YCOM: Leading the way in high-performance e-scooter innovation

“Our vision is to be a fast track developer of advanced mobility products.”

In this episode of Third Angle, we take a guided tour of the YCOM HQ, a leader in motorsports engineering and lightweight composites. Join us as we explore how founder Nicola Scimeca is changing the automotive industry, overseeing every aspect from concept to completion.

Discover how YCOM pioneered the world's first fleet of racing e-scooters for the Electric Scooter Championship (ESC) and learn about their unique approach to product development, which involves rapid prototyping and collaboration with former MotoGP riders. Born in 2008, YCOM has expanded its expertise beyond motorsports into the automotive, marine, and aerospace sectors, becoming a globally recognized leader in lightweight composite structures. With a focus on sustainability, they’re paving the way for a more eco-friendly future through the use of natural fiber materials alongside carbon fiber.

Tune in to hear how YCOM is setting new standards for innovation and safety in micro-mobility and the exciting developments on the horizon.

Find out more about YCOM here.

Find out more about Windchill here and CREO here. 

Your host is Paul Haimes from industrial software company PTC. 

Episodes are released bi-weekly. Follow us on LinkedIn and X for updates.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jacqui Cook. Sound design and editing by Rema Mukena. Location recording by Mark Dezzani. And music by Rowan Bishop.

Transcript

Welcome to Third Angle, where we're riding the world's fastest e scooter.

I'm your host, Paul Hames, from industrial software company PTC. In this podcast, we share the moments where digital transforms physical, and meet the brilliant minds behind some of the most innovative products around the world, each powered by PTC technology. In the heart of Italy's famous Motor Valley are YCOM.

A leader in motorsport engineering and lightweight composites. They really are at the forefront of high performance engineering and have been behind some of the most important successes in motorsport, including victory at the 24 hour Le Mans race, Daytona, and also Formula One. But in this episode, we're finding out how their expertise in motorsport helped them develop the revolutionary racing e-scooter, the S1X.

Now this isn't something for the morning commute or the faint hearted. It's capable of reaching speeds of 62 miles an hour and was designed and built especially for the e scooter championship in 2022, the world's first electric scooter racing series. To hear all about how they did it, our producer, Mark Desani, visited Ycom's headquarters near Parma for a tour of their HQ with founder and managing director, Nicola Scimeca.

I'm Nicola Scimeca, I'm the founder of Ycom. We are in Parma,  just south of Parma, so in the center of the motor valley, where we have a lot of motorsport companies, but of course a lot of, you know, automotive and hypercar and supercar and brands.

They, they came to us, we’re the founders of ESC, which is the electric scooter championship.  they had the idea, you know, and they, to, to do this championship and we, they came to us. The first came to us because we were the expert in sustainability,  applied to motorsport in terms of natural fiber and composite,  you know, and natural material.

 but in the end we, you know, they found out that they could do the whole product here. So we developed the whole product,  together. So we,  and it's quite advanced, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, carbon chassis, carbon post and we in wheel motors, which each model has six kilowatts.  so it's quite a, also quite a lot of power.

It's also the only two wheels,  vehicles, which is two wheel drive. So. The managing of the traction on the front was also quite tricky compared to any other two wheels vehicles. So that was quite interesting. In three months, we basically developed from scratch,  the first product.  and we didn't know, nobody knew anything about that, to be honest, because we, even in terms of wheelbase and side, you know, tire size and how you, you know, dimensions and so on.

We, we had to invent completely. We started to do the first test with,  with some MotoGP riders. And then after that, we, we build another, I think, 20.  because we needed, now we have the product, but we needed to find the driver, the riders, not the drivers.  and they got together in order, you know, and they started to learn how to, you know, to ride the scooters.

And then few years more, few months later, we, we built the scooters for the championship. And then we had the 30 scooters in the championship, which is quite interesting to, to, to see. In terms of, you know, bringing innovation to the, to a championship, how fast do they go? They go to more than 100 Km/ph, kilometers per hour.

And they lean like a motor gp, which is quite interesting.  if you look from, from outside,  you know, it's quite,  they're quite exciting racing. You move completely. You, you know, you do a corner where you basically move your feet. It depends from corner left to right. So you move your body, your weight.

