ELMO Rent made history with remote control technology and won the most ambitious company main award at an international conference
At the GreenEST Summit, the largest green technology conference in the region, which ended yesterday, ELMO Rent demonstrated its remote-controlled car technology to the public for the first time via the 4G communication network. ELMO Rent has won the conference main award to the company with the most ambitious and top-level team; the award was given by the Association of Business Angels EstBAN and the law firm Trinit. According to the founder of ELMO Rent and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Enn Laansoo, Jr., ELMO Rent has performed the so-called dry run for passing the official site test of the Transport Administration.
Next to the Creative Hub, a Nissan Leaf electric car built for remote control, driven from the remote control desk inside the building through the 4G communication network, quietly sneaked into the closed parking lot prepared for ELMO Rent. The technology put up to drive the car included a rally chair, steering wheel, pedals and a widescreen monitor familiar to rally enthusiasts, which enabled to control the vital functions of the car. The demonstrations were so successful that some enthusiastic viewers were allowed to the remote control desk under the watchful eye of the security driver in the remote-controlled car.
Laansoo spoke at the event about the near future prospects of remote control technology: "We are currently in the final development phase of the remote control technology, and we plan to test the technology in the street soon. "Ultimately the core of the whole remote control rental car business is to bring the car to the customer, i.e., to make the car use more comfortable. Then the ELMO Rent customer can choose via the app the time and place where he or she wants a car, and our operator will remotely deliver the car to the customer. And then the customer can drive the car himself and drive wherever he wants - even to the countryside to his or her grandmother. At the end of the rental session, our operator will remotely take the car over and deliver it to the next customer."
ELMO Rent, chosen as the most ambitious green technology company at the conference, is now preparing for the next round of funding. "A positive surprise in the form of EstBAN is ideal for us in terms of time, as we are preparing the next round for Nasdaq to enter foreign markets and the EstBAN experience as well as the network will definitely help us make the best funding related decisions," Laansoo added.
In fact, ELMO Rent has a free car delivery service available today. The only difference is that now the operator drives a rental car the usual way to the person who ordered it, i.e., by driving the car himself. With the introduction of new remote control technology, the car delivery cost will reduce and the efficiency of car use increase, which creates a significant competitive advantage for ELMO Rent when entering new markets. According to Laansoo, within a month after the new service has been launched, people welcomed the opportunity to get a rental car on-site and the introduction of remote control technology to the market means a fast move in providing the service to the existing customer base.
"The dry run kilometers made also revealed the first bottlenecks to help us further configure the remote control technology. For example, the remote driver needs a permanent audio connection to the car interior to better realize what the car is doing as well as worsening of image quality of some cameras under direct sunlight. But the delay of the communication connection was lower than expected and all car functions worked flawlessly,” Daniel Toode, the communication manager of ELMO Rent, commented satisfactorily the two-day test results.
For more details about the events please visit https://www.facebook.com/elmorent2.0
ELMO Rent is one of the first electric car rental companies in the world to have developed its own remote controlled car and controller technologies and a company trading on the Nasdaq Baltic First North alternative exchange. ELMO Rent is also a company awarded with the responsible business quality label.
Additional information:
Enn Laansoo, Jr.
Chairman of the Board
enn@elmorent.ee
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