VW’s City Skater will have no problems with parking.
VW
The car brands in the Volkswagen Group–VW, Škoda, SEAT and Audi–are promoting last-mile “micromobility” solutions including e-scooters. Why? Because the car era is coming to an end, at least for cities. That is the obvious conclusion from a July 3 posting from the group which states: “Answers are needed to avoid the threat of traffic collapse on the one hand and to meet the changing demands of modern mobility on the other.”
The statement worries about the “capacity utilization of the roads” and, instead of insisting that more roads should be built–a demand automakers have long made but which only led to greater congestion through the agency of “induced demand”–the company is seeking to remain relevant to millennials and others by jumping on the micromobility bandwagon. The group released a number of micromobility products at last year’s Geneva Motor Show and has today promoted them in a group posting.
“On its way from being the world’s largest automobile manufacturer to a leading provider of sustainable mobility, the Volkswagen Group has developed a whole range of innovative products and services for urban areas,” says the posting, which has a graphic fretting about “impending driving bans.”
The promoted products include the Volkswagen Cityskater three-wheel scooter, an e-bike from Škoda, a microcar from SEAT and Audi’s e-scooter. “Micromobility is being taken seriously in the Volkswagen Group,” stresses the corporate, predicting that “commuters [will] switch to smart micromobiles.”
It’s all about the flow, reckons VW, and cars don’t cut it.
VW
VW Group companies recognize that cities around the globe are slowly but surely designing out car use, which is space-inefficient, in exchange for better public transit systems, protected cycleways and wider, better sidewalks. Electric cars may be zero-emission-at-source but they take up the same space as internal combustion engine cars.
“Innovative vehicle concepts have the potential to change people’s mobility behavior in the long term and make even more efficient use of limited traffic space,” asserts the VW Group.
VW Streetmate – car badge on a last-mile solution scooter.
VW
Describing the Volkswagen Cityskater three-wheel e-scooter as a “last-mile surfer,” the VW Group statement added it was “about to be ready for series production.” The 350-watt motor on the scooter has a 15 kilometer range and can power it to 20 kmh. It can be easily “taken on the subway,” VW’s admission that car use in cities is so last century.
“With a range of 60 kilometers, [the Streetmate] is a clever alternative to the car for medium distances in the city,” says the VW statement, adding that “parking problems are a thing of the past,” another key problem car users face, with urban parking spaces currently at a premium and likely to become even more scarce and expensive in the future as cities remove curbside bays in order to discourage urban motoring.
VW’s Streetmate in action.
VW
For those who must drive, their cars will have to shrink, thinks SEAT, which is producing the Minimó microcar which “combines the benefits of an electric car with [the] minimal parking space requirement of a motorcycle.”
Škoda is to produce the Klement, an electric bike that does not require pedal power–this is “aimed at young people who are looking for an alternative to cars and classic bicycles,” says the VW Group. And Audi is to roll out the e-tron Scooter.
Last year VW unveiled a cargobike concept and, in December last year, SEAT introduced its eXS e-scooter, selling 7,000 of them to date. The tilting cargobike will enter the cargo bike market before the end of this year, says the VW Group statement.
