Electric Mopeds & Seated Scooters

What an electric moped is

A Seated Scooter Registered as a Moped

An electric moped or seated scooter is ridden sitting down, feet on a floorboard or pegs, with no pedals. It carries a rider and often a passenger at city traffic speed, and it is the main personal vehicle in much of Asia and in many European cities.

The classic shape is the Vespa, built by Piaggio in Pontedera, Italy, now sold as the Vespa Elettrica. Chinese makers build most of the world's electric scooters: NIU in Changzhou sells connected scooters worldwide, and Yadea is one of the largest makers of electric two-wheelers by volume. Gogoro in Taiwan pairs its scooters with a battery-swap network, and Silence in Barcelona, owned by Acciona, uses a battery that rolls out like a trolley case.

A moped-style e-bike can look the same but has working pedals and is sold as an e-bike. A seated scooter or moto-style moped without pedals is always a motor vehicle. See Moped-Style E-Bikes.

Variants

Five Kinds of Electric Moped and Seated Scooter

Drive and equipment

Hub Motors and Removable Batteries

Most seated scooters use a motor in the rear wheel hub, which keeps the drivetrain sealed and quiet; NIU uses Bosch hub motors on many of its scooters, and Vespa and Silence use their own. Gogoro builds its own motors and batteries.

The battery defines the ownership model. NIU and many others use removable packs carried indoors to charge; Silence's pack rolls on wheels; Gogoro riders swap depleted packs for charged ones at street stations, and Gogoro supplies the same swappable batteries to other scooter brands in Taiwan. See Batteries & Safety.

Rules and standards

Registered as Mopeds or Motorcycles

In the US, mopeds are defined by each state, usually by top speed, often 30 mph, and motor power. Most states require registration, a plate and a moped or motorcycle license, and some require insurance. Scooters sold for road use must meet federal motor vehicle safety standards, which is one reason many European and Asian models are not sold in the US.

In the EU an electric moped is an L1e-B vehicle under Regulation (EU) No 168/2013: top speed 45 km/h and power up to 4 kW, ridden on an AM license with a minimum age set by each country. Faster scooters, such as the 70 km/h Vespa Elettrica and the Silence S01, are L3e-A1 motorcycles in the 125 cc class and need an A1 license. Machines above that are e-motorcycles, covered on ElectronsX.

Representative brands

Five Electric Moped and Scooter Makers

One representative model per brand. The hero chart shows each brand's lineup figure from the EbikesX brand dataset; brands with no recorded figure are left off the chart.

Core brands with moped models

Archive brands still selling moped models, with specs from 2020: Ather, GigaByke, Honda, X-treme.

Every brand on file is in the brand directory.