ECOOLTRA
How a moped rental company became a leading provider of green, shared mobility
Challenge
Moped rental company Cooltra wanted to digitize and diversify its services to be more sustainable.
Solution
ECooltra—Barcelona’s first shared e-moped fleet with mobile app rental. ElectricFeel provided the mobile app and fleet management software.
Result
First system launched in three months. eCooltra expanded to Madrid, Lisbon, Rome, Milan, and Valencia in three years—with ElectricFeel providing a stable platform and hands-on support every step of the way.
Year
2016
Location
EUROPE
Fleet size
7,500
When Timo Buetefisch took his moped for repairs one day, the difficulty he had renting a replacement gave him an idea. Fast-forward ten years to 2015, and Timo’s company, Cooltra, was a market leader for tourist moped rentals in Europe.
But the mobility market moves fast. Since Cooltra was founded in 2006, global mobility trends had shifted away from private ownership towards pay-per-ride shared vehicles. City residents were now buying into a vision of green, sustainable, electric mobility as a day-to-day alternative to cars.
Timo wanted Cooltra to be part of this new world. But while he knew the moped market well, setting up a sharing system with free-floating electric vehicles and mobile app rental was completely new for Cooltra.
They were going to need some help.
Putting the ‘e’ into ‘eCooltra’
Timo decided to start a new company focusing exclusively on shared, electric mobility: eCooltra. The first system would be in their home city of Barcelona. To make it happen, ECooltra needed a partner to create the mobile rental app, provide tools to manage the fleet, and help them get the system up and running.
After another potential partner’s software failed to match their expectations, eCooltra came across ElectricFeel:
The technical background of the people at ElectricFeel was very valuable to us. And on top of that, the time to market they offered was very, very attractive. 
And it wasn’t just the technology that they found convincing.
Their vision and philosophy was also a big factor: 100% focused on the sharing industry, and only working with electric vehicles.
With Cooltra keen to embrace sustainability, ElectricFeel was the long-term partner they needed to help them put the ‘e’ into ‘eCooltra’. After confirming the partnership, the first sharing system of 250 e-mopeds launched in Barcelona just three months later.
eCooltra had arrived. But it was just getting started.
Taking eCooltra international
After a steady first year, eCooltra exploded. They quickly launched systems in Madrid, Lisbon, and Rome. New countries meant new laws—and fresh challenges. ElectricFeel was on hand to help.
Starting mobility networks in new countries can be difficult. ElectricFeel worked hard to integrate their software so it complied with local laws in Portugal, and the same for Italy.
The hard work paid off. Now both eCooltra and ElectricFeel are in a strong position to scale micromobility in the future. Oriol explains:
“Once ElectricFeel operates in a country, it’s very easy for them to open new cities there. If tomorrow we wanted to go to the US, it’d be very simple because ElectricFeel has already worked there—they know the local rules.”
In just 4 years, eCooltra has gone from 250 to 7,500 vehicles across multiple countries—replacing millions of gasoline-powered journeys with a green alternative. ElectricFeel’s technology kept up with eCooltra’s massive expansion at every step:
“The stability of the platform is still very, very high. And it has everything we need in one place: operations, customer info, and a connected data warehouse for advanced business analysis.”
And while the road from moped rental company to world-leading sustainable mobility provider has had many twists and turns, one thing has remained the same:
After this long journey of almost five years, ElectricFeel has always been there. They're a very reliable technical partner who anyone could start a shared mobility business with.
