An e-scooter for petrolheads

Hate e-scooters? So did a trio of ex-Williams and Jaguar Land Rover engineers, until they made one of their own to automotive industry standards. James Attwood meets the Bo team

- James Attwood

If you’re concerned, sceptical or downright hostile to the rapid rise of electric scooters on the UK’s roads, Luke Robus can sympathise. “I came from the angle of ‘I really dislike scooters. Like, I hate them’. So the mission was: how do I get to the point where I actually like an e-scooter?”

It’s fair to say Robus has found an e-scooter that he likes: the Bo M. That’s because, along with friends Oscar Morgan and Harry Wills, he created it. The trio founded Bo in 2019 to build a better e-scooter – by taking principles that they had learned from working in the automotive industry.

“E-scooters are great, inspired products, but why have we gone back to the most rudimentary form of manufacturing?” says Morgan, Bo’s CEO. “Why are they simple, tubeless structures that aren’t particularly appealing? We’ve got this knowledge in the car industry, so why don’t we deploy it?”

Sophisticated tech includes an active steering system

BO?

Mysteriously, the firm’s bosses won’t say – although they do note that the lower-case stylised ‘bo’ logo bears a passing resemblance to an e-scooter.