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Aug 2022
19m 5s

The electric transport revolution

Bbc World Service
About this episode

New forms of electric transport are revolutionising the way we travel for both work and leisure.

Soaring gas prices around the world are encouraging people to look for alternatives such as electric bikes, kick scooters and mopeds.

Tara Holmes visits a new bike shop in the Peak District in England, and speaks to husband and wife team, Richard and Madeline Bowker, owners of Criterium Cycles, and gets the chance to try out one of their best-selling e-bikes. The global market for e-bikes today is worth $35billion.

From there, Tara travels to Nottingham to try out an electric kick scooter for the first time on a public road. She also speaks to Kfir Ben Shooshan, founder of Inokim, an e-scooter company based in Tel Aviv in Israel.

We also hear from people who believe the shift to electrification is happening too fast with safety concerns being ignored. Nikhil Inamdar reports from Delhi in India where two people from the same family died following a scooter battery explosion.

Professor David Greenwood, an electrification expert at Warwick University in the UK, offers some tips on how to avoid buying unsafe vehicles.

And, Augustin Friedel, an independent analyst and mobility expert from Germany reveals which countries are most encouraging new forms of electric transport and how this is being done safely.

Presenter/producer: Tara Holmes (Image: A person riding an electric bike; Credit: Getty)

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