Joakim presenting the ICE
To regard PR and marketing as an investment, not a luxury might very well be the oldest trick in the book when it comes to marketing, but still it’s worth mentioning again. The thing is that whenever we’ve found ourselves deeply focused on soldering circuit cards, fighting permanent magnets from attaching to one another, trying to get a dynamometer running, removing sticky pieces of carbon fiber from your clothes, or spending 60 – 84 (!) hours a week at work, doing marketing activities hasn’t been the first thing to come to our minds. But once we’ve invested some time in it, it’s quite easy to see the benefits, and appreciation certainly makes us more motivated for everything else.
Our PR and marketing activities began with the LARV fair in January, where we presented the vehicles and also held a short presentation about the project for the participating companies. Shortly after that we had our measurement of Baldos II, where we proved it to be the most energy-efficient vehicle allowed for street-use in Sweden today, and informed many others about that achievement as well. As a result from the sudden recognition we were invited to participate in the CleanEquity conference in Monacy together with some notables in the field of environmental technology. And today we were, once again quite unexpectedly, visited by Andreas Carlgren – the Minister for the Environment in the Swedish government.
Inspecting the space that (usually) contains the drivetrain
It was nothing but a short, informative but informal meeting. Since Baldos II is being reconstructed it just stood there, but the physical experience of it and the knowledge of its capabilities is often enough for anyone who hasn’t seen it before. We explained to Andreas what it was, how it works (piece by piece), what it does and what it could mean to future motorism. And, following the typical Texas phrase “it ain’t braggin’ if it’s true”, we told him a lot of true things.
Andreas seemed genuinely excited and interested. He looked at and touched everything to get a feeling of it. He tried sitting in the vehicle, even with the hood down. Overall he seemed kind of pleased – which, by the way, works kind of natural for a Minister for the environment experiencing a car that is everything but sinister for the environment. Erika and Joakim gave him some of their perspectives of the vehicle, Stefan took some photos of everything (thank you Stefan!), Tore Silver cursed the CNC machine in the background, and – well – that’s about it.
There needn’t be anything more. We are once again glad just to see a recognized institution – like Piteå Tidningen, DN, De Telegraaf, the prince of Monaco, and the minister for the environment – share some of the excitement that we feel about Baldos II. So, thank you everybody for your support, and we hope to see more of you later on. And by the way – there’ll be plenty chances for that!
Andreas trying out the Baldos II
On the afternoon of April 22nd we’ll have our unveiling ceremony at the University. Apart from presenting an optimized and reworked Baldos II we will finally introduce the brand new prototype Baldos ‘X’ to the world (and reveal its true name). Soon afterwards we’ll head for the race in Lausitz, Germany over the 6-7th of May. We’ll be the first ever team to participate with a car allowed for street use so we might very well be noticed by a few more people. And after that there’s a whole lineup of occasions in which we will be seen; something which will be presented more in detail in the coming few blog posts.
In the mean time we wish to thank Christina Simonsson from the Swedish centre party for helping us with all this, and a big thanks to BAE Systems Hägglunds in Örnsköldsvik for becoming our first main sponsor. Europe suddenly feels a lot closer.
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