Need an electric bike, but for snow? Check out Moonbikes

Speaker 1: It's not every day you see something like the moon bike, it's an electric vehicle that's kind of across between a snowmobile and an e-bike. And even though it never snows here in Southern California, I wanted to talk to moon bikes, CEO, Nicholas mural, to hear more about its official us launch. Nicholas, thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions and talk about moon bike. What is a moon [00:00:30] bike? Speaker 2: Yeah. Hello Ash. And thank you very much. Uh, so a moon bike. Yeah. As you said, it's a mix between a snowmobile and a e-bike. Um, it has a power of a small motorcycle and the freedom of ABI to explore, uh, snowy environments. Speaker 1: This is your official us launch. Can you tell us a little bit about the launch models, capabilities like range and battery power? You Speaker 2: Can, but up to two batteries in the moon bike with one battery you have between one hour and one hour and a half, and with [00:01:00] two batter, you can go up to three. I will. Speaker 1: Cool. That's uh, that's pretty good out in the snow. One of the things that I thought was really interesting about moon bike is that it's very light and has a really narrow footprint. Were there any challenges there with making the lightest snow bike possible with the farthest range, but also keeping it small enough to fit through doorways? Speaker 2: I'm a iSpace engineer. So I wanted to use my skills as an aerospace engineer to create a Newlight frame and a really efficient population system [00:01:30] to fit the characteristic store and lightness. Speaker 1: Are there any smart features, like an app or other connected options for the moon bike? Speaker 2: We're working on an, on an app. So not now for now. It's a, uh, the, the hardware is, uh, is inside the moon bikes, however, yeah, next gen, next gen, we should have an, an app. So Speaker 1: Speaking of NextGen, are there plans in the future to expand on moon bike and add things like a multi passenger model, longer range, or even lower temperature thresholds? Speaker 2: [00:02:00] We're improving the bikes, uh, each year terms of performance, autonomy and other options like apps or other things like Speaker 1: That. I need a side car for my dogs. Uh, they hate the snow. I'm just kidding. They would never go. Um, so I'm curious if moon bikes is also at all potentially considering, uh, a desert version of the, of the moon bike. Cause obviously traversing, the snow is very difficult, uh, with an electric vehicle and [00:02:30] I would argue the same as, uh, you could do that with the desert. So is that something that moon bikes is interested in or is that something that would be way down the road? Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I'm pretty sure that does the market for sand. Um, however, the cause the, that is huge, uh, for, for snow. Um, we, as we want target, uh, a wider, uh, audience than the mobile by making, uh, much easier machine, is it easier to use and, and silent and ecofriendly [00:03:00] um, so we are creating a blue ocean, a new markets. Um, so I think we, we, we need years to, to, to reach all of these markets. So Speaker 1: One of the hardest selling points for electric vehicles, for anybody who lives in colder climates is range loss. I know that that's a thing that I hear a lot as a Tesla owner. Um, a lot of, uh, friends, family, coworkers who live in colder climates are more hesitant to go electric because of that range loss in cold climates. [00:03:30] Can you talk a little bit about how moon bikes designed the product specifically with that in mind, since it's meant to be rid out on the snow? So Speaker 2: For that, uh, the box is, uh, insulated, uh, and hit. Um, so we perform, uh, some tests in very cold temperature and theres no, uh, lots of autonomy, uh, if you keep a certain range. Um, so yeah, we, it was an important point and we radio satisfied with our, our, our cat taste. Speaker 1: [00:04:00] How does moon bike handle on different hardnesses or, or depths of powder? Like how does, is, is there a big difference? Is it not so much of a difference? I'm very curious how it handles, um, in different types of snow environments, Speaker 2: Like a snowmobile. Uh, if you want to go uphill in a huge amount of powder, you would get stuck, uh, like many snow vehicles. If it's not too steep, you can ride into the powder, but if you want to go free hiding in the mountain, the best things