Sustainable Mobility
Clues to Unlocking the Mobility Revolution
part 1 / Innovations in Product Design
This is the first article in a series exploring some emerging themes around sustainable mobility. Not a feed of the latest developments — the good people over at Electrek and Micromobility Industries are doing the hard work there — but more one enthusiast’s way of thinking out loud by examining products and services, and hopefully having a conversation around some of the questions and challenges that we face as we work to reduce our over-reliance on cars.
Note: I use the term “Sustainable Mobility” as an all-encompassing current best-fit to encompass micromobility, minimobility, shared mobility, etc.
The outstanding question at the recent 2023 Micromobility Europe conference could be summed up as the following — “What’s it going to take to unlock real growth for micromobility, and deliver the myriad benefits that it promises?” In their own ways, various exhibitors, speakers and panelists showed how the industry is addressing the challenges around product fit to use cases, variations between markets, affordability, behavior & lifestyle change, funding, policy, etc.
In this piece, I’ll start with what is perhaps the most tangible topic — product design & innovation — before getting into others such as access, behavior change, infrastructure, policy, etc. in future installments.
Product Evolution
In the past couple of years, we’ve seen the product selection for sustainable mobility evolve to appeal to those beyond experienced bicyclists and leisure riders of e-KickScooters. e-Bikes are making cycling accessible to commuters who can afford the higher price points, but may not be at the prime fitness level required to get to the office without breaking a sweat.
And now with the 3rd generation of e-KickScooters, we’re starting to see manufacturers adapting & differentiating their products to suit everyday customer needs & use cases, and service providers considering the ramifications of using non-disposable product. (The 1st generation were those cheap throwaways whose fragility seemed to be asking for a watery end in a canal; the 2nd generation were more sturdy and durable, but also heavier versions of the same design concept)
With beautifully-designed but remarkably different products, two of the standout e-KickScooters at the show — from TAITO and Hilo Ev — demonstrated how rider comfort, safety, and adaptability for multi-modal journeys could be the key drivers of this next round of evolution, and adoption by the early majority.
A More Natural Ride
TAITO’s S1 (€2500) was voted the best e-KickScooter at the conference. Its core appeal lies in its intuitive rideability, and a design that overtly expresses how it achieves that.
Intuitive Movement and Ride Stability
The S1 has three large wheels (two in the front), and as a self-standing vehicle, it immediately appears more approachable to a new rider than your average two-wheeled scooter. The front axle incorporates a tilting mechanism which allows the rider to steer by leaning into the curve while turning the handlebars — a movement familiar to anyone who has ridden a bicycle.
The inherent stability of the base is complemented by a suspension system for enhanced ride comfort. The front wheel assembly and steering pillar are isolated from the back of the frame by a shock-absorbing joint, and the riding deck is connected to the frame through rubber shock-absorbers. You would be correct in guessing that the designers of this scooter are intimately familiar with how bumpy our streets can get — they hail from the lovely city of Ghent.
The control system for the S1 includes an e-ABS brake to keep the rear wheel from locking, and to capture energy through regeneration. And its lights turn on automatically at dusk, with the rear light maximizing visibility by lighting up the back of the rider. If there’s one area that could have used more consideration it’s the ride controls, which feel like an add-on as opposed to a more holistically-integrated aspect of this otherwise superb design.
Eyes-Up, Not Down
The overall effect of all this is (1) to make riding an S1 feel less tippy despite the high center of gravity, and less vulnerable to the unpredictability of street surfacing, and (2) to make the rider feel more embodied in the dynamics of riding, and more connected to their environment. All of which speaks to the critical role of comfort, control, and confidence in making riding safer, and thereby more accessible to a broader audience.
The First/Last-Mile Scooter
With an undeniably sleek, streamlined look evocative of the form language of cars and motorcycles, the Hilo ONE (£1750) has a more commanding presence than your average e-KickScooter.
