Small ‘micromobility’ vehicles gain traction amid rising car prices

(NEW YORK) — Back in the 1980s, Honda sold a city car in Japan called, appropriately, the Honda City. It would have been a normal hatchback, were it not for what came in the trunk: a Honda motor scooter that drivers could fold up and store in the trunk of the City. It was called the Motocompo, and it was a vehicle that belonged to a sector transportation experts call “micromobility.”

David Zipper, a senior fellow at the MIT Mobility Initiative, noted that the segment encompasses a range of vehicles.

“Scooters, it can include bikes and e-bikes. Cargo e-bikes sometimes. Where it starts to get a little hazy is when you get into things like mopeds which are a little bit faster. And even golf carts some people group into this category of micromobility,” Zipper told ABC Audio.

The segment has seen an explosion of growth in the last 15 to 20 years, he said. The average price of a new car in the U.S. is just under $48,000, according to recent data from Cox Automotive. And while that’s down slightly from its 2022 peak, for many Americans, it’s still expensive to buy a car. That’s why Zipper said many are now turning to the micromobility sector.

“You’ve seen a variety of different types of innovations and new technologies take hold that have allowed for a lot of different form factors and a lot of different use cases of micromobility,” Zipper said.

Consequently, new companies are emerging to serve the burgeoning market. In an unassuming New York City building across from Brooklyn’s McCarren Park, a startup called Infinite Machine is putting the finishing touches on its take on a micromobility vehicle: an electric scooter called the P1.

The first thing that stands out about the P1 — the company’s first product — is the looks. The scooter has flat, slab-like body panels with sharp edges, all trimmed in black and what looks like stainless steel.

“We were inspired by vehicles like the Delorean and the Cybertruck,” Eddie Cohen, the president of Infinite Machine, said. 

He founded the company alongside his brother, CEO Joe Cohen, and the two first unveiled the P1 to the public in 2023.

“Imagine like a Vespa from the future,” Joe Cohen said. “It’s made from aluminum and steel … and it’s super high performance.”

The Cohens told ABC Audio this is the first vehicle in its class to come with Apple CarPlay. The phone-mirroring technology is viewable on a small touchscreen, where riders can also pull up exterior cameras. They’re primarily for “safety and insurance purposes,” Joe Cohen said, but the cameras have other uses.

“If you want to make some content on your ride and record your commute,” he said. “Also when it’s parked if someone screws with your vehicle, you can record that and use that as evidence for the authorities.”

The P1 can go about 60 miles on a charge, according to Infinite Machine. The battery of the P1, which is located in the scooter’s floor, is removable, meaning city dwellers can take it into their homes or apartments to fill up on electricity.

“The power needs for a vehicle like ours are so much lower. You can charge this thing with a normal outlet, you don’t need a special charger. So the question of like infrastructure — charging infrastructure — it’s not relevant for a vehicle like ours,” Joe Cohen said.

Advancements in battery technology are a big reason the micromobility segment is booming, and not just for electric scooters like the P1, Zipper noted.

“Turns out when you stick a battery on a bicycle — it becomes far more useful,” he said.

Electric power allows micromobility vehicles to behave more like traditional cars, according to Zipper.

“Maybe you want to arrive at work without being really sweaty,” he said. “Or you are having some mobility issues and you’re a little bit older and you really value that extra oomph to get up a hill. Maybe you want to be able to power a bicycle with a storage area to bring your kids to school or to get groceries.”

But riding a bike — even an electrically assisted one — in certain big-city environments raises safety concerns.

Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates more than 360,000 injuries related to micromobility devices were treated in emergency rooms across the country between 2017 to 2022. In that timeframe, there were more than 230 deaths, according to the commission.

A micromobility device like a bike or a scooter having to share the road with cars and trucks is “a recipe for in the best case scenario discomfort and in the worst case scenario a crash that could lead to death,” Zipper said.

He suggested the solution is to build out dedicated infrastructure: things like bike lanes that are protected by concrete barriers. It’s something he said many major metropolitan areas are already doing.

“In the last fifteen years or so, you’ve seen a lot of cities in the US, and frankly in other parts of the world too, invest a lot of money and resources in creating safe spaces for people who want to use a scooter, or a bicycle, or any of these other versions of micromobility that we’re talking about,” Zipper said.

But it hasn’t been smooth sailing. Community boards have clashed with homeowners and businesses in cities across the country over the rollout of dedicated bike infrastructure, with detractors angry about losing valuable parking space. In one New York City neighborhood, residents even made lawn signs reading “No Bike Lanes” in big bold letters. Meanwhile, organizations like the NYC E-Vehicle Alliance have cropped up to advocate for micromobility regulation amid rising rates of injuries and deaths.

In the meantime, Joe Cohen of Infinite Machine said at least some of this is going to fall on riders practicing safe driving habits.

“Until our city looks more friendly toward small vehicles like this, we have to just be really aware,” he said. “And our job is to not only design really safe vehicles on the hardware side, but also to educate our riders about how to be defensive and to take their own safety seriously.”

The P1 retails for $10,000 — putting it firmly at the top end of the micromobility market.

“We know we’re more expensive than the competition and we did that intentionally because we did not want to cheap out or value-engineer this product,” Eddie Cohen said.

His brother put it a slightly different way.

“It’s cheaper than the cheapest cars,” Joe Cohen said.

A little lower down on the price ladder is the Motocompacto, an electric scooter Honda unveiled last year that retails for around $1,000. It doesn’t have nearly as much space as the Infinite Machine, and just a fraction of the electric range. But when it’s not being used, it folds up into a briefcase-like shape that can be stowed in the trunk of a car.