UMS aims to further drive transition from new plant in Arnhem

There are exciting times ahead for Urban Mobility Systems from Oss. In August, the new factory in Arnhem will be completed, where this engineering company is moving to take the next step in energy transition. Some three thousand kits per year will soon have to be built there. From about seventy employees now, the organization awaits a doubling in personnel.

Since a lot of things still need to be taken care of before the move, Lars Kool strides briskly through his company. This is accompanied by a comment here and there about the European Football Championship or a joke with the letter carrier. In between all the hustle and bustle, the boss has briefly returned to the fortress. A day earlier he was in Paris to sign a contract for the construction of military specials for a French company and the next day a plane trip to America awaits, where Lars may speak about his hobbyhorses of quality and safety at a symposium in Washington DC at the personal invitation of the government. Everything tells you that he is a busy man. Inspired and with a clear vision, who, in addition to smiling silently, mainly commands admiration in the construction sector by driving the transition. His peppered pronouncements about 'cowboys in the sector' are not taken kindly, but - Lars sees - many things have changed for the better since then.

Still Lars is not averse to a critical note, as the electrification of machinery in the construction industry is seriously on his mind. "The BV Nederland is the most beautiful company in the world, isn't it? With an excellent infrastructure, high-quality healthcare, education for all and good social services. People abroad look at that with admiration. At the same time, there is outrage that such a smart and prosperous country, which serves as a testing ground for new technological developments, is now being overtaken on all sides when it comes to electrification of the equipment fleet. I have said before: subsidy is the death knell of the energy transition. You already saw this with hybrid and electric cars, but now also with the purchase of emission-free construction machinery. When things get a little worse in the industry, the brakes are immediately applied and sales figures drop. Investing in zero emission should actually be an incentive to build more."

Lars sees the transition accelerating all around us, where the Netherlands is increasingly at an impasse. A logical consequence of this is that Urban Mobility Systems (UMS) is emphatically looking abroad. Britain, North America, Australia, countries like that. Not that he is ignoring the Netherlands, certainly not, but the large numbers are sold elsewhere. "I believe that as an entrepreneur you have to be open to cooperation, because real innovation is done together. In the Netherlands, everyone seems busy trying to kill each other off. There is not much movement in the market right now. Only when the Netherlands opts for a fair distribution of the subsidy pot, for example by not rewarding the purchase but rather the use of emission-free equipment on construction projects, will the road to a sustainable future be resumed. Hopefully that insight will come soon, otherwise all the machines built here will continue to go to Norway, Sweden or Denmark."

The last thing Lars wants is to sit by. So the entrepreneur throttles down unabated. The new production location in Arnhem should add another chapter to the success story. The former auto mechanic and electrical engineer began the mission 18 years ago to combat vehicle emissions through electrification. In 2016, he decided to steer his own course from now on and Urban Mobility System was founded. Within a few months, the company was already growing out of space and moved to its current location on Galliërsweg in Oss. From three employees at the start, UMS has grown to seventy employees, and the new factory, where battery systems and electric drive kits for the European market are manufactured, is set to provide an additional growth spurt to 140 to 150 workers. A giant step, then, that should put the clean-tech engineering company even more emphatically on the map internationally.

The facility in Abu Dhabi serves as a production hub for the rest of the world. In both regions, UMS will soon be the largest producer of battery technology, with a total of about five hundred employees eventually. "Nice, isn't it?", sounds elated. "However, we are not only focusing on production, but also continue to seek cooperation with schools, industry associations and business to further shape sustainability. We are still only at the beginning and there are plenty of developments to come. That is why it is also important to continue to invest in quality, safety and training. We train teachers who teach at ROCs or technical universities and, of course, people who work with electric machines or vehicles on a daily basis, such as machine operators, mechanics and inspection inspectors. Awareness of the dangers posed by high-voltage voltage is not a luxury. Everything is ultimately about safety. If we're not careful, things will go horribly wrong."   

It bothers Lars that under the guise of "we're just now getting on so nicely," anxious efforts are being made to keep some electrical equipment fires out of the media. "Because the internal extinguishing system worked well, a disaster has been avoided so far. Companies underestimated the charging infrastructure, which is why all kinds of cowboys are now entering this market. They barely know what grounding is and ignore all safety standards. Fortunately, machine builders now understand this, although there is still room for improvement. UMS is the only OEM in the Netherlands when it comes to the production of medium and heavy construction machinery. Everything is done in close consultation with our partner and the manufacturer. Both in quotations and on machines there is simply the name of Liebherr, Hyundai or Bobcat." 

EMISSION-FREE ASPHALT TRAIN ON THE WAY

Urban Mobility Systems develops emission-free construction machinery from 1.9 to say 160 tons and, as a collaborative partner of ART-E BV, is contributing to the development of an emission-free Asphalt Recycling Train, ART-E for short. The time had finally come in early June. Together with the Department of Public Works and the Province of Gelderland, ART made the first meters. And how! All those involved can look back on a highly successful pilot project in which worn asphalt is made new again, simply on the spot... The machine 'eats' old asphalt and spits out new asphalt onto the road. This makes road surface maintenance much more sustainable. Rijkswaterstaat is testing the deployment to deploy the ART-E on a large scale in the future. The asphalt train works virtually 100% circularly, easily saving 65% in CO2 emissions.

ART-E BV is a progressive partnership established with an ambitious goal: to make the infrastructure sector more sustainable in line with the industry's sustainability goals. The parties involved aim to do this by validating and implementing the Asphalt Recycling Train as a sustainable maintenance measure. "By joining forces, we aim to develop breakthrough sustainable innovations and make them available to the market. We believe in the power of cooperation and openness. This is why we offer all market participants the opportunity to use ART in their projects. This allows us to learn and experiment together and discover what does and does not work in terms of sustainability measures."

The concept is not entirely new, of course, as the Remix and Repave methods already existed 30 years ago. One major difference, however, is that those techniques reused the milled asphalt for 70% and the ART guarantees 100% reuse. UMS, meanwhile, is working on the completely emission-free ART-E, which uses hydrogen burners. "By making knowledge and experience widely accessible, we really want to transform the infrastructure sector into a more sustainable future. Innovate - Recycle - Create. This year is dedicated to completing the validation of the ART, reaching a crucial milestone within the transition to an emission-free infrastructure sector."