The future of Electric Scooters – Love it or hate it

Whether you like the idea or not the future of electric scooters is already here. Walkthrough any city and you will see them whizz past at a blink of an eye. They mainly use the bike lanes within any given city. If a city has bicycles lanes to push people to ride to work, then why can’t a city have a mode of transport that does not make you sweat at every turn and saves the carbon footprint. Unfortunately, many governments are not pushing the ideas to implement these vehicles into legal legislation. Could it be that they don’t like the idea that people will be using these vehicles rather than catching public transport or driving a car. With these vehicles you do not need to put money into the meter or pay like you do on a train or bus.

Love it or hate it!

You can love or hate the idea behind electric scooters but they are definitely moving forward. Cities around the world are rolling out electric scooter sharing schemes. These sharing schemes are in 20 different countries and are within 100 different cities worldwide. Rental ride-sharing companies including Lime, Bird, Voi, and Tier can rent the vehicles via an app on your phone and they can be docked anywhere on the footpath. We know for a fact that this is causing many hazards as it poses dangers to pedestrians, wheelchair users, and blind people. This is due to the lack of docking or riding infrastructure within a particular area. Road users are not happy about the rise in electric scooters as it cause many hazards. There needs to be cycle lane infrastructure within these areas to curb the risk. The future of electric scooters started gaining momentum during the covid19 lockdown. More and more people wanted to do something during the lockdown period and so they decided to purchasing new electric scooters from Halfords. I remember I was standing outside Halfords and noticed that there was massive lineup for either bicycles or electric scooters. You could see in the open parks that there were many people riding these scooters. The easing of the lockdown restrictions had seen an increase in people riding these vehicles to and from work. The easing of the lockdown labeled the importance of a socially distanced transport solution to and from work. And what’s not to love about these vehicles? They are a fun and environmentally free solution to getting from A to B. You can pick up a Xiaomi Mi1s Electric Scooter for as little as £499. If you calculate the cost of a train, bus or car for the entire year you definitely going to make some savings when going to and from work with these vehicles.

What are governments are doing to legalise the vehicles?

Governments are making efforts to legalise these vehicles, but there’s still much more that can be done in relation to this. With the clamping down on cars over the years, it has given this market an opportunity to lobby with politicians to produce legislation within their communities. In many countries, these vehicles are technically illegal. This was the case in the UK until May 2020. The government announced that electric scooter ride-share companies could roll out their platform within the UK market. This was launched as of July 4th2020. This means that electric scooter companies such as Lime are legal on UK streets. Jakarta, Singapore, and Shanghai are still banned. Paris has made it illegal to ride the scooters on the footpath. Electric scooters are still dominating the globe. The biggest markets are in the US and Europe. In 2024, 4.6 million shared e-scooters will be in operation worldwide, up from 774,000 in 2019. In response to the covid19 epidemic, the UK government is introducing a green restart of local transport within communities. This will help kick-start the electric scooter industry. The UK government wants to limit travel on trains and buses to curb the virus, so they are pushing forward with this legislation. This will be done under the future of transport programme. The UK is looking at e-scooters as the fast clean way to travel during this time, It will ease the burden on the transport network. The London major Sadiq Khan announced that large areas of London’s roads are to be closed to cars and vans to allow people to walk and cycle safely as the coronavirus lock down is eased. This happened within 6 weeks of the lock down being eased. In Australia last mile alternatives has had a major impact. The laws differ from state to state but pressure is mounting on state governments to adapt new technology. Until recently electric scooters were banned in the ACT, however with high demand these vehicles have become completely legal. They can be ridden up to 15kmh legally. Australia has also implemented redesigning the roads to accommodate these types of vehicles instead of cars. The transition from a city being a parking city to a drop off city has been increasing for a long time.

With any new technology, there is an opportunity?

The future of electric scooters is here to stay. It is already expected that the global electric scooter market size is expected to reach USD 41.98 billion by 2030 at a CAGR of 7.7% over the forecast period, according to a study conducted at Grand View Research. With the increasing adaptation of scooters amongst the young population and the rise of purchasing power of the middle class combined with the increase of urbanisation amongst the countries of the third world, it will be one of the biggest industries out there. The e-scooter industry in Australia is now worth 59 billion and it is really taking off. Companies such as Bird and Lime started breaking into the U. S market. Five of the major companies within Europe have emerged and raised USD 150 million of capital alone.

What is the industry doing to push this technology to the masses?

The electric vehicle industry has been working on battery charge times for all types of vehicles. They know that the charge time is way too slow for its users. Manufacturers are working on carbon batteries to improve the charge time and range for these vehicles. Power Plan Plus has announced that they are developing a carbon battery that charges 20 times faster than a conventional lithium battery. The industry is also working on an environmentally friendly battery called an organic redux flow battery which is cheaper than lithium-ion batteries. The quality and price of electric scooters have definitely changed over the decade. Prices have dropped for these light vehicles because more and more manufacturers are producing components within the industry. It is becoming a very competitive industry.

To sum it up.

The electric scooter industry is currently booming due to the political and social demographics and it is only going to get bigger. When environmental laws change in major urban centers everyone will have one of these vehicles with in their household. It is fun and it feels like your flying while you are riding one of these things. Covid19 is helping this industry boom as the general public is forced to not take public transport. Local authorities are encouraging the public to find alternative means to get to and from work. Governments are actively changing their legislation to reflect the trend and are paving the roads to accommodate this change.