Adaptive Transformation
The elegant design folds into a compact shell—handlebars down, footrests up, rear wheel tucked under — which can sit stable in either a vertical orientation — ready to be pulled along — or horizontally with both wheels (likely dirty after riding) clear of the resting surface. The ONE is light enough (14kg) to be carried on public transportation, or to be lifted into and out of the trunk of a car — in which its shorter collapsed form would likely fit along the depth as opposed the taking up the width, making it the perfect high-tech last-mile complement.
Safety — Posture, Technology and Communication
The footrests are set side-by-side, allowing for a more comfortable and intuitive riding posture — certainly for the average not-so-youthful-any-more auto commuter.
Technology is applied in a number of ways to enhance safety. The ONE requires the rider’s helmet to be present in order to be activated (not sure whether we’re just talking about presence to deter theft, or also confirmation that the rider is wearing the helmet). An onboard HMI communicates speed, charge level and directions, and works in concert with audio and haptic feedback to reduce visual distraction. Cameras coupled with the same AI image processing technologies that enable ADAS systems in car, enhance rider awareness of hidden or potential dangers.
And to top it all off, an appealing sensor-driven lighting system wraps around the edges of the vehicle, and enhances safety by increasing visibility and communicating rider intent as well as hazards to other road users. Could there be something in Hilo’s urban- and socially-oriented approach to the application of safety technology that auto OEMs could learn from?
Safety at the Forefront
Neither of these scooters could be mistaken for the oversized toys that have come before them, and both justify their relatively high price points through their utility for non-leisure uses — allowing us to stay safe under the kinds of mental and situational stresses of everyday life that often keep us from being completely present.
The trend of incorporating safety technologies developed in the automotive world into other formats is manifesting in various ways. Anti-theft technologies and app-based customization & logging have been a key enabler for e-Bikes. Bosch and other suppliers are making ABS technology more widely available. And the new Twinner T1 e-Bike from Thömus offers a rear camera view on its HMI.
As these concepts diffuse across different form factors, and get tested out in production, it will be interesting to see how these features cluster around products for different use cases and price tiers, and which ones prove most valuable to customers. What is also encouraging to see in the instances of the TAITO S1 and the Hilo ONE is how — as opposed to leaning solely into a technology story — design presentation, ride feel, and rider confidence are being leveraged as key enablers of safety.
eBikes are the Format of Choice
Switching modes, McKinsey’s Center for Future Mobility presented some interesting numbers at the conference, which bear digging into. Of the various non-car formats available, e-Bikes appear to hold the greatest appeal for customers across Germany (60%), Greater China (53%), and the United States (42%). One might surmise that despite all the focus on shared e-KickScooter services as the public face of sustainable mobility, e-Bikes may be where the action really is.
Tellingly, despite their novelty — and no doubt amplified by their high price points — e-Bikes already command half the bicycle value pools across Europe, Greater China and the United States ($44B out of $88B) and are projected to almost triple to $114B by 2030 — with the majority of the growth occurring in Europe. This makes sense given the pace at which European cities have been restricting automobile access to urban centers, and the greater distances that can be covered comfortably on a bicycle.
Building on decades of activism for bicycle safety as well as the long-overdue shift in transportation planning from being purely car-centric to more thoughtfully multi-modal, electrification has given cycling the critical boost it needed for adoption as a serious mode of everyday transportation beyond the hardcore user.
But it’s not entirely obvious that electrified cycling as we know it will be adopted everywhere in the same form.
The Dissembling eBike
In contrast to the dominant design themes of speed, technology and assertive geometry, Ampler Bikes has been emphasizing a classic bicycle design language that allows its products to blend in, and so perhaps appear more approachable.
Hide in Plain Sight
Sure, there’s a motor on the rear hub, and a mini-HMI on the top tube to display range/battery level, distance covered, and speed; but the battery is incorporated into a regular-width down tube, and none of these elements drive the form in the same way that they do in the e-Bikes that have been popular amongst the tech-forward set.
And if there’s one thing that might be axiomatic about sustainable mobility, it’s that — as opposed to the automobile and its enabling road network, which have been applied across the world in degrees approximating the same ideal — in order to avoid the unsustainable and suffocating uniformity of auto-rama, sustainable mobility necessarily encompasses a broad range of solutions which are specific to locality, culture, inhabitation patterns, and personal lifestyle.
