By Sara Miller, NoCamels -
The ubiquitous urban thrum of scores of mopeds weaving their way through heavy traffic could soon be superseded by the hushed whisper of electric engines, courtesy of an Israeli company who says its replacement vehicles are cheaper, safer and more sustainable than gasoline guzzlers.
The Tel Aviv-based Blitz Motors was founded in 2012 by CEO Raphael Moszynski, a Belgian-born Israeli who left a career in international banking in Britain and to pursue a desire to contribute to environmental protection.
The company is a combination of two of his passions – motorbikes and sustainability. Moszynski has been riding two-wheelers for years, even in London, where he says it is an even faster mode of transport than the famed Tube underground.
“Our duty is to replace as many gasoline vehicles on the road as possible [with] electric and zero emission,” he tells NoCamels. He calls Blitz “sustainable mobility.”
The electric-powered mopeds are designed for “last mile” delivery – the final stage of getting a product from business to customer – including food, letters and packages and even medication.
According to Moszynski, the bikes have a huge impact in terms of emission reduction. He cites the example of Domino’s Pizza in Israel, to which Blitz supplies 400 bikes. The reduction in emissions caused by switching just those bikes from petrol engines to electric is the equivalent of planting 29,000 trees annually.
“The big companies that we work with have a clear agenda [on] energy emissions, and we are basically helping them in converting riders from gasoline to electric,” says Moszynski.
Aside from Domino’s and McDonald’s and Pizza Hut in Israel, these “big companies” include the Uber-owned UberEats online food delivery service in the UK.
In the Israeli public sector, Blitz is working with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv municipalities, the postal service and even the national police force, having won a tender for each organization. All of them use the Blitz bikes to navigate the crowded city streets.
“In terms of electric mopeds in Israel, we have about 80 percent of the market,” Moszynski says. “Every moped you don’t hear,” he adds, referring to the quiet motors that are typical of electric-powered vehicles, “you can assume it’s ours.”
And for Moszynski, the electric version is not just sustainable and economical, it’s also superior to the gas-powered version in terms of usability.
“I would say it’s even more satisfying to drive,” he says. “It’s more comfortable because there’s no noise, there’s no vibrations.”
The company, which is traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, is solely B2B, meaning it only supplies its mopeds to businesses and not individual clients.
In all, Moszynski says, thousands of their e-mopeds are currently being driven in Israel, Belgium, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.
The UAE partnership is a relatively new one, coming in the wake of the landmark 2020 Abraham Accords, which brought normalization between Israel and several Muslim majority countries. And the UAE, Moszynski says, has “a very big delivery market.”
The small motorcycles are all made by Blitz itself and come fitted with the proprietary electric engine as well as super fast-charging batteries.
“Basically, we provide the full solution for that ecosystem,” Moszynski explains.
He says that the mopeds perform to the same standards as their gas-powered counterparts, and save not only the environment but also money.
“The savings are huge for businesses,” he says. “You’re looking at about 14,000 shekels [approx. $4,000] savings per year per bike in Israel.”
Going back to the example of Domino’s, Moszynski says the 400 Blitz bikes it uses for deliveries save the company more than half a million shekels per year.
Like with an electric bicycle but unlike electric cars, the Blitz batteries are detachable so that a delivery person can use one battery while another is charging.
And because the company developed technology to fully charge the batteries in 90 minutes as opposed to the standard of four to six hours, the driver never has what Moszynski calls “range anxiety.”
Every moped is connected to the Blitz cloud servers, allowing the company to monitor the performance of each driver for safe riding and adherence to the rules of the road.
The bikes also integrate data analytics into their technology, offering insights into the performance of each vehicle and warning of any prospective mechanical issues before they happen so that the fleet manager can preempt any problems.
Moszynski says the ultimate goal is to get as many gasoline-powered vehicles off the roads as possible and points to looming legislation to that effect, even though the electric bikes are scarcer for now. He says that in the UK, for example, a change in the law means that roughly 150,000 delivery people around the country are going to have to switch to electric two-wheelers.
According to global data platform Statista, the battery electric vehicles market is set to hit $422 billion this year. And with a predicted annual growth of a little over 12 percent, that figure is expected to reach $681 billion by 2028.
The company is also currently looking into an expansion of its mopeds into the US market. And because, as Moszynski tells NoCamels, it “can’t do everything alone,” Blitz is looking for partners to help it reach American cities where the bikes are most effective.
In fact, the company is holding talks with a major American international seller that delivers a large amount of goods directly to people’s homes.
Blitz is also exploring the option of introducing its patented electric motors with the makers of other kinds of vehicles. Moszynski compares the company to Intel, which does not make computers but rather the chips that make them run, and explains that such a move would be beneficial to all.
“They can use our technology, making it more affordable to other people,” he says. “Because the more volume we use, the cheaper the product will become.”
