The fashion of the electric scooter has exploded in a particular period, in which shared mobility, declined in car-sharing, bike-sharing and other English terms that rhyme with sharing, had already laid the foundations for a change of paradigm.
By transforming mobility into service, especially in the world of cars, one of the most rooted recent traditions in the Italian people is undermining, that of the means of ownership. Born after the war, with the democratization of the small car, collecting the legacy of that Fordian assembly line, the car for everyone was a turning point.
It is easy to understand why we are historically fond of our car, to the point of today seeing its consequences in the average age of the vehicle fleet in circulation: the car guaranteed us freedom of movement and independence, in return we loved it.
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THE SCOOTER IS NOT A TOY
There are several reasons why society is changing its paradigm, even in Italy. If after the war the car was the means to get in touch with friends, relatives, work and so on; today young people find in the smartphone a tool that – with the necessary differences – allows them to do the same things. Furthermore, the scenario has changed and the trend is to live more and more in large urban agglomerations.
The means of transport is transformed, in these contexts, in a service to be used only when necessary e the abundance of shared vehicles has allowed many to give up the car. Comfortable and practical means such as an electric scooter, over small urban distances, have enormous advantages, first of all the absence of parking stress.
Thus was born a line of sharing scooters where the products have chased the regulations and vice versa: the highway code has changed, I’m the first experiments started, the big cities they bet on electrified two wheels to reduce traffic and, unfortunately, the first tragedy also arrived.
Today the services of electric scooters in sharing are many and in different cities but we are wondering about a further step forward legislative for the benefit of safety. And while you do it, you begin to hypothesize rules also on the technical equipment of the scooter itself.
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Transforming the electric scooter from a “toy” into a real means of transport, this is the goal of Askoll with e.sco, a curious name: in Italy it sounds like a verb conjugated to the first person singular, it has that point in the middle that makes those who work online hate it and it stands for e-scooter.
Precisely because electric scooters are here to stay and will become an increasingly popular means of getting around in the now crowded big cities, the company of the eclectic Marioni has decided to create ad hoc a tool to offer to operators of shared mobility services.
Rather than using one of the many scooters for individuals available on the market and adapting it to sharing, a practice that requires greater robustness and various precautions, Askoll has created a model originally designed to be shared and to be a means of transport.
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e.sco
So Askoll e.sco was born, three-wheeled electric scooter that steals several features from the “automotive” world. The steering column is that of electric scooters from the manufacturer: robust and significantly oversized. The frame is made of aluminum, hides all the cables, has a compartment with easy access (operators have to change the batteries for shared vehicles) and safety is in the foreground.
For comfort and safety then comes the double cushioning which allows us to better deal with the city: already the prototype with solid wheels behaved in a softer way than many shared vehicles. The one with traditional tires, then, ensures a more than decent journey for the back, even driving it for more kilometers.
At the rear there is an Askoll patent with tilting joint for the two wheels, so as to facilitate curves for beginners, reduce adaptation times for those who have not driven a similar vehicle and make everything more practical.
The braking is powerful thanks to the double rear disc which also helps safety with its redundancy and a combined system stolen directly from the bikes. The distribution is automatic between the front (40%) and the rear (60%). The advantage is, once again, that of stability and safety.
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Engine performance is also excellent which starts from 0 to 25 km / h in no time and has a torque that is not influenced by the weight of the driver. It must be said that i prototypes tested used different test mappings that may not correspond to the final one, so we will have to wait for the debut in sharing and a hypothetical (but probable) model intended for sale to individuals.
For the latter, the steering column will first have to be revised to maintain strength and manageability by integrating a joint capable of making e.sco foldable and transportable in the trunk of the car for example.
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Why all this enthusiasm for a sharing scooter? First of all because it is the demonstration that there is an Italy that creates and the final result is in step with the times, innovative and able to solve various critical issues of the current shared electric scooters.
e.sco is also an important step forward to make scooters real transport agents, solving (or mitigating) the current safety issues and being able to play an extra card to try to streamline the traffic of large cities, limit the number of cars in circulation to the advantage of large urban areas more on a human scale … hopefully!
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