By Carlton Reid, Forbes, Mar 18, 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/03/18/bicycling-take-a-hike-the-micromobility-revolution-will-be-motorized/#7db299d4135d
Bicycling isn’t micromobility but add a motor and it is. That’s one of the definitions suggested by tech industry analyst Horace Dediu, founder of the Asymco podcast which majors on the “automobility reformation,” or how driving is being disrupted. Dediu is considered the coiner of the word “micromobility,” using it in the title of a 2017 conference.
At that first Micromobility Summit, held in Copenhagen, Denmark, thirty or so delegates started to wrestle with what exactly was meant by the word.
Micromobility is roofless short-distance urban transport, and includes Lime-style electric scooters, Jump-style electric bikes and take-your-pick from any number of gyroscopic mono-wheels that now jostle – often illegally – with pedestrians on the sidewalk.
“Cycling is one part of [micromobility] but the thing about machines that help us move is going to be more focused on motorized machines,” Dediu remarked in that first show.
And despite others thinking “analog” bicycles must be micromobility machines, Dediu is sticking to his original definition.
“Cycling is one part of [micromobility] but the thing about machines that help us move is going to be more focused on motorized machines,” Dediu remarked in that first show.
And despite others thinking “analog” bicycles must be micromobility machines, Dediu is sticking to his original definition.
However, the report estimates that micromobility will “cannibalize” only about 8 to 15% of this theoretical market because scooters – even motorized ones – suffer from the problems also identified by Dediu, including “weather conditions, age fit, and micromobility’s lower presence in rural areas.”
