of cables are not always connected to the network, Easyli is also currently in discussion with the designers of Sudi, a photovoltaic shade structure that produces solar electricity and serves as a charging stations for electric vehicles.

An integrated approach

But Easyli’s innovation is primarily the service it offers its clients based on an integrated approach to the battery, “from the design phase of energy storage through fabrication to marketing, the whole chain from R & D to commercialization,” says Francis Barsacq. For this, Easyli have employed the help of four engineers with extensive experience in battery development at the largest producers of the industry. “Our credo: Innovation is only useful if it is accessible to all. Many applications today cannot be used because they are too expensive. ”
Are the creators of Easyli a bit utopian? By having a systematic approach tailored to each client’s case, the team is positioned at a crossroads between sustainable, reliable and effective product design that is also competitive in the rest of the market. The entrepreneur says they’re situated between “technology leaders that offer products that work well but are not affordable and companies that distribute batteries from Asia which are more accessible but do not meet the specifications of municipalities and fleet managers.” This integrated approach would therefore provide the most advanced product with competitive quality and price required by consumers. To achieve this elusive cost/performance equilibrium, the start-up has set up an integrated laboratory and testing facilities. Affordable, accessible, sustainable: what more could we ask for?

Credits : SUDI / Arcade

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Translated by Genny Cortinovis

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