Just in case Elon Musk’s electric Tesla car feels like too much of an investment, here’s the perfect alternative for stressed metropolitan residents: the Swedish developed scooter Vessla.
Easy to drive and easy to park with a portable battery that charges in an ordinary outlet and takes you 25 to 35 miles, the Vessla* was released with almost perfect timing. New EU rules introduced early this year tighten the emission requirements for gasoline engines, and since September, anyone buying electric bicycles or scooters in Sweden also receives 25 percent of the price – or a maximum of SEK 10,000 ($1,200) – contributed by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Arriving, in style and on time
Rickard Bröm’s dream of arriving home in time for dinner with his family urged the development of his own electric scooter. The traffic jams at Slussen became the final straw for the father of three. He had already found it difficult to get home on time with public transportation, but when the construction at Slussen started, he realized he needed to move on two wheels instead. He couldn’t find an electric model he liked (“Gasoline was never an option,” he said), so he built one based on an existing model but replaced components that cope better with Swedish conditions.
The first Swedish Vessla scooter was sold in early August 2017. At that time, the first 100 models were released for $2,500 (SEK 20,000) and sold in three weeks – in spite of the fact that no one had been able to test drive it; the only demo model delivered in the late summer was stolen in July during the filming of a movie.

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The scooter has so far been delivered to Norway, Germany and the south of Spain but it’s unclear when the scooter will make it to the U.S. The company is taking preorders for a third batch of its first model.
For more info, see www.vessla.com

*Vessla in Swedish = weasel