Reading the micromobility roadmap

_1 Introduction

Ahead of a busy year for eSC, our CEO Hrag Sarkissian examines the micromobility landscape, and looks ahead to exciting movement on the horizon.

At January’s Micromobility World digital summit (www.micromobility.io ), eSC CEO Hrag Sarkissian sat down with industry analyst Horace Dediu to discuss the state of modern mobility.

The pair discussed sport’s role within the growing landscape of micromobility, how electric vehicles will adapt to the changing needs of the community, and just what’s next in eSC’s exciting journey.

Here, in his own words, he outlines his vision.

_2 Every journey has a beginning

Like many tech start-ups, eSC looked to address an unsolved issue that now seems glaringly obvious – in this case, sporting micromobility.

My friends and I started to notice the growth of electric scooters on the streets. Their numbers just kept growing. People have always raced, so mapping sport to micromobility seemed like the next natural step.

We also understood how racing has been a successful incubator and innovation lab for developing new transportation safety and tech – and we knew we could take that same journey with micromobility.

_3 Micromobility

COVID has accelerated the use-case for personal electric vehicles. As the world attempts to get back on its feet, micromobility will play an increasingly central role in that dialogue.

As cities become more populated and more congested, people are looking more and more closely at how micromobility can be a genuinely alternative mode of transportation.

And, during this pandemic, micromobility became more of a substitute or alternative to public transport, as people realised how it provided a clean and efficient way to get around.

By launching a race series, we’re reaching out to all these people.

_4 Making it matter _To everyone

By making sport accessible and affordable, you open it up to more and more people – that’s one of the core mantras underpinning eSC.

Will we see men and women competing alongside each other? Absolutely. We want eSC to be accessible and inclusive, we want it to reach the younger generation. In that sense, there are absolutely no restrictions.

_5 Building steps on the ladder

eSC will be eScooter racing’s ‘F1’ - but it’s vital to develop entry-level series and expand globally.

Grassroots will play a huge role – without a ladder you can’t grow the sport. We have a plan to develop our national and regional infrastructures – we want to make it so that you can simply go to your nearest kart track and start riding race scooters safely.

Unfortunately, motor racing has become prohibitively expensive. Somebody asked me recently if eSC would be cheaper than karting, and my answer was yes. We’re creating a platform which is competitive and exciting – but at a fraction of the cost.

_6 Season Zero. And beyond.

eSC was born during the pandemic – now it’s mapping a path out of it – both this year and next.

Right now, we’re focusing on our opening season, which we’ve called Season Zero. With COVID and the pandemic, we’d be ahead of ourselves if we said we’d have a full-blown season this year. We want people to come to our races, so we’re looking at scheduling three to four events this year, most likely in Q3 and Q4. We’re already in final discussions with several potential host cities.

For 2022, it’s going to be a completely different story. We’re talking about a full-blown championship with eight to 10 rounds, racing globally in Europe, the USA and Asia.

There’s a clear roadmap, and we know exactly where we’re headed.