So,  it's completely different. It's much more fun also to, to do compared to, to, to a motorbike. And if you look at the,  there were some of the riders, some, somebody coming from freestyle or some other sport. Which they feel you actually can see that it's, you know, the way they move. It's actually quite nice to look at it because, you know, it's quite,   quite interesting.

Being the MotoGP of the micromobility in terms of sport. There's a lot of behind because they wanted to become like a. Regulatory, you know,  for for micro mobility in general for sport, but also for the road because if you look,  micro mobility, it's a little bit crazy. You know, you see all the scooters and in some cities are banned.

Some others, you know, you can go on pedestrian areas with some some other cities. They do the renting some others. They don't allow renting. So coming from the sport, you know, Where you need to be strict in terms of safety, in terms of regulation, in terms of process and applying also this into the cities or into the production.

They got together on talking together on deciding the new regulation for the future. So that was the, with the, let's say, excuse or with the, you know, reason, a good reason, which was the sport.

We are going through,  through the door, through the main door. You know, as soon as you get in, you see a lot of,  you know, pictures and walls and posters says a lot about,  Le Mans. There's a passion here for, for Le Mans and endurance racing. So you will see a lot of products and a lot of,  cars and pictures around.

I grew up in Sicily,  where there's a lot of heritage of,  you know, motorsport. I had a lot of, you know, car models when I was a kid, but they were all disassembled. Then when I was,  you know, at,  high school, I was really,  repairing the bikes or the motorbikes for my friends. So I was already, I always said I'm more a mechanical than, you know, a mechanical engineer, you know, really,  using my hand, you know, on,  On repairing parts or, and at one point also making,  tuning,  you know,  doing things like that.

And then after graduating, I went to us and I worked for a couple of years there for a company, which was designing and building,  racing cars.  and I came back to Italy right here, working for a company, which was designing and building racing cars.  and then when we started YCon, we just decided,  really where to be.

And, and again, you know, the motor Valley in Italy is. It's a place quite unique because you have, you know, all these,  very, you know, important brands like Ferrari and Lamborghini and Maserati and Ducati. So when you want to work in motorsport, it's really the best environment because you You have access to suppliers.

You have, of course, access also to customers.   but definitely it's, you know, it's an environment which is quite,  quite unique in the world. So, and people gather here, you know, to, to work for the, for those companies. So we are really privileged to, to be here. So we are walking through the design office now.

Where you can see we have about,  30 people working on a, on a big open space. And then opening this door we go through,  production. Place where we do,  shipping and handling, you know, receiving part and shipping part.  what VR is, it's, it's a fast track. So it's accelerating the development of a new product.

Motorsport is a competitive environment, so you always look for the best. You always look for,  to improve. Which is either improving a process, or improving the car, or the ultimate, you know, improving the,  the lap time, if you,  if you, you know, in our case, that we make racing cars.  getting into a place of the company where we normally build the first prototype.

 so we have a very, a very clean room here,  which looks like a surgery room. And this is the place where we basically assembly normally the first prototype of the cars.  so we have done here, you know, GT cars, Formula cars,  electric cars as well.  like I said, we assembly normally the first prototype, but we also assembled,  For example, the electric scooters for the ESC championship as well.

 and as well as 24 cars formula cars,  you know, that we did a few years ago. You see the wheels turning the first time, but it's a quite,  even an emotional moment when you, you know, you build the first car. Yeah, the, is good racing was really, it's, it's really an interesting concept, an interesting idea.

Hi there, Marcus Bronzi live from the iconic print works in London. In the paddocks for the first ever ESC, E Scooter Championships. Here we can see the S1X scooters on their e docs, charged up, ready to go. We have the technicians making 

the announcement.  we had one race, actually we had four races in four, on the first year, four races on four different environments, because one was in the center of London, so pure city,  with a very nice,  landscape.

Another one was in the center of a small village in Switzerland. Different environment, small street going up and down, so that was quite,  cool.  and one other race was in the, in a go kart track. 

The battle at the front is real right now between these two. We're on board with Neru. Oh, he's got a chance right now.

He boosts, boosts, boosts as he passed. I think he is. Yep, and he throws it. Doesn't 

look 

like a traditional street scooter. 

