British e-scooter manufacturer Swifty Scooters made history last year when it developed the UK’s first ever road-legal e-scooter.
Private e-scooters are illegal in the UK, but through tactful and innovative design, Swifty’s e-scooter formally classifies as a DVSA-approved Stand-On Moped.
Swifty’s e-scooter design, celebrated for demonstrating high safety standards, had scooped the Best Start-Up Award at Micromobility Industries’ flagship Micromobility America conference in 2023.
Yet Swifty’s liquidation proves that even the best of British innovation is not immune to global macroeconomic events.
We hear from Co-founders Jason and Camilla Iftakhar on how a “near-perfect product” was burdened by bad timing and why they are hopeful that the Swifty brand will be reborn again soon.
A timeline of success
Swifty has been manufacturing scooters since 2010.
The brand has been setting milestones since its inception when Co-founder Jason Iftakhar built the world’s first premium adult kick-scooter, featuring a unique foldable design.
Fast forward many models later until September 2023 when Swifty was one of four British companies to be awarded a share of £1.1 million from the Advanced Propulsion Centre for the research and development of zero emission vehicle technologies.
Whilst the Swifty brand continued to build its global reach, with export sales to 56 countries including five international distributors, its local UK landscape for e-scooters was deteriorating.
Just one year before receiving the grant, the Queen’s Speech announced intentions to legislate for a new light zero-emission vehicle category, instilling what we’d later come to realise was false hope for e-scooter legislation. When the King’s Speech took place in November 2023 there was no mention of this bill, leaving Swifty and other e-scooter manufacturers across the country troubled that their efforts wouldn’t even materialise into a product that’s legal to use on UK roads.
“The regulatory landscape is evolving globally, but the UK is one of the last countries to set any rules,” Camilla tells Zag Daily. “We’d already built up an audience and believed people would be able to ride in the UK imminently. The “e-scooter trials” have been running for nearly five years now, and still the Department for Transport can’t seem to get to grips with legislation.”
Swifty dug in though and decided to develop a vehicle that would meet the UK’s hungry demand without a change in legislation from the government. It was a chance to develop a kind of vehicle that no other manufacturer had ever thought of.
The Swifty GO GT500
Jason and Camilla found a loophole in the UK legislation when they realised there was no stipulation for a DVSA-classified Moped to require a seat.
“We recognised that our customers loved the accessibility of a scooter. Not having a seat was a selling point and being able to step-on and go is incredibly liberating,” says Camilla.
That means that while Swifty’s GO GT500 Stand-Up Moped boasts all the features we’ve come to know from an e-scooter, it still complies with the safety and regulatory standards as an L1e-B category vehicle.
“Our customers wanted a safer vehicle, and they wanted to have insurance,” Camilla says. “Our design met the requirements of the vehicle directive and was designed for the road. It enabled accessible zero-emission travel at 0.6p per mile.”
Not only renowned for being the first road-legal e-scooter to hit UK streets, the 24mph Swifty GO GT500 features one of the safest batteries on the market.
Amidst a landscape of increasing micromobility battery fires, Swifty developed a UK-made 15Ah Lithium FerroPhosphate (LFP) battery, using the same chemistry incorporated by Tesla to protect against thermal runaway.
What went wrong
One of the vital ingredients in the development of the GT500 was working with the insurance provider which approached Swifty as their favoured partner to launch the equally innovative insurance product, designed to cater for micromobility in the UK.
Swifty began racking up a sizable waiting list for both the 15.5mph G500 and the 24mph GT500 even before production was underway.
While Swifty collected pre-order deposits, the news that the underwriter to the specialist insurance pulled out. Another insurer came on board, to again pull out, only for it to happen again with a third insurer.
“The insurance companies started telling us they wanted to wait until after the UK and US elections to see what’s happening with the markets, and VCs said the same too,” Jason says. “We told them, look, we’ve done everything right. We’re building our factory, we’re creating jobs, we’re exporting UK made innovation, we’ve proven the concept and we have a serious amount of deposits.
“There was a lot of nervousness in the summertime about what was going to happen – if it will or won’t be Trump and what would happen with the UK elections. There was this undercurrent of everyone closing their books for the moment. It was just terrible timing.”
“Everyone was saying to just wait,” Camilla adds. “Regulations were still fluctuating globally. VCs and investors said to wait. Insurers said to wait. We couldn’t borrow because the interest rates were so high.”
After the third insurance underwriter said they’d be delaying the policy Swifty had no choice but to tell its customers the project timeline would have to be moved back.
“But everybody asked for a refund,” Jason says. “And that just killed us cash wise.”
Burdened by the UK mobility landscape
Swifty’s situation was not down to a lack of preparation.
The company has been building momentum for over a decade, navigating endless challenges like Brexit, COVID, fluctuating exchange rates and sporadic supply chains – always to come out on top. Jason and Camilla knew how to think on their feet, renegotiating, pivoting, and restructuring their finances when needed.
“But in those final six months before we closed there were too many global events that all came at the same time, and we just could not come back from it,” says Jason.
The UK’s chaotic regulatory landscape was not the only huge burden to bear for British green mobility startups – which it still is today – but the reputation around light electric vehicles continues to be one of their biggest barriers to progress.
“E-bikes suffer a similar issue, but the whole narrative in UK media for e-scooters is just horrific,” Camilla says. “There’s so much negativity in mainstream media about light electric vehicles, despite research showing this category could make a huge impact in reducing transport emissions. It makes it feel impossible to attract investment and it’s so damaging for a sector which is vital to cutting transport emissions.”
A next step for Swifty was going to be shipping the GO GT500 directly to the US. It’s designed specifically for this, with the ability to ship the battery separately from the main body of the vehicle to optimise the process.
Swifty had always planned to target direct sales to the US, but there were many reasons Jason and Camilla chose to launch in the UK first. An obvious one being the cost of remotely launching a model overseas and the reduced risk in launching locally. They also saw it as an opportunity to raise their profile in the UK for investment purposes.
However, ultimately, there was one key driver of the UK launch.
“We saw this as an opportunity for the UK to finally get a road-legal e-scooter, and we knew we could crack it,” Jason says.
And indeed they did. Jason got his insurance and became the only person in the UK to ever ride a legal private e-scooter on public roads.
“I had my number plate and was riding anywhere I wanted around London. Taxis were stopping to ask about it and they thought it was brilliant.
“It was amazing to travel in this way, fully equipped with indicators, mirrors, dual suspension and all the smaller details. It felt amazing, and we got so close to making it a reality for everyone else in the UK.”
An opportunity for rebirth
Though Swifty has closed its doors, they may not need to be shut forever.
Having cracked the hardest piece of the puzzle – approval and certification – Swifty offers all the ingredients for the UK’s first ever road-legal e-scooter.
“It’s very rare for a brand to have accomplished what Swifty did without the cash or family wealth to keep it going,” Camilla says.
“We’re a globally trademarked and prestigious brand with history and heritage, and a pipeline of innovation after innovation.”
The founders still own all of its own trademarking – the IPs, URLs, design registration and website with thousands of email subscribers.
“We tried, we gave it our best shot and we have no regrets,” Jason says. “And we still have hope that Swifty could be the Brompton of scooters in the future. We have this huge opportunity on a plate for investors and partners, and we’re ready to work with them to make it a reality.”