to best thing to [00:04:30] do is to go uphill with the trail. And then you can jump into the snow and go down ahead in the powder and you feel like snowboarding of king it's, uh, and in total silence. So it's a amazing south. Speaker 1: It seems like it would be a really fun thing to just ride. Just, just for fun. I mean, you can use it for utility obviously, but it seems like it would be very, very fun to ride. Yeah. Speaker 2: When I, when I came to the us for the first time with, with a moon bikes, uh, yeah, I crazy like jumping in the snow saying, oh, [00:05:00] it's a new snow. It's crazy. It's a, it's a totally new experience. Speaker 1: Now this isn't just the concept. This, this is an official us launch and it's shipping really soon. So when can people who pre-order a moon bike expect to have it delivered Speaker 2: The first, uh, delivery should be, uh, within, uh, two weeks. Uh, so wow. Two weeks that's before the end. Yeah. Before the end of January. Speaker 1: And that's for pre-orders that have already been made they're they're gonna get their moon bikes in a couple of weeks. Uh, what about people who pre-order right now, Speaker 2: If you, [00:05:30] right now you would get your bikes mid February, Speaker 1: Still really soon, Speaker 2: The number of bikes is ready limited. So you have to hurry Speaker 1: Up. Can they go to a retail location or is the moon bike only available online right now? Speaker 2: Uh, for now it's, uh, mostly online, but, uh, yeah, I, we, we received, uh, a lot of inbound from our details in, in working with us. So we're in the process of signing some partners, uh, in the us and not Speaker 1: America. Okay. So let's say I am really excited. I'm gonna pre-order [00:06:00] one. And it comes to my door. How much assembly could I or a customer expect to do what it shows up? What's, what's the general assembly process Speaker 2: To fit in the box. We have to, uh, you, you will have to Mount the ski, uh, but it's like mounting a wheel of a front wheel of a bike. So it's easy. Uh, you have to put the, the foot bags, uh, which are yeah, just as cool and, uh, to tight the, the handle, the, yeah, the handle bar. Great. Speaker 1: [00:06:30] So it seems pretty straight forward Speaker 2: That great. And we made some videos my, uh, to yeah. On our YouTube channel to, yeah, to, to, to, to explain how to do it. I'm Speaker 1: Guessing going to a bike shop is probably a little bit more convenient for most people compared to, uh, servicing something like moon bike. So what, what are those sort of contingencies, if I needed to get it looked at, or if I needed a repair or, or something like that, what's the maintenance, uh, [00:07:00] on moon bike, Speaker 2: The first thing is do it yourself. So we made some, some tutorials, uh, to explain how to fix, to change our ski or any, any button case failure. Um, then we can do, um, a video chat with our technician, uh, to help you, if you have any issue and send you some parts very quickly, um, and however are not handy, or if you don't manage to, to fix it by yourself, of course we need some local partners. We cannot, uh, do it on. So yeah, we are signing some partners and, uh, um, and they, [00:07:30] all of them will be, uh, will be shown on our website. We will have a map. So you could check what, what would be the closes bank partner Speaker 1: That is really all of the questions that I have, uh, tell everybody where they can get more information about moon bikes, if they're so inclined, if they wanna pre-order one, if they wanna look at videos, if they wanna check it out, uh, where can they go online and how much does the moon bike cost? How much is gonna, how much is it gonna set me back? So, yeah, the Speaker 2: Best way in today is to [00:08:00] clear online on our website, you will get many information on our, on our, on our website. We also do some demos. Uh, so yeah, follow us on the, on the Instagram and Facebook. And so to get into about that, um, and about the price range, uh, it's 8,000, uh, 500 us. So now we are shipping, uh, as where our factory is. So they also have a shipping curve depending on your version, but we would like to open a activity in, uh, north America, uh, in, in the coming year. Speaker 1: [00:08:30] That sounds amazing. Uh, Nicholas, thank you again for coming and talking to us about moon bikes. Be sure to stay tuned to both our YouTube channel and cnet.com for all the best from CES 2022 until next time be good humans.