There is movement coming up in Germany. Threatening driving bans and seemingly endless traffic jams call for innovative and environmentally friendly additions to the mobility mix. In addition to the conventional bus and train offers, commuters, but also the many tourists, enjoy ride sharing, ride hailing and bike sharing offers in the urban centers. In Germany, so-called e-scooters, sometimes also called electric scooters, are still relatively unknown. What it’s all about, that explains our little series.

No family in which we don’t find one of these small, mostly foldable scooters in the garage. These ingenious, because easily operated, transportable vehicles are equipped with an electric motor, and a PLEV is ready after German official language. The abbreviation stands for “Personal Light Electric Vehicles”. Regardless of technical details, electric scooters are regularly motor vehicles within the meaning of § 1 StVG. And so they are subject to an approval procedure.

Disputes arise in Germany

Politicians in the country are currently arguing about whether these small electric scooters should ride on the sidewalk, on the cycle path or on the road. As always with mobility innovations in our country, there are the doubters: the’things’ are too dangerous, for drivers and of course for pedestrians or cyclists. What would happen if children or adults raced through the pedestrian precincts and whacked innocent shoppers with their shopping bags on their way? Well, what if…

Hardly anyone responsible for traffic has yet realised that these e-scooters can be a real alternative to cars and bicycles in the city. For the last mile of human transport, so to speak. For many years, some dealers in this country fought for registration in Germany. Until now, their sales have always gone to other European countries.

What is crazy is that France is currently the strongest growing market. On the Champs-Élysées and all over Paris, young and old cruise with e-scooters in rush hour traffic or on tourist tours, although these vehicles are actually forbidden in France. The police: look away – or rather look away and are happy that fewer cars haunt the French metropolis. Vive la France!

Hamburg leads the way – e-scooters to the Hanseatic city
An initiative was finally launched in Hamburg in May. The Hanseatic city wants to live up to its role model function as a creative mobility city. Politicians of all kinds want to integrate e-scooters into traffic. The Senate must now decide by the end of September whether and in what form this will be feasible. Now the Federal Ministry of Transport in Berlin is not giving up, and announces that by the end of the year the e-scooters will be fed into inner-city traffic with a guideline and precise definitions for the device. Hallelujah – the pressure finally became great enough.

Read Monday in our series on the introduction of the e-scooter of the boom in scooter sharing in the USA – gold rush atmosphere among mobility providers.

More posts from our series “E-scooter”: