Never Fold 

Oscar Morgan - Bo CEO - November 2025

- A unique scooter design
- Folding has advantages for storing and carrying the scooter
- Folding has disadvantages for ride quality, safety and longevity

Zero ai: Bo does not use Ai to write, because we believe you’ve come here to speak to humans not Nvidia GPUs. That will mean that some of our language has errors, and we feel that’s a price worth paying. 

An unusual feature of the Model-M scooter is that it does not fold. That’s unusual because it is a scooter, of course. You do not expect your car or your bicycle, or in fact the vast majority of your products to fold. You haven’t expected your phone to fold since 2008.

But in the world of scooters, one of the neat features has always been that the steerer of the scooter can break in the middle, allowing it to hinge down and attach to the treadboard. That gives the rider a smaller vehicle to carry, and a handle to carry it with - undeniably useful.

When we were making the biggest design decision on Bo - not folding - there had to be seriously compelling reasons against the fold. Whenever you remove a feature you potentially reduce the buyer market, and as such it must be considered carefully. 

The Monocurve looks tough, whether you're an engineer or not

The primary theme that Bo was designed to was ‘always get you home’. Therefore every design decision was taken through the lens of whether it makes the vehicle more robust or more fragile.

The second theme that Bo was designed under was to be the best riding experience of any scooter in the world.

The third theme that Bo was designed under was to be incredibly beautiful and stylish.

On every single one of these themes the fold was a negative. On toughness, the biggest recalls in the entire scooter sector have been due to weak hinges breaking. On ride quality, the fold creates a flimsy, floppy area that makes you feel less connected to the vehicle. And on style, it is very rare for anything that folds to look more beautiful and elegant than a unibody (think, flip-phone vs iphone) and scooters are no exception.

This is non-ideal 

The first time I rode a monocurve chassis it was the most astounding improvement I had ever experienced in a scooter. After becoming used to flimsy, unsettling products that had to be ridden with a white-knuckle grip the Monocurve was instantly solid and confidence inspiring. 

And importantly, that was on the first ever prototype - a laser-cut monster we code-named Exobo! It looked like a piece of agricultural equipment and yet it rode better than any scooter I had ever tried at that stage. 

Since one of our priorities was to have the best ride, there was clearly something fundamentally ‘right’ about moving to a single piece, unibody construction. 

After a further three years of refinement and innovation, the Monocurve chassis is not only the most advanced frame in the entire scooter sector - it is one of the most exciting and unique vehicle structures I have ever been involved with. It makes the vehicle visually attractive, approachable, and packages all of the functions into one neat homogenous form. Best of all, that solidity that was so obvious on the first ride has been improved and improved, so that it is now an exceptional riding experience.

Where most scooters appear to be a hodge-podge assembly of three or four different products rolled into one (part skateboard, part bicycle, a sprinkle of shopping trolley) the Bo Monocurve looks like how a ‘vehicle’ is meant to be. We stopped designing cars like the Model-T Ford eighty years ago, it seems a shame to have regressed so much when it comes to scooters.

If it looks right, it drives right

So the question is, with these issues of solidity, ride, and aesthetics - is will Bo ever produce a folding scooter.

The truth is that every single one of those issues can be solved for.
Our super-strength at Bo is design and engineering, and we can create an incredibly tough hinge. We can also make it solid enough to ride well, and we can even find ways to make it beautiful. It will probably never be as beautiful as the unibody Bo, but we can definitely get close. 

That is then where the context of our company over the last five years becomes relevant - and I say that aware that it is an ‘us’ problem rather than a ‘you’ problem.

One of the biggest scooter recalls in history was by a company called Segway, a multi-billion dollar Chinese brand who make the world’s most popular folding scooter each year. The recall was for hinges breaking, on hundreds of thousands of scooters, and it is some indication of how challenging it is to produce a hinge that is completely bulletproof.

Even $150M design budget doesn't guarantee success

Bo is not a multi-million dollar giant, the Model-M is hand-built in batches of up to 500 vehicles. If we had a hinge issue such as Segway did, not only would it have been annoying for our riders, it would have been terminal for the company.

The Bo M is an incredibly tough e-scooter, designed to always get you home. This is good for our riders and essential for the company - in short, it keeps everyone safe. 

As we continue to grow, the three hinge challenges - toughness, ride quality and aesthetic - become something we can fix. With enough design, engineering and testing anything can be made to work. After all, we’re talking about a hinge, not rocket engineering. 

One of the great things about Bo today is that we invest every dollar available into creating better and better products. We have never taken a profit out of the company, and every time you buy a Bo you are contributing directly to a future with brilliant lightweight electric vehicles that improve the places you live.

As a sneak preview, then, we are focused on ways to make sure that a more portable, and more easily stored Bo eventually joins the range, without sacrificing the incredible ride dynamics and durability that make today’s Bo so special. The title of this article is perhaps a little mis-leading… 

OJM. 


If you're interested in reading more - Link to Articles 

If you'd like to look at Bo M more closely - Link to Model M 

If you'd like to read about The Turbo Land-speed scooter - Link to Turbo