Micromobility Will Change Our Cities

If you live in a big city like I do, it’s pretty likely you’ve seen small electric vehicles – e-bikes, scooters, or similar – zooming around.

Personal vehicles of that sort are rapidly becoming more popular as city-dwellers come to realise they don’t have to make short trips around town in chunky, expensive cars. In the EU-28 (EU plus the UK), e-bike unit sales grew from less than 100,000 in 2006 to around 3.4m in 2019. By 2030, unit sales could hit 13.5m if the legislative environment remains supportive, according to a report published by the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

There’s a name for this sort of transport: micromobility. That term encompasses any vehicle, usually electric, that weighs less than 500 kilograms (around 1100 pounds). As those vehicles become  rapidly more popular, they will fundamentally change the way we interact with our cities. This week’s podcast guest is the world’s leading expert on what that change will look like.

Horace Dediu wrote the book on micromobility. He …