YCOM: Leading the Way in High-performance E-Scooter Innovation

YCOM is a leading advanced technology company to engineer a fast-changing future. From the original idea to the final product, YCOM covers any aspect of development, including design, manufacturing, and testing, for mobility applications. Born in 2008 to develop motorsport projects, YCOM today applies its motorsport approach to new frontiers, from the automotive industry, through marine, and aerospace. YCOM is a worldwide recognized expert in lightweight composite structures design and manufacturing. From carbon fiber to natural fiber, YCOM is leading the path towards a more sustainable future.

YCOM have been behind some of the most important successes in Motorsport, including victory in the 24H of Le Mans, 24H of Daytona and in Formula One. The company leveraged this expertise when designing the S1X e-scooter, as Nicola explains: “We’re the founders of ESC, which is the electric scooter championship. [The S1X] it's quite advanced. You know, carbon chassis, carbon post, in-wheel motors…each model has 6 kilowatts. It’s only two wheels, so managing the traction was quite tricky. In three months, we basically developed from scratch, uh, the first product. They go to more than 100 Km/ph. And they lean like a moto GP, which is quite interesting. I you look from outside, they're quite exciting racing.”

The Electric Scooter Championship (ESC) was the first of its kind, featuring 30 S1X scooters competing across diverse race environments, from city streets in London to a village in Switzerland. “We started to do the first test with, uh, with some MotoGP riders. And then after that, , we build another 20 [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. In the first year, four races on four different environments, one was in the center of London, so pure city. Another one was in the center of a small village in Switzerland. Different environment, small street going up and down, and one other race was in a go kart track. Motorsport is a competitive environment, so you always look for the best. You always look to improve.”

YCom is dedicated to sustainability, experimenting with natural fibers and developing a front crash box using sustainable materials. “Definitely there's a lot of push for sustainability, which will bring probably new, different materials into motorsport. We use instead of carbon fibers on some applications, also some natural fiber. And we use this for a lot of body work, so non-structural parts. But on this we did quite an interesting project. We designed 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. We are continuously evolving in terms of processes, in terms of the way we work as a company.”

Windchill’s open architecture enables easy integration with other enterprise systems, including IoT, providing a solid foundation for a product-driven digital thread. Our expert Mark Lobo explains how YCOM uses Creo to manage their design and development process of their S1x scooter: “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. 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.”