Xiaomi announce Ninebot C30, the £400 electric scooter

ELECTRIC two-wheeled urban transport could be about to have its biggest shake-up ever as the Ninebot C30 arrives as the cheapest electric scooter to date!

Built by electronics and mobility company Xiaomi, the Ninebot C30 is a funky looking little scooter with some specs that, on face value, look below par. It’s powered by a 400w motor that produces 40Nm (29lb-ft) of torque – all fairly unremarkable stuff so far. It has a range of around 21 miles and a top speed of 15mph – again, for most a push bike would be a quicker and more enjoyable method of getting about.

But the (only) really remarkable thing about this machine is its price tag, as the Ninebot is for sale in its native China for ¥3,599 or around £400. So this diminutive yet funky looking scooter costs less than most mid-range mountain bikes.

One of the reasons for the low-level performance specs is that in China an electric scooter such as this can be ridden without a licence by the teens it is aimed squarely at.

The battery is removable and allows for recharging out of the bike, and there are three other versions available, the C40, C60, and C80. With each step up the range of machine also increases, although so does the price. Braking is provided at the front by a single disc and by a drum at the rear.

Visordown's take on the Ninebot C30 scooter

Now, for many motorcyclists reading this, the idea of swapping petrol power for one of these is an abomination. But imagine how attractive something like this would look to a twenty-something who is currently commuting on one of those electric micro-scooters… Would you rather share the road with hoards of those unregistered, untested and uninsured machines? Or one of these, with tax, insurance, and a trained rider behind the bars?