So while we might say that an Ampler hides in plain sight in order to lessen scrutiny and to shake off any lingering early adopter vibes in the developed world, in other markets where e-mobility may be challenged for reasons such as affordability, liability to theft, and lack of access to power where you park, more modular and portable solutions may be in order.
Clip On. Clip Off
Enter CLIP — the electric motor+battery that clips on to each side of the front wheel fork and powers the pedal bicycle that you already own — which won the conference award for best eBike. Whatever it may lack in seductive form, it’s an elegant solution that allows riders to upgrade their existing bike(s), avoid the significantly greater weight and risk of theft associated with an eBike, and charge the portable unit without requiring power where they park.
The CLIP is currently only available for purchase in the US for $549. Yes, Gotham and the City by the Bay as two examples are places where no one would dare lock up an e-Bike in public — and the cherry-on-top benefit here is peace of mind. Distribution in developing world markets may come with a lower price by virtue of some of the same public policy drivers and incentives that are enabling the rapid uptake of swappable battery tech for two-wheelers.
The Livall Pikaboost (currently $339 on IndieGoGo, discounted from $599) operates in a similar fashion, but attaches to the seat post to drive the rear wheel, and includes smart bonus features such as a rear light, and USB charging. (Note that eBike conversion kits have been available for a while now, but they’re designed to be installed on bike, as opposed to being an instantly attachable-removable accessory.)
Outro
To summarize some of my takeaways from this scan …
Product and Ecosystem Maturity is Critical to Adoption
In conversations advocating for the adoption of alternatives to the car, when using the terms “scooter” or “bicycle”, we are too easily tripped up by a limited common understanding of what is possible based on what is currently available. (I’d add that this statement is also true of the car, but that’s a topic for another day.)
For too long these formats have been considered as appropriate for leisure — whether child or adult — but have not been optimized for serious everyday use for transportation. Considerations such as simplicity of operation, the challenge of staying clean and dry, the ability to carry cargo, the challenge of security, etc. — have been addressed to a limited extent through product & accessory design, but not systematically.
Serious use requires thoughtful consideration of the entire ecosystem and lifecycle — design, distribution, consideration, acquisition, learning, capability development, licensing, security, charging, repair, accountability, disposal, etc. And also the the social context in which such a change might be viable. There are good reasons why the havens of sustainable mobility that we keep referring back to — The Netherlands, Copenhagen, etc., and now Paris — are able to function as such.
Context is King — and that Context is Urban and Social
Micromobility as a serious mode of transportation — as opposed to as a form of leisure — is most viable in and around cities, and is an excellent solution for the mobility challenges posed by urban habitation. Population density is both the constraint that forces us to adopt smaller and less-burdensome form factors, as well as the enabling basis that allows us to afford the investment required to provision infrastructure and services.
Designing for use in dense urban contexts forces us to look at the challenges posed by the density and unpredictability of various actors, variations in speeds of motion, multi-modal switching, etc., but also the opportunities afforded by the sheer variety of options, sharing of resources, interpersonal engagement, and connection to our context.
In addition as has always been true for public transit — sustainable mobility has a role to play in how we as citizens interact with each other. Here again, infrastructure is critical — note, sidewalk scooter riding & parking, safer micro- and mini-mobility lanes, etc. But so too is social etiquette and individual responsibility. Micromobility in particular, eliminates the hard shell that the automobile has for so long afforded us as a shield for and against asocial and antisocial behavior. And in doing so, it exposes how much space the gaps in the design of our systems leave for human ingenuity and misbehavior.
I hope this offers a few threads for you to pull on. Much of what I understand about this topic, I’ve learnt from reading and talking to others.
In the next piece, I will look at either (a) service ecosystems, infrastructure, and policy, or (b) different ways in which access models and financing are key to getting consumers to down-shift from their two-ton Lightning McQueens, by allowing them to explore new possibilities and figure out how to manage their own portfolio of mobility options.
