Europe's Largest Economy Votes Yes to Legalizing e-Scooters

Germany has become the latest nation to approve the use of stand-up e-scooters on roads and bicycle paths, according to Bloomberg.

The upper house of parliament voted to allow e-scooters with a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour to be used by anyone age 14 and older. Steffen Bilger, a deputy Transport Minister, said last week the government is aiming for the legislation, which prohibits scooter use on sidewalks and does not require a helmet, to take effect next month.

While american vendors Bird and Lime have each raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funding, European competitors are moving fast to beat them in a race to roll out products. Swedish mobility startup Voi Technology said it would begin operations in Germany as soon as June. Rival Flash has signed a partnership agreement with Herne, a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, to offer e-scooters for rent.

“Germany has been the toughest market so far I would say on the regulation side,“ Fredrik Hjelm, co-founder and chief executive officer of Voi, said in an interview. “They’ve taken a very German approach, focusing on the vehicle, and things like the angle between the back light and the ground,“ he said, adding that the company had to build a new model to specifically comply with local requirements.

Voi is one of the largest of a swelling number of European players in the e-scooter market, which collectively has attracted more than $150 million of investment from venture-capital firms over the past year. But U.S. rivals  have raised hundreds of millions more and generated billion-dollar valuations in the process. That fueled a rapid international expansion, which caused the abundance of competitors active in Europe to seek consolidation and mergers to remain competitive and attract funding.

Opponents such as the German cycling association lobbied for speed restrictions for the scooters, as well as the requirement that prevents them being used on sidewalks. Some of Europe’s other leading economies still don’t have laws that permit the use of e-scooters. In the U.K., the lack of guidelines prompted the British government to open “the biggest regulatory review in a generation“ of current legislation, some of which dates back to 1835.