The Piaggio Group has just announced today the beginning of sales of the Vespa Elettrica electric scooter.
The Vespa Elettrica is the first electric version of the iconic Vespa scooter. It marks the company’s initial foray into the EV industry.
Bird, one of the largest electric scooter sharing companies in the United States, introduced their new electric scooter today. The Bird Zero is a custom designed electric scooter that will become the heart of their dockless electric scooter sharing program.
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Electric scooter share programs continue to expand at a rapid pace across the United States and the rest of the world. Uber, known for its ride-hailing service, doesn’t want to miss the boat. Seeking its own piece of the pie, Uber has just rolled out its Jump electric scooter share program in Santa Monica.
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KYMCO just unveiled Ionex Commercial, their new business-to-business (B2B) solution designed to help companies switch to electric scooters. The platform is built to aid businesses and governments by providing a simple and easy electric scooter service. Ionex Commercial includes multiple models of battery-swappable electric scooters as well as turnkey battery charging stations and a host of management and logistic software solutions.
The announcement was made by KYMCO’s chairman Allen Ko during the unveiling at the Salle Wagram event center. The ceremony was part of the Paris Motor Show.
Lime scooters are seemingly everywhere, including in dozens of cities across the United States. Lime has even begun international operations in France, Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Spain.
Now the California-based electric mobility company is adding one new country to its list: Canada.
Despite making a name for itself in the ride hailing industry, Uber has recently declared that it is shifting more of its focus towards light electric vehicles including electric bicycles and scooters. In another step towards that goal, Uber has announced that it plans to install electric bicycle charging stations for its own brand of Jump electric bicycles.
Govecs, the leading European manufacturer of electric scooters, has just announced that it inked its first deal in the UK.
The company says it has signed a letter of intent with a UK company regarding the delivery of 6,000 e-scooters for the London shared-vehicles market.
While electric scooters (Vespa-style, not Razor-style) are not very widespread yet in the US, they are quickly becoming the most common form of transportation in Chinese cities. This is largely due to environmentally sustainable government policies which make gas-powered motorcycles and scooters either illegal or impractically expensive in Chinese cities.
Niu, the self proclaimed “largest lithium-ion battery-powered e-scooter company in China” has now taken one more step towards growing their electric scooter empire by filing for an IPO in the US.
The indoor expo at the 2018 Interbike bicycle trade show in Reno, NV has kicked off. Nearly all of the world’s biggest electric bicycle brands are here showing of their newest e-bike models, parts, accessories and even some surprisingly weirder offerings.
Here’s a breakdown of all the best new offerings in the world of electric bicycles and other light electric vehicles.
Inboard Technology is best known for their highly acclaimed M1 electric skateboard, which is fairly unique among a large pack of competitors due to its removable and swappable batteries.
For weeks they’ve been teasing their customers with the imminent launch of “something”, while revealing very few hints. Today they’ve finally dropped the veil to show off the company’s new electric scooter, complete with an impressive list of features not found on any other electric scooters on the market.
Yamaha and Gogoro have both proven to be powerful forces in the light electric vehicle industry. Gogoro has a line of highly successful scooters based on their battery-swapping technology, and Yamaha just rolled their four latest electric bicycle models into shops in the US.
Now the two companies have announced that they will be joining forces on swappable-battery electric scooters, leveraging the strengths of both players.
While there has been a huge amount innovation in light electric vehicles over the last few years, such as 60 mph (97 km/h) electric bicycles and 400 mi (644 km) range electric tricycles, most of the innovation has been in performance – not design. Until now, that is.
Here’s a wacky new electric scooter design that has been finding a surprising amount of success around the world.
Santa Monica and San Francisco both became epicenters of the fight over electric scooter share programs operating on public space over the past year.
After both cities eventually banned the alternative electric transportation options due to the companies operating without the cities’ blessings, they opened an application processes for permits allowing companies to operate scooter share programs. Now both cities have announced the winners of those permits, and the results are shocking riders and operators alike.
Sit-down scooters and mopeds have been a popular form of transportation in Europe for decades, and have recently been finding favor in the US as well, as an increasing number of companies have started offering electric versions as part of their lineup.
Vespa, perhaps the most famous scooter maker of all, has finally dropped the veil on the production plans of their first electric Vespa, the Elettrica.
There has been no shortage of new electric mopeds and scooters lately. While most companies are offering scooters with fancy, high tech features and long ranges, a new startup has debuted a basic electric scooter that is low on features and is also low in cost.
