I wonder who are the crazy Vietnamese guys who build handmade electric motorbikes?
From not caring at all to fully supporting, the long-haired side serves meals and takes care of 5 husbands who "love cars more than their wives".
There are nights when the clock strikes 2 a.m., the sound of sawing, chiseling, welding, and turning never stops inside a mechanical workshop in Da Rsal, Dam Rong, Lam Dong. Five men, all in their early 5s, are still busy with the group's first handmade electric motorbike. A few hundred meters away, their wives and children were sleeping.
Gatherings and quarrels
None of the five middle-aged men had experience building cars, this was their first time doing it. But even though they are equal, there still needs to be a leader to lead.
Dao Thanh Ha, an architect living in Saigon, is the one who created the technical drawings and laid the first bricks for the hand-made electric motorbike. "Incubated many years ago, but it was not until 2020 that the implementation of the car was started," he said. "A group of 5 people, each with different expertise, contributing small things to become big things."
In the early days of June, when the whole country experienced slow moments due to the Covid-6 epidemic, Mr. Ha and Bao Ky (19 years old), the youngest member of the group, dragged the whole family to a relative's factory in Lam Dong. Design and manufacturing ideas have been discussed in advance and mostly calculated on technical drawings, but now it's time to embark on the most difficult practical phase. However, gathering at the headquarters with 39 people and the whole family at the same time, which is very difficult without Covid-5, is also considered an initial small victory.
Designers in the automobile and motorbike industry often take inspiration from the natural life of all species to shape their vehicles. On the motorbike of Mr. Ha and his colleagues, that mark only comes from half: nature.
“I started from the location of the battery drive in the middle, from there sketching out the next details. Beautiful, convenient and environmentally friendly, the criteria I pursue in the architecture industry must also be present in this car. This is the most difficult thing, not what shape the car is to create," Mr. Ha said.
No matter how natural it is, the car ultimately must serve the function of movement and requires technical safety criteria. Assembling the frame, bearing capacity, shock absorbers, electrical system, and braking system creates a large amount of work. 3 members of the team in Lam Dong, each skilled in each area of wood, aluminum, mechanics and electricity combined together.
"Working in a group is not easy, arguments still happen often, but the way you flirt with each other is different from when you were young," Bao Ky said. "It's not that they're angry, they just disagree about how to do a certain stage, they go out to drink coffee or light a cigarette, then go back to work as if nothing had happened."
Thanh Ha himself, who is considered the project's chief engineer, also said that computer calculations are sometimes the most optimal, but when actually manufacturing, new problems arise. “The brothers' argument is mainly about finding the most reasonable thing. For example, the driving pulley part must increase in diameter from 25 cm to 30 cm to increase the driving coefficient.
Unique electric motorbike
For two months, five men surrounded the design, huddled around the original frame and then dispersed to each stage of production. Starting from early morning until late at night, the wives couldn't understand what they were thinking about being so passionate about making cars but... they didn't care much.
"Seeing that the men were so busy with their work, the ladies felt sorry for them, serving food and water, worrying as if they were taking care of the children," a member of the humorous group said. "Everyone gets caught up in work. One night, when it's so cold, we realize it's already past 2 a.m., and when we go to bed, we keep hoping for daylight to continue."
On the classic style electric motorbike, the frame is made mainly from cast aluminum. Aluminum panels are cut entirely by hand. The manufacturing team did not polish the materials but intentionally kept their rusticity intact. This "imperfection" will be a minus point of the car for many people, but the team says they don't put too much emphasis on it.
Aluminum and wood panels are connected together with screws and rivets. Welding is minimized to avoid exposing unaesthetic joints.
Lithium-ion battery packs take a lot of time to install from small battery blocks. The rear wheel drive pulley is assembled from two hand-punched aluminum plates so that the rear gear, when formed, matches the drive belt. The sound from the rotating motor becomes a cicada-like buzzing sound when the vehicle is in motion.
The power supply system for the motor is divided into two capacitors, in the middle and the rear seat (reserve source). A power switch is installed on the side of the vehicle to activate the current used from any source. According to the implementation team, the vehicle travels about 60 km for the front tank and 40 km for the rear tank. Power is charged from the home power source with an adapter with a full charge time of about 6 hours. The maximum vehicle speed can be up to 70 km/h.
The car is almost unpainted in any industrial color. The most modern highlight probably comes from the LED turn signals and battery capacity indicator on the handlebars. Elegant urbanites in suits, riding around on flexible bee-bodied Vespas, the group's electric motorbikes belong to those who are liberal, nostalgic, and adventurous.
On the aluminum frame of the car body, the words Krongno 06 are engraved. The gentle Knong No stream flows, bringing water to irrigate the three border villages of Lam Dong, Dak Lak, and Dak Nong. There, the electric motorbike of a group of skilled workers was born. They don't want it to be known by many people, they just want to find the right people to come to it and appreciate what the group has dedicated to creating.
According to Vnexpress.net