Looks like,  maybe a little bit scaled traditional,  street scooters.  but in the end, if you go close, it's, it's completely different. Yes. The wheels are,  same size as Minimoto.

 so they're pure racing wheels. But if you look at the scooters, the scooter was a constant feedback and a constant,  evolution, you know, through all the races, they had feedback to us. We're coming back to the next race with the different,  you know, solutions or different components or different parts.

I was always saying all Formula One days where you go to the test, you know, different suspension, different component, different software and so on. It was quite cool because we could bring really different solutions. which was every second week, basically.

Going through this door, we go into the composite shop,  so where we, you know, we manufacture all the composite parts, and you can see here we have some rooms,  where we have,  we prepare molds, we prepare components, parts, uh. And in terms of sustainability, we have done also a lot of work on using sustainable materials.

 we have,  we use instead of carbon fibers on some applications, also some natural fiber. And we, we use this for a lot of composite,  for a lot of body work, so non structural part. But on this we did quite an interesting project because we,  Design and build and tested a front trash box, which is the front absorbing structure that we have in front of any racing cars.

Using sustainable materials to make something which is normally, it's quite difficult to make with,  with a material which is not as strong as composite as carbon fiber.

Well, definitely we are,  continuously evolving in terms of processes, in terms of the way we work as a company. Definitely there's a lot of push for sustainability, which will bring probably new, different materials into motorsport. The natural fiber we use, it's,  still use a component,  a resin, which is not organic.

Now we are going to develop a lot of organic resin. So if we get to a point where we can use Tosmatita, it's basically will be 100 percent organic,  and as well, the future brings a lot of innovation in terms of new product. You know, these electric cars,  there is hydrogen, there is IEC hydrogen or fuel cell hydrogen.

Our vision is to be a fast track to develop and manufacturing new advanced mobility product, which of course motorsport is advanced. So motorsport at the moment is still,  our main focus, but we have done and we are doing, and we will do even more in the future of new,  you know, accelerating the development for a customer.

for our customer for a new advanced vehicles.

That was Nikola Shemekha at WICOM and the fascinating story of how they took the e scooter from the sidewalk to the track. Now let's hear from our expert, Mark Lobo from PTC. 

Hey Paul, thanks again for having me on Third Angle Podcast. I always look forward to these sessions. It brings out the, nerdy geeky nature in me, but this is one story I absolutely have to talk about here.

So,  e scooter was developed from scratch, right? They developed something that took shape incrementally, so it was constantly driven by feedback that was coming from the vehicle testers. So, Windchill was essential to manage the project in the structured way.  it also demonstrated all its key features in helping YCOM manage the project.

We were able to show with Windchill its great flexibility in integration. So they had an interface with some third party software in a smooth and transparent way. So this allowed them with the possibility to exchange design models in 3D. bills of material and all kinds of product documentation in a way that could be customized according to specific needs.

So why is this important? Having the right PLM system in place also proved to be the ideal corporate tool for YCOM. It provided experience, know how, and the technologies that enabled not only faster and more effective achievement of the goals that they'd established with the customer. but also comprehensive and documented management of the design.

So the parts, the assemblies, and in fact, the entire scooter product throughout the life cycle. Here's the kicker. In just six months, YCon was able to go from idea, to prototype, to production of several dozen vehicles ready for real track testing. Remember, I said six months. That is quite amazing. So, what's great here is that YCon have pushed the boundaries in terms of producing an environmentally friendly e scooter.

And my kids will love this because they're all about sustainability these days. which is also the fact that it's made of sustainable products. So that's a major step forward in combining these two aspects. Not only that, Ycom have given a completely innovative twist to people's view on what a scooter can do.

Congrats to them.

Bring the S1X to life. And of course, special thanks to Nicola Scimeca for the fascinating tour of Wycombe's headquarters and their groundbreaking work in sustainable motorsports engineering. Please rate, review, and subscribe to our bi weekly Third Angle episodes wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow PTC on LinkedIn and X for future episodes.

Companies that make products the world relies on, rely on PTC.

This is an 18Sixty production for PTC. Executive producer is Jackie Cook. Sound design and editing by Remu McKenna. Location recording by Mark Disani. And music by Rowan Bishop.