Meals carts are a staple of New York Metropolis eating, dishing out all the pieces from dosa and doner kebabs to canine and dim sum in brief order. However regardless of how attractive the aroma of a cart’s meals, the smelly gasoline turbines that maintain the lights on threaten to place prospects off their meals.
Cart homeowners and prospects might not should suck on fumes for much longer. A Brooklyn-based startup is testing using its e-bike batteries to energy meals carts, beginning with La Chona Mexican on the nook of 30th and Broadway in Manhattan.
“This actually began out as a lark final summer time,” David Hammer, co-founder and CEO of PopWheels, advised TechCrunch. “I’m an ex-Googler from the early days, and this felt like a traditional, old-school 20% mission.”
Usually, PopWheels battery packs are zipping across the metropolis strapped to meals supply bikes. The workforce quickly realized that connecting them to meals carts was an avenue price pursuing.
“Are e-bike packs the right power kind to be powering meals carts? Possibly, possibly not,” Hammer stated. “I’d argue it doesn’t matter. What issues is, are you able to remedy distribution and charging?”
PopWheels at present operates 30 charging cupboards round Manhattan, which serve gig employees driving e-bikes, most of whom use both Arrow or Whizz fashions. That’s resulted in a “de facto decentralized fleet,” Hammer stated, permitting the corporate to inventory just some various kinds of batteries to serve a whole bunch of consumers.
Many supply employees trip into Manhattan from the farther reaches of the town. It’s a visit that may burn a good portion of their cost, and plenty of employees want two batteries to get by a full day. In response, bodegas began providing e-bike charging companies, for which supply employees usually pay $100 per thirty days. When factoring in battery put on and tear, the overall price nears $2,000 per yr, Hammer stated.
Techcrunch occasion
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
“We are able to make the economics work in order that we’re really saving them cash proper off the bat,” he stated. PopWheels costs prospects $75 per thirty days for limitless entry to its community, and Hammer stated the corporate has an extended waitlist.
The startup’s charging cupboards can maintain 16 batteries, and PopWheels designed them to swiftly extinguish a battery hearth ought to something go awry throughout charging. (The corporate’s founding mission was to stamp out e-bike fires in New York Metropolis, which grew to become a big downside few years in the past.) After constructing some preliminary cupboards, the corporate raised a $2.3 million seed spherical final yr 2025.
Swap websites are usually small open areas like parking tons, which PopWheels has retrofit with fences and the mandatory electrical connections to assist a number of cupboards. Every cupboard attracts about as a lot electrical energy as a Degree 2 electrical automobile charger, which is to say not that a lot.
As PopWheels e-bike service grew, the startup started finding out different alternatives.
“There was at all times somewhat little bit of an underlying thesis that there’s one thing greater right here,” Hammer stated. “For those who construct urban-scale, fire-safe battery swapping infrastructure, you’re creating an infrastructure layer that a lot of persons are going to wish to get on board with.”
Hammer began to consider different makes use of for the batteries after somebody despatched an article about how New York Metropolis was working to decarbonize meals carts. That’s when the PopWheels workforce began working the numbers.
Meals carts, Hammer estimates, in all probability spend round $10 a day on gasoline for his or her turbines to maintain the lights on. (A lot of the cooking is finished through propane, which is a separate matter.) That’s about how a lot PopWheels would cost somebody to subscribe to 4 of its batteries per day. Conveniently, 4 of its batteries can provide about 5 kilowatt-hours of electrical energy, which is sufficient to cowl the low finish of what a typical cart may draw. In the event that they want extra juice, Hammer stated they’ll run to a swap station noon.
After realizing the mathematics penciled out, PopWheels constructed a prototype adapter and trialed it at a small occasion on the Brooklyn Navy Yard eventually yr’s New York Local weather Week. Since then, the startup has been working with the the non-profit Road Vendor Challenge to maneuver the thought ahead. Final week’s demonstration with La Chona was the primary time the batteries powered a meals cart for a full day.
“I had a number of meals cart homeowners come as much as me and say, ‘Wait, there’s no noise with this cart. What are you guys doing? Can I get this?’” Hammer stated.
“We’re planning to roll this out aggressively beginning this summer time,” he stated. “We predict we could possibly be price impartial with gasoline for a meals cart proprietor whereas fixing the entire high quality of life points.”
