Tropical Battery Company Limited, through its subsidiary Tropical Mobility Limited, is expanding its footprint into the last mile delivery segment with the introduction of a new service called Tropical Delivery.

According to CEO of Tropical Mobility Oliver Hill, the service was created to further build out its mobile response package which delivers, among other select products, automotive batteries to customers. Tropical Delivery will be powered by a mobile app that allows its users to access products and services from the Tropical Battery Group of Companies and other third-party merchant partners without customers visiting an outlet.

“We are expanding the service to deliver the entire range of Tropical products while reimagining the delivery process to utilise zero-emissions battery electric vehicles sold by Tropical Mobility, thereby reducing our carbon footprint and reducing operating costs,” Hill told Jamaica Observer.

The group will launch Tropical Delivery by the end of 2023, starting with the Chinese-manufactured VMOTO SOCO VS1 e-max electric motorbike that has a range of 160 kilometres and a top speed of 85 kilometres per hour. While Tropical Mobility will be using the bikes in its own last-mile delivery service, it will also be promoting the delivery-as-a-service model to other companies looking to outsource their delivery and bearer functions.

A critical component to this operation is the use of telematics for the management of the electric motorcycle fleet. Telematics involves the use of mobile-connected devices to provide data on vehicle tracking and diagnostics and the state of battery charge.

Currently Tropical Battery uses telematics for the management of the vehicles in its group fleet.

“We will be integrating telematics with the Tropical Delivery vehicles, app and service to allow our customers and fleet managers to track the electric motorbikes in real time so that deliveries can be tracked from warehouse dispatch or pickup to doorstep. We will also be integrating vehicle diagnostics with the rider-facing dashboard in the app so that the riders know when they should return to base to swap batteries, and to ensure riders are optimising battery life, riding safely and general optimising the efficiency of operations,” Hill shared.

As Tropical Mobility nears the launch of the service, it will be running a pilot that involves the delivery of e-commerce sales to its customers before extending the service to third-party merchants.

“Our strategy is to demonstrate the benefits of electric vehicles for last mile delivery in our own fleet and thereby stimulate the demand for the electric vehicles in our portfolio, including the VMOTO e-bikes for which Tropical Mobility is the exclusive distributor in Jamaica,” Hill explained to Business Observer.

To date, Tropical Battery has invested seed capital of $15 million into the company for the procurement of the company’s first order of VS1 electric motorbikes. It also received $7 million in grant funding from the Development Bank of Jamaica through the Boosting Innovation, Growth and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem (BIGEE) Programme.

“The grant funding will be used to retain an IT developer to build the app and to support the start-up and commercialisation of operations. The company is being supported by the Caribbean Climate Innovation Center [CCIC] in developing the business,” the CEO outlined.

Hill previously worked as a consultant with the Inter-American Development Bank on matters related to energy efficiency, renewable energy strategy and electric mobility, assisting with the design of projects currently in execution aimed at priming the electric mobility ecosystem in Jamaica. It was this expertise that led the Tropical Battery Group to recruit him to head its new subsidiaries, Tropical Mobility and Tropical Renewable Energy, in 2021.

When asked about any challenges in operationalising Tropical Delivery, the CEO said that the company experienced some delays in clearing its first 20 units of the VMOTO motorbikes which landed at the Kingston Wharf in May this year. He further pointed out that while the Government’s electric vehicle policy, which reduced special consumption tax from 30 per cent to 10 per cent on battery electric vehicles was applied only to passenger vehicles, and then pickup trucks, it did not apply yet to motorbikes.

“We have been waiting for the duty concession to be applied to electric motorbikes so that we can clear the bikes at the concessionary rate. We understand this is being finalised in Cabinet and are looking forward to a favourable update in the coming days,” Hill informed Business Observer.

“We are also concerned about the duty applicable to the extra lithium batteries that we landed to enable battery swapping. We believe the same zero per cent duty concession applicable to lithium batteries used for energy storage in renewable energy systems should also apply to lithium batteries used in electric vehicles given that the same rationale applies — namely the increased efficiency of battery electric vehicles and the fact that lithium batteries enable the replacement of fossil fuels with electricity produced from renewable sources,” he further stated.