Europe’s cobbled streets are breaking scooters

Another ride: Europe’s cobbled streets are forcing e-scooter startups to rethink their previous models. — Reuters

ELECTRIC scooter startups have been grappling with an unexpected problem that’s been laying waste to the two-wheeled vehicles: Europe’s cobbled streets.

Scooter companies have rapidly expanded across the continent, targeting tourist spots such as Paris and Lisbon, raising hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital (VC) funding in the process. But while the first scooter startups began in California, where sidewalks are predominantly flat, Europe is full of cobbled streets built hundreds of years ago. Users got uncomfortable rides at best, or scooter-crippling breakages at worse.