Äike CEO Kristjan Maruste calls himself the new electric scooter company’s “spiritual leader,” a satirical take on executive hubris that has become his personal brand in the company’s humorous videos.
Maruste brings with him the experience as former CEO of micromobility IoT company Comudule, and he doesn’t seem to care whether we’re laughing with or at him because he’s confident in the abilities of the Äike T. Maruste recently announced the scooter with a lot of impressive, even unprecedented (it’s the first scooter with “raw sex appeal,” Maruste says), high-tech features.
Not only is it manufactured and built in Europe with entirely renewable energy sources, but the Äike T promises the first removable battery with USB-C charging for electric scooters. It also promises to be a “weatherproof” scooter that can smash potholes with puncture-proof tires, even with riders up to 330 pounds.
As if all that weren’t enough, Äike has just announced another feature for the Äike T: the world’s first automatic smart-lock feature for electric scooters. “Äike knows when you’ve walked away. No time wasted, your Äike is protected,” the video announcement tells us, in a vignette with Maruste again poking fun at himself for trying so hard.
The smart-lock feature is a big advancement for electric scooter security, and maybe other scooter companies will follow suit. We’re very excited to see innovative security features like this and very interested to learn if they become standard within the industry.
As with most electric scooters, you can lock and unlock the Äike T manually through a mobile app. But there’s actually no need to take your phone out of your pocket and fumble with security codes. And there’s much more to the app. It provides, in Äike’s words:
- 24/7 GPS protection
- The key to your Äike T – only lock/unlock with your phone. Or by simply having the phone in your pocket.
- A trigger to a threefold theft-alarm system.
- Customizable riding settings (including automatic braking/regeneration; speed control, user management, transport mode and more!)
- Direct line with our customer support.
- Automatic troubleshooting and access to free firmware updates as the tech evolves.
As long as you’ve got your phone with you and you’re connected by Bluetooth to the scooter, you can lock the Äike T by just walking away and unlock it with a simple twist of the handlebars.
ESG’s resident expert Paul can’t wait to get the Äike T on the track for some real-world testing soon. But right now we’re pretty excited about that automatic smart-lock and threefold theft-alarm system!
