Forget Home Furnishings, IKEA Enters The E-Bike Market

IKEA has certainly surprised us with many clever home-furnishing solutions. Most importantly, IKEA, with its roots in the super “green” country of Sweden, could not leave its homecountry’s highly socially conscious citizens disappointed. When it comes to act environmetally friendly, IKEA comes right up in the top list worldwide as leader of clean technology. In fact, IKEA has big goals for 2020 that includes a plan to obtain 100% of the energy it consumes in its stores and buildings from clean energy and to grow more wood than it uses.

Plastic bags were far gone six years ago, CFLs and LEDs were introduced as replacement for high-energy consuming incandescent light bulbs back in 2010, affordable home solar panels were recently made available in the UK, a number of electric car stations were installed at stores across the world and now IKEA has entered the electric bike market.

Yes, e-bike FOLKVÄNLIG can be found in two IKEA’s retail stores located in Vienna, Austria. Still in its inception phase, the e-bike is expected to become viral and shortly reach out to many different stores. The electric bike’s design has already received various awards at the Taipei Cycle Show, Eurobike and the IF Design Award.

FOLKVÄNLIG in Swedish means ‘user- friendly’, which is probably what IKEA is trying to address here with its sleek e-bike that could take you anywhere within a distance of 60 to 70km, aided by a powerful electric motor of 250Watt that could get you a total pedal-assisted range up to 45mi/72km per charge.

The e-bike also features an easy rechargeable system to its removable in-frame lithium-ion battery pack that takes about five hours to recharge, as well as a Shimano transmission that provides six different driving modes.

Should it prove successful, IKEA’s FOLKVÄNLIG e-bike must also come in a foldable variant, which gives the market even more room for growth.

Shanghai Metal Corporation offers a wide range of metals such as aluminum, widely used in beer can manufacturing. To find out more, please visit our Website or send your inquiry here. Our English speaking personnel will be more than pleased to help you. Follow us on  LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel. Or you could try our new mobile app by scanning our QR code.

Source and photo credit: technologicvehicles.com, treehugger.com, greenoptimistic.com, ubergizmo.com, cleantechnica.com, flickr.com

Camilla G.//SMC Editor

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Container Houses – The Next Big American Dream

The container housing industry is becoming mainstream as it is now a sub category of affordable housing. Building a home out of shipping containers enables also medium income consumers to hire an architect in a very reasonable price. Thereby, container homes might be the next American dream.

Companies have also noticed the advantages of container housing. For instance Starbucks has already installed its container coffee shops in Seattle and London. Container homes also come with a pretty nice design.

One of the benefits of shipping containers is their modularity. They are made as same sized and designed to be piled up and fit optimally in cargo ships. Containers are like Lego blocks. You can pile them up and thereby even create a multiple floor or a multiple wing mansion.

Shipping containers are also designed to be able to resist rough weather in seas. Thereby they are made of really durable and tough material that ensure the safety of a container home. In addition, the material is really simple to modify. Cutting, reforming and other modifications are done by welding which is a simple and cheap procedure. Building a nice patio with a jacuzzi is suddenly affordable.

Also one great thing about containers is that their are available in all all over the world and their transportation is extremely convenient. Containers are designed to fit in a standard shipping cargo leaving no blank space in the ships. Because of the new mainstream use of containers, their weight-to-value ratio is to increase.

The benefits of container homes have been recognized worldwide. For instance, in Finland, container housing is becoming a great solution for offering affordable student homes. Please read about more the Finns’ solution to student housing in our blog. Also the world’s hotel industry is going wild of containers as new companies offering transportable accomodation solutions emerge. Container hotels is also in a luxury top-end category in the hotel industry. Please read more about luxury container hotels here.

China is a major exporter of shipping containers and Shanghai Metal Corporation is one of the leading businesses in that field. To know more about our container houses, villas, hotels and offices, please visit our website. Also follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can also download our new mobile application by scanning the QR code below.

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Tuomas P. // SMC Editor

Pictures and original articles: Smartplanet.com, Ecopressptc.com, Inthralld.com, Homedsgn.com, Buzzfeed.com, Bobvila.com, Australian Council of Trade Unions,  Wikipedia, Prefabfan.com