https://reasonstobecheerful.world/e-bike-boom-delivery-workers/
"One day last November, Luis Maldonado celebrated his 50th birthday with a cake
and people he considered his family around the table. A pretty normal scene,
except for the setting: the office of Guajira, the start-up that gave Maldonado
a loan for an e-bike that has fueled his work as a delivery worker.
Maldonado is one of the three million Venezuelans who have settled in
neighboring Colombia as the crisis in their country deepens. Venezuela faces
political unrest and an acute economic crisis, and basic services like water
and electricity are unreliable.
Before moving to Bogotá six years ago, Maldonado worked as a business manager
in a government role. Once he settled in Colombia, he joined the ranks of
Rappi, the country’s biggest delivery platform: It has 70,000 active drivers,
around 40 percent of whom are migrants.
Riding an e-bike instead of a regular bike has multiple benefits for delivery
drivers (and the planet): They can ride faster, which translates into more
orders, which means more money. E-bikes produce virtually no greenhouse
emissions after manufacturing. Plus, they’re less physically demanding. But the
price is usually steeper and financing options are limited, so many delivery
workers end up with an easier-to-get — and less eco-friendly — motorbike.
That’s exactly what struck James Downer, an American living in Colombia. In
response, in 2018 he founded Roda, an organization he calls “the lever for the
energy transition of the middle class in Latin America.” After a few years and
10,000 microloans to finance vehicles for last-mile deliveries — and a pandemic
that saw the delivery business boom — he started Guajira to produce
Colombian-made electric bikes. Since he sold the first one in March 2023, the
company has produced over 300 bikes, and 90 percent of them have gone to
migrants.
He comes from a family that values conservation (his mom is a biologist), but
that wasn’t his only motivation for starting Guajira. “This is something that
solves people’s needs, not only something that is eco-friendly,” says Downer, a
cyclist himself. “I’m in love with this product.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
