The V Factor

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The V Factor Inventor Peter Vullings is plotting world domination of the luxury scooter market from his Palmerston North HQ.

32 | NORTH & SOUTH | OCTOBER 2013

gone on to become the launch pad for Vullings’ plan to dominate the worldwide luxury scooter market. In particular, he has his sights set on the super-yacht sector, pitching the V1 to potential customers as a handy way to get around while they’re in port. Clients will be able to customise each scooter to suit their own tastes and requirements, with no expense spared on superior materials and finish. Handstitched leather seats with matching saddle bags are in the pipeline, as well as a leather helmet. A slot in the dash will accommodate an adapted iPhone that will “talk” to the scooter to unlock it, and display on-screen instruments such as speed, GPS and battery level. A storage compartment under the seat will be fitted with a choice of champagne cooler or deluxe picnic set, and a glossy coffee-table book will accompany each purchase, featuring photography and details of the build of each unique scooter. The predicted price tag? A cool $US20,000. A Massey University graduate, Vullings says Palmerston North is a great business hub with an “innovationfostering spirit”. He hopes his company, V-Electric Ltd, will be in full swing by 2016 and his aim is to build up to 50 handcrafted scooters a year. He describes the contrast between the raw and rather unsophisticated prototype of today and his planned final version as “Indiana Jones vs James Bond”. The V-Electric deluxe model will be, he says, “the Aston Martin of the luxury scooter market”. There’s a little bit of both Jones and Bond in Vullings: a blend of gung-ho and suave sophisticate. “But actually I’m Q – that crazy, noisy guy,” he admits. “I can make them – someone else can be Bond.” nicola edmonds

Inventor Peter Vullings and his V1 prototype electric scooter. nicola edmonds

P

eter Vullings arrives astride his latest invention. The only sound to herald his coming is the squeak of brake pads as he skids elegantly to a halt on the V1, a prototype electric scooter. Vullings is neatly coiffed, smartly attired and very modest. “I’m the sort of person who starts a lot of things, but never really finishes them,” he laughs. “In intermediate school, a group of friends and I built a hang glider – bamboo and fertiliser sacking for the wing cloth. It didn’t really fly well, but, yeah… it did get off the ground.” These days, along with creating games and apps for mobile phones for his Palmerston North-based business Pixelthis, he’s a freelance inventor for a US-based intellectual property ownership company. “Requests for inventions” are fired out by the company to clever folk like Vullings all over the world, but the focus is on practical solutions rather than blue-sky concepts. “Sounds cooler than it is,” he says. The V1 began life as a sensible and eco-friendly solution to a transport crisis closer to home. The prototype was born of a “donor” scooter found on Trade Me for $50, along with other second-hand bike parts sourced from the local branch of the Green Bike Trust. The electric bits came from a handy website-based company in China, which supplied a wheel with an electric hub motor built into its middle, a battery and all the technology to go between. Wrapping a gamine curve around the steel frame, 16 layers of blended ply and birch have been compressed and moulded to form the shell of the scooter. Birch wood was chosen for the exterior layers, both for the glowing finish of the grain and for its aerodynamic qualities. That initial concept has since

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