New Portland-based e-mobility company Vvolt launches line of electric bikes
Jonathan Maus (Publisher/Editor)
Alpha S step through single-speed ($1,399)
Vvolt owner Kyle Ranson.
Design board in the Vvolt office.
The Proxima ($2,599)
The new Vvolts, company owner Kyle Ranson, and the office design board. (Photos: Jonathan Maus/BikePortland)
Say hello to Vvolt, Portland’s newest electric vehicle company.
“The vision is to take it beyond just e-bikes.” — Kyle Ranson, Vvolt owner
Pre-orders open today at Vvolt.com for a line of four Vvolt bicycles designed in southeast Portland. The person behind Vvolt is Kyle Ranson, who hopes to mimic the success of Showers Pass, the company he’s owned and led since 2012. Both brands are headquartered under the same roof on Southeast 6th Avenue in the Central Eastside.
Showers Pass has carved a healthy niche for cycling apparel that mixes innovative designs and technical fabrics with a mid-level price point. “We can apply that same philosophy to the bike market,” Ranson shared in an interview at Vvolt’s offices late last month. “Which is to configure and design the best possible solution at any given price point and make this technology accessible.”
The four bikes — Alpha, Alpha S, Proxima and Sirius — come with a three-year warranty, a Gates carbon belt drive, hydraulic disc brakes and range in price from $1,399 for a singlespeed with a rear-hub motor, to $2,699 for an internally-geared model (with a super smooth grip-twist shifting system) that’s ready for dirt roads with a front suspension fork and more powerful, mid-drive motor. The bikes are powered by electric motors from Acer, the sixth-largest computer company in the world. Vvolt is the first e-mobility brand in the U.S. to use Acer components.
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With Vvolt, Ranson sees a potential to meld his experiences in the cycling and tech industries. Before his involvement with Showers Pass, Ranson was a VP at computer giant Compaq/Hewlett Packard and a CEO of InFocus. He thinks the bike industry is missing the boat when it comes to creating electric bikes that hit the right notes in terms of functionality, technology, price and design. “A few years ago I started observing what the existing bike vendors were doing. Nobody seemed to have any imagination,” he shared in an interview. “They were taking a traditional bike brand and were sticking a motor on it… You’ve still got a derailleur sticking on there! You’ve still got chains. I thought, this is crazy!”
“I finally said, stop complaining and do something about it. Get out there and solve the problem.”
Ranson’s interest in e-bikes was first piqued about 15 years ago when his brother bought one of the first models available in Europe so his wife could join him on rides up steep mountains in the Pyrenees. The bike allowed them to ride together for the first time. That opened Ranson’s eyes: He realized e-bikes can inspire more people to ride. “This is about inclusiveness,” Ranson said. “This is about getting people to ride that otherwise couldn’t do it. That’s pretty cool. And that’s kind of stuck with me.”
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Bike V (top) and the Beluga CEUV concept.
Because he sees the e-bike market going beyond traditional customers, Ranson doesn’t want Vvolt to offer just traditional bicycles. It’s an electric vehicle company. “The vision is to take it beyond just e-bikes,” he says. Today the company revealed designs for a futuristic looking “Bike V” and a “compact electric utility vehicle” electric trike concept they call “The Beluga”. The “Bike V” is set to launch in 2022 with an integrated, 360-degree LED lighting powered by on-board USB ports, front-and-rear detachable cargo bins and an optional AC inverter to power devices with the battery. The Beluga CEUV can carry up to three passengers or other cargo in a large front-facing cargo bin.
Going beyond the usual bike designs also the reason he’s hired Sawyer Alcázar-Hagen, a University of Oregon industrial design graduate who doesn’t have a cycling-centric background (Vvolt also sponsors a UO e-mobility design class). To round out the Vvolt team, Ranson nabbed former employees of Islabikes, the UK-based company that closed its North American operations in 2018. Vvolt Marketing Manager Nick Wood was the former bike assembly and customer service manager at Islabikes.
While Vvolt and Showers Pass are separate legal entities, employees of the two companies work under the same roof and plan to share other business assets and infrastructure.
