Patrik Tykesson seems in a good mood when he enters the production hall of his electric scooters at around 11:30 a.m.
And yet he was still in Zurich at five in the morning – an appointment with investors.
Kumpan Electric is currently in a new round of financing.
The start-up produces e-scooters in Germany and also sources most of its parts from German suppliers.
"We manufacture all our scooters by hand here in Remagen," says Tykesson, describing the seven stations in which the scooters are pushed through the hall on mobile assembly stands.
A mechanic is laying a braid of cables through the roller.
Another installs parts of the fairing on the interior.
Seven fitters for seven stations.
At the moment, around ten scooters are made every day.
Production is running – but that's not always the case.
“About once a month we are missing important components.
Then sometimes no more scooters roll off the assembly line for two to three days,” says Tykesson.
The reason: delivery problems.
Steel, aluminum, semiconductors - some part is always scarce.
Production will then be switched over – the fitters assemble the scooters at least as far as possible without the missing part.
"We're increasingly buying our chips through brokers," says Tykesson.
"Every part is being fought over on the market right now." And you can't lose this fight: "If even just one part is missing, production comes to a standstill." Kumpan used to have to correct the production process once a month.
"It's now once or twice a week." Kumpan has problems in the supply chain - like many other companies.
85 percent of the parts from Germany
The company, with around 100 employees, should be in a very good position compared to other competitors.
The e-scooter manufacturer relies on a local supply chain and sources 85 percent of its parts from Germany.
Production takes place entirely in Remagen, from development to construction.
Kumpan actually fits in with the spirit of the times - get out of dependency on China and work more with local companies.
But even the great focus on local supply chains does not protect against the dynamics of the world market.
If steel is scarce, you still need it in production.
Then everyone pounces on what little steel is available.
Another essential good for electric vehicles are the batteries.
After all, they make up around a third of the purchase price of the Kumpan scooters.
The company obtains the cells for this from LG and Samsung.
In the long term, however, they want to rely on batteries from the Swedish start-up Northvolt.
The retro design of the Kumpan scooters is strongly reminiscent of the iconic models from the 1950s - so much so that Piaggio, manufacturer of the famous Vespa, sued Kumpan four years ago.
The design is too reminiscent of the Italian scooter classic.
However, Piaggio lost the dispute in August of that year.
Kumpan can continue to build its models in a retro look.
Market research in China
The Tykessons made a conscious decision to go local in their supply chain.
They know both global and local production.
The company produced in China until 2015.
In 2009, Patrik Tykesson and his two brothers worked on a fully electric scooter.
At that time, China was considered a pioneer when it came to electromobility.
So Patrik Tykesson got on the plane and spent six weeks investigating e-mobility in the Far East.
There the half-Swedish found a company that could produce scooters for him and his siblings.
The three brothers immediately set about converting a petrol scooter to an electric one.
With this first prototype, production of the Kumpan scooters began in China.
They sold their first fully electric two-wheeler on August 26, 2010.
But after a few years, the Tykessons were no longer satisfied with the Chinese production.
Other manufacturers copied them and the production was too inflexible.
“If I order a production change in China, it takes a year for the changed products to get here.
With local production, I can intervene much more flexibly in the production process,” says Patrik Tykesson.
This is partly due to the delivery times from China, which are around ten weeks by container ship.
In addition, communication with local suppliers is faster and easier.
"If there are any problems with a German supplier, you can just go there and clarify the problem," says Tykesson.
In China there was a design freeze at a certain point in production,
after which nothing can be changed in ongoing production.
In Germany, the supply chain is more flexible.
withdrawal from China
In 2015, the Remagen-based company decided to completely stop production in China and only manufacture their e-scooters in Germany.
Building a local supplier network was difficult.
“Our scooters consist of around 850 individual parts,” explains Patrik Tykesson.
This brings you to around 200 suppliers.
According to Tykesson, if Kumpan manufactured its scooters in China, the production costs would only be around ten percent lower.
"The wage share in e-scooter production is very low," he says.
It takes around four hours of work to make one scooter.
"In addition, China has long since ceased to be a low-wage country." The company is still competitive with global manufacturers, says Tykesson: "Made in Germany is very important to our customers." They are also willing to pay higher prices for this.