Rise of the super e-scooter.

By Rhodri Mardsen | Financial Times HTSI
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“Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come,” says Oscar Morgan, co-founder of e-scooter firm Bo, who sees them as the future of mobility. His colleague, Luke Robus, explains: “We’ve had people try the Bo M [its first product] who’ve seen e-scooters and were terrified of them, but they get on, they ride, they get off, they smile. They’re super happy. We’re changing people’s entire worldview.”

Your first ride on an e-scooter can certainly feel transformative. For the first 50 metres, as you get used to balancing (one foot behind the other) and operating the throttle system (sometimes a forefinger, more usually a thumb), you feel like a kid riding a bike without stabilisers for the first time, wide-eyed and anxious. You soon begin to understand what makes them so pleasurable, even addictive: they’re simple to operate, convenient to hop on and off and give you the faintest sensation that you’re floating on a magic carpet. Now the battle is on to build the ultimate urban e-scooter, one that’s comfortable, elegant and, primarily, safe.

“With bikes, you have more than 100 years of people obsessing about detail, with every single format played with – different geometries, different materials,” says Morgan. “Very little of that exists for scooters, as yet.” The agility and aesthetic of the Bo M reflects the backgrounds of the company founders (luxury automotive and Formula One), from the aluminium unibody to the trademarked steering system, and right down to its bag hook. In comparison to a fairly dilapidated rental e-scooter I’d ridden around my home town in Essex, the Bo M felt positively grandiose. “You’d turn up for a date on a Bo and not feel like a dork,” Morgan assures me, and he may well be right.

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