The Karo, with limitations; the Microlino, only from 2021 on.
Merlin Ouboter promised to release news about the Microlino in 2020. He did not wait long. On January 2, he told us that Micro-Mobility had reached an out-of-court agreement with Artega and TMI for them to part ways. To get that, Micro-Mobility allowed Artega to produce the Karo, but with limitations. In exchange, it will not have to build the Microlino with Artega anymore. The new manufacturer will be CECOMP, an Italian company that you may not know by name, but which creations you certainly have admired somewhere.
CECOMP creates prototypes, show cars, and other beauties. It has produced the Lancia Fulvia Coupé Concept in 2003, a car that could probably have saved the iconic Italian brand. It was also the manufacturer of the Bolloré BlueCar, a vehicle used in the Autolib EV sharing program in Paris.
The list of cars created by CECOMP is long: Icona Vulcano, Toyota MR-J, Ferrari 575M SuperAmerica, the original Toyota iQ Concept, and the NLV Quant, a famous flow-cell vehicle that resulted in the nanoFlowcell Quant F and Quantino.
Wim Ouboter, Micro-Mobility’s founder, starts with the bad news:
“The intensive testing of our 22 pre-series cars has shown us that the current development status does not satisfy our expectations in terms of driving performance, quality and safety. We therefore need to change more things than initially expected.”
These engineering issues will postpone the Microlino production to 2021. Since Artega built these prototypes, the German company will probably rush to deliver the Karo as it is. That can give Artega a headstart that Merlin Ouboter, Micro-Mobility’s CMO, does not think that will make much difference.
“At the end of the day, the quality of the product will decide who will be successful or not. I don’t know Artega’s production plans and what exactly they did with their Karo in the last few weeks. But given that it is based on the Microlino, bigger changes would require quite some time. Without them, it will be difficult to achieve a high-quality status and nice driving behavior while also keeping costs under control. On the other hand, I also think that the market is big enough for two players and we didn’t want to rush into the market with a product which we could not stand behind 100 percent.”
Anxious customers may rush to have the Artega Karo. If it has quality issues and is too similar to the Microlino, that may affect the reputation of Micro-Mobility’s product. It will be quite a challenge for the marketing, or else, to Merlin Ouboter.
Artega still has not said a word about the agreement, but we will update this article as soon as it does. If the soap opera has finished, the battle for the customer’s preferences promises to be movie material. Get the popcorn.
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