First electric scooter series on mission to push safer micromobility

LONDON : Organisers of the world's first electric scooter series say they are on a mission to promote and develop micromobility as a safe and integrated element of city life after a race debut in London.

Khalil Beschir, a co-founder of the eSkootr championship, saw a role similar even to the one played by motorsport in the early days of the automobile.

"Yes, we are creating a new sport, we are creating an accessible sport," the Lebanese entrepreneur and former car racer told Reuters ahead of Saturday's race.

"At the same time we have a mission to help governments, cities, to develop safe riders and to work with cities on the right way of using these scooters."

"It’s where cars used to be in 1910," he said of the arrival in numbers of electric scooters on city streets four or five years ago.

"People complained about them, hated them when they came to the cities: 'they are not safe, they are everywhere'," he said. "We use the racing to be a lab, of safety, of infrastructure, of technology.

"This is the aim of eSC - to develop this, as motorsport and Formula One did with the car industry."

Austrian former F1 racer and twice Le Mans 24 Hours winner Alex Wurz, who is also the chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA), is a co-founder along with Brazilian former Formula E champion Lucas Di Grassi.

Formula One veteran Nico Hulkenberg has a team and there are plenty of people in the background with links to motorsport's world body, the International Automobile Federation (FIA).

The series has, however, set up its own commission, headed by Wurz, with a stated aim "to regulate and promote the safe and sustainable development of micromobility in sport and urban micromobility".

"We think that we have a really strong product,"