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The Details Are Not Just the Details
Oscar Morgan - Bo CEO - July 2025
Everyone can reach 90%, maybe even 95%. The Bo difference is where we have re-designed even the smallest parts of your ride, and why elevates it from a product you tolerate to one you love.
What Jony Taught Us About Care
I recently saw a short video of Jony Ive [Apple’s legendary designer] talking about the importance of a power cable.
He explained that when something as minor as a charging lead is thoughtfully designed, it sends a clear message to the user: someone gave a damn about me.
That’s not just industrial design philosophy, it’s engineering with emotion - and in a world of mass-produced sameness we believe it matters.
For Bo, the Details Are the Experience
This mindset lives at the heart of how we built Bo. While 'hell yeah' power and ride quality are often what people rave about first, the real Bo magic comes from a hundred smaller decisions.
It’s why we’ve spent five years obsessing over things like where to hang your bag.
Or how to fully lock up your scooter in 10 seconds flat.
Or how to ensure you’re never uncomfortably navigating through the dark with underpowered lighting.
These aren’t afterthoughts, they’re the whole point.
Because the mission at Bo isn’t just to get you from A to B, it’s to Enjoy Every Journey.
The Problem with Most E-Scooters
The issues we encountered with our Segway and other e-scooters are probably the same as you have:
- Fragile rear mudguards that crack and break when stood on
- Awkward charge ports hidden down by the wheels
- Buttons that feel like they were borrowed from a 1990s calculator
These things are liveable with, they don’t 'ruin' the product.
But they do quietly tell you 'you’re not the priority, making it cheaply is'.
Strong Where Others Snap: The Bo Mudguard
Case in point: the rear mudguard.
It’s one of the most commonly broken components on every normal scooter you’ll see in a city. The design just isn’t built for real-world usage.
When I gave someone a lift on the back of a Segway, they accidentally stepped on the rear guard - and cracked it instantly. It's not super flattering to your partner when this happens.
More to the point, it should never happen. So at Bo, we reinforced ours with a forged internal metal plate.
What that means in practice:
- You can step on it accidentally, lean on it while riding, or drop your bag on it.
- You can pick the whole vehicle up with it.
- You won’t hear that dreaded crack.
- Your tyre won’t start rubbing halfway home.
You might never even notice it’s reinforced, and that’s sort of the point. Thoughtful design should be invisible until it saves you.
The Power Button: Juicy Size, so Glove-Proof
Another detail? The power mode button.
On most scooters, it’s a tiny scratchy plastic nub you have to stab with your nail - always awkward and darn-near impossible with gloves on. Why are they like this? Because it’s super cheap and easy to buy off-the-shelf.
The way we see it, the power button is your first physical interaction with the scooter. That moment should feel purposeful.
That’s why we created the Bo Power Lozenge:
- Full thumb-sized
- Precise click feel
- Designed via dozens of prototypes
- Easy to use in gloves, wet weather, or winter
It's a small thing, absolutely. But every ride, when it clicks just right, you’ll know why it mattered.
Three Levels of Care: The Bo Charging Experience
I'll finish by talking about something even less sexy: the charge port.
This might be one of the biggest indicators of whether a scooter brand really cares about you, because for $5 any company can fit the exact same crappy charging cable and charge port as all the others.
For Bo, this was one annoyance with our existing scooters that we were absolutely going to solve, and it involved three levels of 'care':
Level One: Port Placement
Other e-scooter brands place the port low down on the deck to save money: it’s easy to assemble on a fast-moving production line and only requires a short cable.
But it also means:
- You’re kneeling on the ground to plug in.
- You can’t see what you’re doing in the dark.
- It ends up covered in crud and crap.
So for Bo, we moved the port up onto the rear of the steerer: easy to see, easy to reach, and away from the dirt and detritus of the road.
Level Two: Right-Angle Connector
Scooter charger connectors are usually awkward and orientation-sensitive. Like an old-style USB, you end up trying 5 orientations before finally sliding in.
Bo uses a right-angle connector, so you know if it’s aligned even completely blind - the tail always hangs down. Grab, in, done.
Level Three: Cable Design
Black plastic cable? Cheap and invisible.
Bo’s cable is bright orange, thick, tactile, and hard to trip over. It feels solid in your hand. It looks purposeful.
You won’t miss it. More importantly, you won’t resent using it.
Other Micro-Details That Change the Ride
We could write a full article about any one of these, but here’s a few clues to look out for when riding:
- Lighting animations that greet you and actually make you smile
- A proper 'ding ding' bell, aesthetically matched to the cockpit.
- E-brake calibration so good it feels like magic
- A tiny embossed Airdeck logo that you only notice when the light hits it just right
None of these change your speed or range, but they remind you over and over that this product was built with you in mind.
The Bottom Line
Most electric scooters are built purely for margin. Bo is genuinely built for meaning. Every curve, cable, and click exists to take pride, and to improve your journey.
That’s why Bo isn’t just a vehicle - it’s a riding experience designed to feel like someone out there really gives a damn, and understands that you do too.
Other Articles in this Series:
- Bo as the Ultimate Segway Upgrade
- Is Bo Legal in My Country? Full European Scooter Law Guide 2025
-
Why Bo's Ride Feels So Different
What Is This Series About?
This post is part of an article series where we’ll look at how Bo stacks up against some of the most popular electric scooters in the UK and USA. From the Segway Ninebot GMax, to Pure Electric, Navee, Xiaomi, Apollo, and more.
If you’re currently Googling:
- “Best electric scooter UK 2025”
- “Segway GMax vs Bo”
- “Electric scooter with hill power”
- “Alternatives to Segway, Carrera or Haiboy”
- “What’s better than Segway GMax?”
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Link to Bo Model-M: https://bo.world/pages/bo-m
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