“We were grilled mightily,” admits co-managing director Oliver Ouboter after the official press conference with a smile. He is not addressing the high temperatures in the hangar of the ex-military airfield in Dübendorf ZH, where the conference took place. But the negotiations with the mold for cooperation in sales and service for the Microlino 2.0.
Amag checked very carefully what it was getting itself into with the Ouboter brothers’ small city electric two-seater and even had external experts flown in for this purpose. But the Ouboters were apparently able to answer the many questions to their complete satisfaction together with their head of development, Peter Müller, a former head of development at Porsche and BMW. The official sales and service of the Swiss e-city car will start on September 30, 2022 – initially in the large Amag centers in Bern, Dübendorf and Geneva.
New Amag subsidiary Noviv Mobility
The fact that Amag has founded the new company Noviv Mobility AG proves that it is taking this new task seriously. “Nov in Romansh means new, fresh, young, and viv comes from viver, to live,” explains Thierry Juilland, Future Retail Strategy Director at Amag Retail. And it is precisely these attributes that apply both to the subsidiary that has recently settled with Amag-Retail and to Microlino. Juilland emphasizes that two Swiss family companies have come together in Amag and Microlino.
Amag and Noviv Mobility AG initially offered test drives in Bern, Dübendorf and Geneva, later also in other branches, delivered vehicles and carried out service work. However, the vehicle is always sold directly by Microlino to the customer. “In this way we ensure that the prices are the same throughout Switzerland and it doesn’t matter whether our customers order in the showroom or at home from the sofa,” Merlin Ouboter explains the strategy.
Production is slowly ramping up
Microlino mother Micro also runs its own brand center in Meilen ZH, where the first test drives and deliveries will take place from the beginning of August. “In Switzerland alone we have had over 15,000 interested parties since our first presentation at the Geneva Motor Show six years ago. Around 20 percent have now made a down payment, thereby demonstrating their concrete interest in buying – although we haven’t undertaken any major campaigns yet,” Oliver Ouboter tells us. “Now it’s about slowly but steadily ramping up production together with our Italian partner Cecomp in Turin in order to be able to cope with the demand.” In the long term, production is planned for 10,000 vehicles a year.
An excellent sales partner has now been found for Switzerland in Amag. Now it’s time to do something similar abroad. «We originally had the idea of selling our Microlino exclusively via the Internet. But we quickly realized that our customers would like to experience the vehicle in real life – and so we are now looking for sales partners abroad, too,” explains Oliver Ouboter. “It’s not that easy, but we’re busy negotiating,” he says, before showing his cards.
It took a few years for the Microlino vision to become reality. And the young and innovative creators behind the project also had to cope with some severe setbacks. But now their tenacity and belief in the idea of the innovative and modern premium microcraft seems to be paying off. The Microlino 2.0 is finally picking up speed on our streets. And you can also read how it drives on Friday at Blick.ch.