Since trying Segway’s 2025 range at CES earlier this year, I knew that an e-scooter could be perfect for my commuting needs. I’m feeling even more confident about that after giving Pure Electric’s electric scooters a ride at IFA 2025, with my only hurdle now being the UK government regulations.
Pure Electric is a UK-based brand that designs beautiful, forward-facing e-scooters alongside more traditionally designed models where you ride one foot in front of the other.
In an interview, the Pure founder, Adam Norris, explained to me that the forward-facing design is more natural to people – “Look at everyone standing around here,” he said, gesturing at the folks at the IFA test track, “we naturally stand straight-on, so why shouldn’t an e-scooter offer the same stance?”
I got to give both e-scooter types a whirl. While my demo wasn’t ideal for testing, IFA’s test track was shared between several brands, leading to some congestion, squashed between two convention halls, and made up of two short straights connected by sharp hairpin turns – I did manage to sample the stability and more approachable nature of the forward-facing stance offered by the Escape Pro.
Though I did also have a blast riding the suspension-equipped Air 5 Suspension, which had me driving with my feet one in front of the other like more traditional scooters. The well-paved tarmac track wasn’t the bumpiest, but I did feel like my ride was a little smoother than with the Escape model, thanks to the cushioning of the suspension.
Unfortunately, my demos of e-scooters are the only real experience I’ll get to have with them beyond the occasional public rental – because it’s illegal to ride your own scooter around on public roads in the UK, where I live. And I desperately wish that wasn’t the case.
Star-crossed love
If I could, I’d always commute with an e-scooter.
For a start, they make getting around super convenient – you can get where you want to go faster than walking, but less sweaty than if you cycled or ran there.
The argument could be to upgrade my bike to an e-bike, so I can ride with a motor, but then I fall into a storage issue. Bikes are typically much bulkier than scooters – even if you get a folding one – and making it smaller wouldn’t get around the clause in my rental agreement saying no bikes are allowed to be stored inside my flat.
I could try and store it outside, but I can tell you from experience, it’s a matter of when, not if, it will get stolen. An e-scooter is much easier to hide inside my home.
I could also attempt to rely on rental scooters (which are legal in the UK) from the likes of Voi or Lime, but you can never 100% rely on there always being one to rent in a convenient place. And if you do manage to ride one into work, there’s a decent chance it won’t be waiting for you outside when you’re ready to go home, as another rider will have snagged it.
Hopefully, things will change. In my chat with Pure’s team, they highlighted the growing popularity of e-scooters and studies showing that private e-scooters are often being used to substitute for cars – helping to cut pollution and traffic on roads.
The team also highlighted that the UK government is working on legalizing private e-scooter usage on public roads, though there’s no definitive date for when that’ll happen.
So for now, I’ll need to keep my fingers crossed and keep trying out different e-scooters at events like IFA and CES. It’s looking like a matter of when, not if, e-scooters will hit UK roads en masse – and I want to know precisely which model to ride when the revolution arrives.
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hamish.hector@futurenet.com (Hamish Hector)
