Swede Rickard Bröms spent 14 years building brands and marketing them for clients. Fed up with relying on public transport, he partnered with scooter experts Peter Klangsell and Mikael Klingberg, who founded KopEnScooter.Nu in 2004. Ten years later the company expanded into electric bicycles under the brand elcykelvaruhuset.se, with triple-digit annual growth. The result is Vessla, a 2,200euro no-frills electric scooter that’s selling out in small batches in Europe as it inches toward American shores in 2019.
Rickard, when and how did the idea for Vessla happen?
Basically it was me solving my own problem. I think it’s so freakin’ painful to travel to an office by public transport. It’s crowded, stinky and extremely time inefficient. I’d had it, and decided to get an electric scooter, only to realize that there weren’t any good ones out there. A few pretty soulless products, but no brand with a distinct position and some personality. So I thought ‘What the heck? I can’t be the only one googling for e-scooters without finding any…’ There and then I decided to give it a go. This was about October 2016.
I’m based in the heart of Silicon Valley, which is tied for second-most congested with Boston (after Los Angeles). How can the Vessla curtail this nonsense?
I think there’s a lot of fuzz about moving from combustion engine cars to zero emission cars. That’s obviously a good idea. But they’re still cars and they’ll be filling up the roads as before. I think there should be more buzz about moving people from cars to light electric vehicles. From wide four-wheelers to slim two-wheelers. Not pods, four wheeled e-bikes or such. Slim LEVs. Like Vesslas. I think bicycles are great but they are obviously not for everyone since so few use them.
Speaking of the US, when will Vesslas be available here?
Our goal is to launch in the US during 2019. Focus is SF, LA, NYC and Boston. By then we’ll hopefully have our subscription service The Vessla Club live. I think some kind of servicification will give us a better shot across the pond. Like scooter as a service. Buying a Vessla will be like signing up for a mobile phone subscription. But that’s a secret so don’t tell anyone.
We had a very simple design thought. The Vessla must look like a scooter. Not a spaceship. Accessible and non-snobby. We left out fluffy features customers don’t use. No app where you can honk the scooter. It’s just a scooter. But it’s totally silent, emission free and very soft to drive. We are new and small so we made a collaboration with some consultants and used the manufacturer for construction.
We make them in China. They are ten years ahead of Europe. But you really need to know where to go. It’s a jungle. So sorry, but no fancy industrial designer. But hey, this is our virginity model. Our Tesla Roadster. We are already under way with Vessla 2 and Vessla 3.
What’s next for Vessla; any additional models planned?
Yes, but we won’t say when. Our future focus will be design, safety and theft control. We’ve banned uselessness.
