How these founders are tackling Detroit’s freight traffic

Detroit’s Eastern Market is more than a farmers market.

Saturday morning visits to the East Side neighborhood are a tradition that tens of thousands of people partake in each week. They come to load up on fresh produce, select cuts of meat from Gratiot Central Market, stock up on spices, grab a bite to eat from one of the neighborhood eateries, and enjoy the ambience of vendors, bustling crowds, and live music. The market logs $360 million in wholesale food sales annually.

With all those people and all of those goods, vehicle traffic can be overwhelming. As city officials plot the future of the historic district, they want to improve the freight operations that help bring Eastern Market to life.

They’re doing so with the help of the Toyota Mobility Foundation’s Sustainable Cities Challenge, which selected Detroit as the only US city to participate in a competition that taps startups to improve transportation systems globally. The foundation invested $9 million in Detroit; Venice, Italy; and Varanasi, India, to support mobility solutions across three years and multiple competition stages.

For founders, opportunities like the Sustainable Cities Challenge not only provide access to capital, but the chance to work hand-in-hand with prospective customers and the support to test out their products in the real world.

City planners envision a live-work environment with more residents and more activity. And they’re mindful of the neighborhood’s proximity to the busiest US-Canada freight crossing, and the expected uptick in cross-border traffic with the opening of a new bridge.

The goal of the project was to reduce idling time, fossil fuel reliance, partial loads, and empty miles, as well as decrease barriers to adopting clean freight tech. At the end of April, the foundation named three winners that will split a $1.5 million prize to help scale their solutions across the city after piloting them for months:

• Civilized Cycles, a Detroit-based manufacturer of electric cargo vehicles. The startup aims to scale its Semi-Trike as an alternative to gas-powered delivery vehicles, and recently sold one of its products to another Detroit-based startup, Grounded, to use as a platform for mini RVs.
• ElectricFish Energy, which builds battery-integrated fast chargers for EVs and backup power, with a focus on gas station deployments.
• Neology: An ammonia-to-hydrogen generation startup that generated approximately 300 kilowatt hours of clean energy during the pilot phase.

“When the Toyota Mobility Foundation issued their Sustainable Cities Challenge in 2023, calling on cities around the world to propose ways to reduce carbon emissions and improve access to goods and services, Detroit responded with a vision to clean up the freight system that delivers the food that we rely on every day,” Vince Keenan, head of innovation engagement for the city’s Office of Mobility Innovation, said during an event announcing the winners.

“The Sustainable Cities Challenge has allowed Detroit to kick the tires on the future of clean freight—today, not someday,” Keenan added.

Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield lauded the project’s focus on “cleaner air for our residents, lower costs for our businesses, and a stronger, more sustainable local economy.”

Moving smarter: Civilized Cycles piloted a solution to move goods around Eastern Market in a cleaner, less disruptive way.

“We build an e-bike that is like a tiny semitruck,” Zachary Schieffelin, co-founder and CEO of Civilized Cycles, told Morning Brew. “And our fundamental goal is accessibility and connection to the community.”

Civilized Cycles’ e-bike can attach to a tractor or trailer, allowing flexibility in what the vehicle tows. Eastern Market employees, for example, use a trailer to deliver food pallets in the neighborhood. Anyone over the age of 16 can drive the bike, no driver’s license needed. It’s capable of carrying loads up to about 850 pounds and has roughly the equivalent of a transit van’s cargo volume.

“We see this generally as a vision for low-cost, ultra low carbon footprint, safe moving of goods through low-speed and pedestrian environments of all kinds,” Schieffelin said.

Power up: Neology founder and CEO Aris Maroonian used to work for Toyota, where he said he learned about both the opportunities and challenges presented by hydrogen energy tech.

With Neology, he’s focused on leveraging ammonia, a chemical compound that he believes can help solve the technical challenges associated with hydrogen thanks to ammonia’s high energy density, liquid form, and ready availability. Neology’s process involves converting ammonia into hydrogen. It enables off-grid power generation for uses like powering construction sites or electric vehicles.

City officials are interested in using the tech to power things like waste trucks that are traveling predictable routes through city neighborhoods.

“We are looking at this and saying, ‘There’s potential here,’” Keenan said. “And we want to be ready.”

Meanwhile, startup ElectricFish set up an ultra-fast charger in Eastern Market that also works as a distributed energy resource.

“We design the hardware, software, and data solution to fast-charge cars, and at the same time, make the grid stronger,” ElectricFish President Leonardo Mattiazzi told us.

The charging station has satellite connectivity that enables communication with utility companies and system operators. “We know when there is a demand-response event, and we can respond to that,” Mattiazzi said.

The startup’s deployment model contrasts with the trend of charging providers building large sites with dozens of chargers, instead focusing on installing a small number of chargers in many locations.

“This is an institution for Detroit,” Mattiazzi said. “And I think that it sends a message: If Eastern Market is doing it, others can do it, as well.”

Picking winners: The competition aimed to speed up “sustainable and inclusive urban mobility solutions,” per a news release. Each of the winners previously received $180,000 to help implement their solutions, and now will split the grand prize.

In statements, the founders of the winning companies credited the challenge with helping to move their startups from the development and pilot stages to commercial scale.

“The Sustainable Cities Challenge gave us the platform to prove that ultra-light electric freight vehicles can meet commercial demand,” Schieffelin said. “With this support, we’re expanding production and advancing a cleaner, more efficient model for how goods move through cities.”