Sustainable Travel Brand Swifty Launches First UK Road-Legal E-Scooter

10.04.2024 - 22:19 / forbes.com

Independent British manufacturer Swifty Scooters has just launched a groundbreaking product that marks a significant milestone in British transportation history. The Swifty GO GT500 is the first e-scooter to receive official approval for road use in the UK, becoming the first road-legal e-scooter that a consumer can buy.

Founded by design entrepreneurs Camilla and Jason Iftakhar, the innovative company has been making adult scooters (taller with wider, sturdier platforms) since 2010. With sustainability in mind from day one, Swifty has been on a mission to create products that have an immediate impact on reducing road transport emissions.

Swifty exports to 56 countries around the world from Australia to the United States. The company has been a leader in kick (non-electric) scooters that provide a fantastic, environmentally friendly way to navigate a city’s top sights. These scooters come in a foldable version (similar to a Brompton bike) so they can be easily folded up for travel on buses, trains and the metro.

The ambition has always been to add an e-scooter to their popular range, making scooting around town even easier. Unlike traditional e-scooters, the Swifty GO GT500 has achieved certification as a Stand-On Moped within the L1e-B category by the UK’s Driver and Vehicle Standards Association (DVSA), underscoring its compliance with stringent safety and regulatory standards. What's the current legal status of e-scooters in the UK? Privately owned e-scooters are not legal to ride on UK roads. The GT500 is the first and only Stand-On Moped available in the UK (L1e-B category). This is an important distinction from other e-scooters and shows that the Swifty is a pioneering force in the e-scooter industry, demonstrating a commitment to both innovation and safety.

With transport being the largest contributor to harmful emissions and two-thirds of car journeys being less than 5 miles long, Swifty’s vehicles offer a clean, accessible and fun solution for urban and suburban travel. As Co-founder Camilla Iftakhar says, “if we’re going to convince people to swap car journeys for micro-mobility, vehicles need to be safe to ride, have cargo capacity, safe battery technology and be able to be easily serviced and repaired. The GT500 is easy to ride and extremely low-cost to run.”

The Swifty GO is the only e-scooter to be powered by Lithium Ferro Phosphate (LFP) a technology that recently won the company “Best Start-Up 2023” at the Micromobility Industries Summit in the USA. LFP, the battery chemistry also used by Tesla, not only contains no harmful heavy metals like Nickel and Cobalt but importantly, LFP is not prone to thermal runaway, making the Swifty GO battery one of the safest on the market. In other