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Electric scooter sharing programs, created by companies to provide a fast and convenient form of personal electric transportation in urban areas, have not been without controversy. Starting earlier this year, the scooter sharing programs began appearing in cities across the US seemingly overnight, dumping their dockless electric scooters on sidewalks and street corners for riders to scan with a smartphone app and ride around the city. The companies often caught cities off-guard in what many perceived as a deliberate attempt to dictate the terms of their own regulations similar to the way ride shares like Uber rolled out their own services.
While detractors have cried foul over what they sometimes consider to be dangerous vehicles zipping around pedestrians, a new study has found that Americans by and large support the electric scooter rental programs, providing more evidence to show that this is anything but a temporary fad.
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Electric scooter shares have shown massive growth in cities around the US and internationally over the past year. The tiny EVs are intended to serve as “last mile” type vehicles which help commuters navigate cities faster than walking and more conveniently than taking public transportation. Riders can hop on a scooter anywhere they can find one, paying just $1.00 plus 15 cents per mile and dropping the scooter off anywhere in the city – no docking station required.
So far, the major players have been larger companies such as Bird, who is reportedly the fastest US startup ever to reach a $1 billion valuation. But with the massive growth displayed by the fledgling industry and venture capitalists tripping over each other to throw money at the startups for fear of missing the gravy train — err, gravy scooter, new electric scooter share companies are popping up all over the place.
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It seems like every week now there’s a new electric scooter share program popping up in cities around the US. Companies like Bird, Lime and Skip are quickly distributing those small and zippy little electric scooters that users can rent for just a couple bucks.
What you likely haven’t seen too many of yet are the larger types of electric scooters, ones that are more akin to electric mopeds and allow the rider to sit down as if on a bicycle. And New Yorkers may be seeing them a lot more now that a new electric scooter rental company has opened up shop in Brooklyn.
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I don’t know about you, but when I hear about Segway, it still conjures up images in my mind of mall cops and nerds on tech company campuses. However, most people don’t realize that Segway is a totally different animal these days.
After being purchased by the Chinese company Ninebot in 2015, Segway-Ninebot has been transformed into a powerhouse of personal electric vehicles. In fact, if you’ve been in a large city recently, you might have seen hundreds of Segway-Ninebot vehicles zipping around the streets in the form of popular new electric scooter programs.
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The “last mile” problem is one that cities have been trying to solve for decades. While it is fairly easy to get to most cities, getting around that last mile to your final destination is often anything but simple. On the other end of the trip, “first miles” often have the same issue. How do you get from your home or apartment to the closest bus stop or train station that will take you to work?
That responsibility has often fallen on smaller one-person forms of electric transportation, also known as personal electric vehicles (PEVs). These can be anything from electric bicycles to electric scooters and electric skateboards. Basically anything small, quick and convenient to move someone around a crowded urban environment.
In an effort to determine which of these PEVs is the best option for urban commuting, I spent the last two weeks commuting entirely by personal electric vehicle, and now I want to share my experiences to help you determine how best to get around your city. Read on to see what I learned.
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Electric stand-on scooters have been in the news a lot lately, largely due to their growing popularity in electric scooter rental programs. These scooter shares have been spreading around the US and the world, introducing commuters to the convenience of these small yet functional EVs.
So far most of the electric scooters on the road have been the same model, the popular Xiaomi M365 electric scooter used by Bird, Spin and several other electric scooter rental companies. Now a new competitor is preparing to enter the consumer electric scooter market, and this one has a style that is very much its own.
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Even while facing rollout problems at home, electric scooter share companies are flush with cash and expanding their operations overseas. The scooter companies are hoping that they can make early claims to European cities and snatch up market share before their competitors.
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Even though we often talk about Europe and Asia having all the options for electric scooters, there are still a few models available in the US. But except for the Detroit-built GenZe 2.0, most of the currently available alternatives are either small, under powered, or use archaic lead-acid batteries.
Today that changes, as CruZer Scooter has launched their new e2000 electric scooter in the US.
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Electric scooters, ride-on scooters, mopeds – whatever you want to call them – aren’t exactly commonplace in the US. It wasn’t long ago at all that spotting these two-wheeled EVs in America’s cities was nearly impossible.
But in Bob Dylan’s ironically timeless words, “…the times, they are a’changing.”
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