The Mopeds Are Coming
When King Carlos III commissioned the Puerta de Alcalá in the 1770s, the city of Madrid was already almost a thousand years old. The gate, designed in the neoclassical style popular during that era, predates more well-known triumphal arches in Europe, like the Arc de Triomphe and the Brandenburg Gate. At the time, the gate connected to the city’s medieval walls, which still regulated passage to and from Madrid. Today, the Puerta de Alcalá still stands in central Madrid, a prominent landmark.
This legacy adorns the homepage of Muving, an electric-motor-scooter-rental start-up based in Spain. In front of an image of the Puerta de Alcalá, a strapping model casually leans against the company’s yellow motor scooter. He looks so European, you’d think I made him up: assiduously disheveled brown hair, aquiline nose, trimmed beard, wearing a gray hoodie under a blue windbreaker emblazoned with the make of the motorbike company that powers Muving’s service, Torrot. Even the brand name is too Mediterranean to glide easily off American tongues.
But it turns out that both the model and the motor scooter are unlikely, recent European exports to America—the model, Muving’s “brand ambassador,” is none other than Ricky Rubio, the Spanish point guard who plays basketball for the Utah Jazz. And a fleet of Torrot scooters recently landed in Atlanta, the first U.S. market for Muving’s service.
Muving’s motor scooters work like Bird electric scooters—you use an app to unlock them and ride for a metered fee. But the mopeds offer faster speeds, better range, and a more roadworthy experience compared to kick scooters.
Ivan Contreras is Muving’s founder and CEO, and the CEO of Muving Ecosystem, its parent company (which also owns Torrot and another motorbike manufacturer, a smart-helmet operation, and a smart-city traffic-management-technology outfit). When I meet up with him near Atlanta’s Piedmont Park, he’s wearing a bright-yellow, Muving-branded polo shirt, to match the nearby Torrot bike. We both immediately
