Scooter Story
Tracking the history of one of the worlds most influential vehicles
First Published AA Directions
"Sembra una vespa!" - "It resembles a wasp," declared Enrico Piaggio, while considering the rear end of a new powered two wheeler.
On 23 April 1946 a patent was issued for the Wasp and from that moment on powered mobility would never be the same. The Vespa was to become a vehicle that changed lives, moving millions of people across the globe, from India to Italy. It ushered in a new Italian verb - ‘vespare’, meaning ‘to go somewhere on a Vespa’. More than 16 million Vespa scooters have been made to date, manufactured in 13 countries.
This scooter had pleasing aesthetics, was cheap, reliable and easy to ride. The step-through meant that women wearing skirts could ride without fuss, and the single side fork meant that a flat tyre was easily changed.
In the fifties the Vespa became (and remains to this day) a cultural icon, immortalized in Hollywood movies such as Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn.
A Vespa scooter became my first form of transport in the 70’s. Together with my girlfriend, a long overcoat and some winklepicker shoes, I scooted around Auckland, emulating the mods in England who rode scooters in flocks and embellished them with multiple mirrors, lights and chrome storage racks.
I purchased my second Vespa in my late forties.
“Mid life crisis?”
“Nope – congestion crisis” – although I can’t deny the déjà vu thrill of zipping through central Auckland on an iconic two wheeler and the simple pleasure of gliding past a traffic snarl.
Inspiration for the original Vespa came from a small skeletal green motorcycle that was parachuted down by the American military during WW2. It was called the Cushman Airborne M53 and was based on earlier models that responded to the need to move people during the Great Depression of 1936.
Vespa was not the only company to be influenced by the Cushman Airborne. At around the same time, the Italian company Innocenti started manufacturing the Lambretta. Keeping to the original intent of the scooter, the idea was to create a scooter that was low cost and could be used by the masses in post-war Europe.
Later, the government in India, also seeking a cost-effective form of transport for people in poverty, purchased the Innocenti brand and exported the Italian manufacturing factory including all its equipment: lock, stock and barrel, recreating the exact same manufacturing facility in India. With increased mobility came new opportunities and economic growth. In a sense, the scooter was a cornerstone for India’s development.
The scooter was - and still is - the dominant form of transport for developing countries from South America to China.
Less well know than the Italian scooters, in Japan, six months before the Vespa began manufacture, production began on the Fuji Rabbit, which again borrowed from the Cushman Airborne. It was enormously successful and is credited as one of the 240 landmarks in the history of Japanese vehicle manufacturing. Like the Vespa, the Fuji Rabbit made its way onto the screen and entered Japanese pop culture.
Today the scooter has a growing importance for society's mobility, as it did in post-war Europe and developing countries, albeit for slightly different reasons.
In Belgium, a study conducted in 2011 concluded that if even 10% of car drivers would give up their vehicles for a motorcycle or scooter, traffic congestion would be reduced by 40%. Such a shift would save 15,000 hours lost in traffic jams each day, equivalent to around $500,000: a productivity dividend not to be sneezed at.
Over 80% of the world's population is living in cities which are becoming denser. In the quest to reduce congestion, planners have encouraged walking, cycling and better use of public transport. There is no denying that in the battle to reduce traffic jams these are potent mechanisms - but so too is the use of scooters.
It makes sense that planners start to cater for them – and other powered two wheelers (PTW’s). Australia has now some 700,000 people commuting on motorcycles and scooters. Between now and 2016, Brisbane is creating 400 new parking spaces for PTW’s. In some parts of Sydney motorcyclists can park for free. And in Melbourne, motorcycles and scooters can legally park on footpaths.
Scooters can be dangerous, and, reasonably, policy makers view PTW’s through the prism of safety. Proper road planning and policies to cater for PTW’s can increase safety, with the flow-on environmental and congestion benefits, not to mention better utilisation of the physical space allotted to car parks: turning grey spaces into green spaces.
Modern scooters need not have the kind of power we are familiar with in motorcycles. Whilst purists might frown upon anything less than 250cc, the largest selling two wheeler in history, selling more than 60 million units and growing, is the 50cc Honda Cub, still in manufacture today. It is the little engine that could, epitomising reliability and economy.
There are currently over 200 million scooters worldwide and their aforementioned benefits will ensure their increasing popularity in the years to come, especially with one other consideration in mind; the future scooter can help reform our use of energy.
On a trip to Beijing, China a few years ago, I became aware of the hundreds of electric scooters zooming past me. I was astonished to learn that there are currently around 65 million electric PTW’s in China, many of them scooters. Today, one in three inhabitants in China is going electric. Electric scooters are literally powering ahead.
Founded by Horace Luke, one-time Chief Innovation Officer at the HTC Phone Company and funded by Taiwanese billionaires, ‘Gogoro’ is an all-new scooter revolution. It promises not just an electric powered scooter, but a whole new infrastructure and mindset around the utilisation of energy. What the Double A battery did for consumer electronics, propose the manufacturers, the Gogoro battery will do for motorised transport.
For Gogoro to work effectively, a network infrastructure has to be established in each city, with ubiquitous stations the size of an ATM, storing interchangeable Gogoro smart batteries.
The Gogoro scooter is ‘smart power’, as in ‘smart phone’. It is set to take advantage of what has been on the drawing board for a long time. Smart phones connecting with smart scooters will feed a continual ‘cloud loop’ of information streamed live to a Gogoro scooter, which will enhance performance in every way. Where is the closest battery change station? The quickest route to a destination? Road works ahead? Parking?
Modern cities combine residential living with commerce. Planners for New Zealand cities are encouraging this trend. Noise pollution is becoming an increasing problem in inner cities, where residents need to contend with everything from noisy buses to leaf blowers. Electric scooters (and other PTW’s) offer both a reduction in air pollution as well as noise pollution.
The recent GFC, increasing house prices, climate change, depleting fossil fuels, urban intensification and forecasted population growth are indicators that New Zealand could benefit from the scooter commuter. New Zealand could well be the testing ground for the introduction of a new energy platform for vehicles.
Go, Gogoro!
End