The winds of the subprime crisis in 2008 blew hard and icy even in the heart of the Modena Valley, the soul of Italy that moves to the rhythm of the engines. “We had lost 80% of our turnover” says Livia Cevolini, the CEO of Energica Motor Company recalling the difficulties of Crp, the head of the family struggling with an uncomfortable and unprecedented situation. What to do? “In the company we said it was time to look around for inspiration – she continues – We started talking about Tesla. It was an idea. I looked at my father and brother and we thought we'd start over with a new project, an electric motorcycle, a project that would have distinguished us from the competition, helped us reinvent ourselves and perhaps get us out of that moment of difficulty”.
And it is thus, looking ahead, that Energica Motor Company was born from a rib of Crp, company listed on Aim, world leader in the electric two-wheeler market, “Proudly Made In Modena” as it is written on these racing cars worthy sons of the Motor Valley: with thrilling acceleration (from zero to 100 km/h in 2 seconds), an autonomy of 400 kilometers (soon 470) made possible by batteries that Energica, like Tesla, takes care of firsthand. And it also makes noise like the other bikes, thanks to a system devised at home for the delight of the centaurs. “However – specifies the manager – customers are on the rise who ask for a silent product”.
But the real scuffing, worthy of the technicians they created Energica Evo, a torpedo which in the latest version ensures "a more monstrous acceleration than ever", the company has achieved it a Taiwan the particular. In January the importer from the island sent a record order of 836 thousand euros across the entire catalogue, equal to 28% of 2020 turnover. “A welcome news to which is added an 11% growth from the USA. Now we just have to wait for it resumption of the fairs, stop due to Covid. Starting from Japan continues Livia, 40, who today leads the group together with her brother Franco, a graduate in Materials Engineering.
Livia too, the CEO of Energica, is an engineer for a family vocation that led her to leave the school of restoration, chosen after high school. “I soon realized that I didn't want to give up what my grandfather and my father had started and that had in any case been imprinted in the DNA of a child who had started going to the factory and traveling the world for motor racing even before learning to walk. Hence the achieved goal of becoming the sole supplier of electric motorcycles competing in the Fim Enel MotoE World Cup” in the belief that the best way to advertise and sell a motorcycle is to race it. And the first confirmations from the numbers begin to arrive: the turnover of the electric motorcycle, just over half a million four years ago, rose to 3,2 million in 2019 and surpassed 6 million in 2020. In addition to Taiwan's boom and good response from the US market, where the giant Harley Davidson operates, which has put the Emilian company's only electric competitor on the road.
Of course, the numbers are still modest, thanks to the lack of recharging infrastructures, but the rise of the electric four-wheeler is now taken for granted and cannot fail to drive the Tesla born in the land of Ferrari, exemplary history of Italian industry, daughter of family traditions, of the culture of know-how and even more, of love for risk and innovation. A line that Cevolini family has practiced since the Second World War starting from his grandfather Salvatore, continued with Roberto, pioneer of 3D mechanical technology productions and Franco, engineer expert in materials technology. And from Livia, of course, blonde centaur mother in the land of the prancing horse.
