How the Scooter Cup electrified Dubai’s streets

Credit: Dubai Electric Scooter Race

The first-ever Dubai Electric Scooter Cup took place on December 16, 2023 at the Dubai Design District (d3).

With riders flying down a specially designed 340m street track at speeds of up to 100 kph, the most talented male and female riders in the world competed as equals. Riders also rode the RS-Zero DXB edition, which at its top speed can reach up to 140kph.

Alex Wurz, president of the Federation for Micromobility and Sport, explained more about the race in an interview with Gulf Business.

What was the thinking behind choosing Dubai as a venue for the race? I would say that Dubai chose us! From my perspective as a globetrotter, it’s impressive how Dubai as a city and society embraces and supports the future. The Electric Scooter Cup is a new sport for future cities and Dubai is the best example of that.

READ MORE: RTA Dubai announces operation of e-scooters in 11 new areas from 2023

How fast is this sport growing and what are the key attributes that are making it so popular?

The key attributes of electric scooter racing are that the sport is, and will remain, the cheapest and most cost-efficient form of motorsport. The races, as well as the scooter itself, are the motorsport with the lowest CO2 output. The sport will also act as an accelerator for new technologies, making the entire micro-mobility sector safer, more socially acceptable and regulated. Moreover, the sport comes to the spectators in the urban environment, because it can. We race where micro-mobility happens.

As a form of transport, e-scooters have exploded in popularity here in Dubai. How do races such as the Dubai Electric Scooter Race help to raise the awareness of using this type of e-mobility to get around?

Motorsport has always helped in the advancement of road safety. There are multiple examples of this, and our mission as the Federation for Micromobility and Sport is to help grow and regulate the electric scooter sport sector, together with other micro-mobility sports. We equally want to support road safety and the mobility sector. Indeed cities, police and other traffic participants are sometimes struggling with e-scooters, so we have to address those challenges. There is a long list of items which are a risk and a barrier to entry, and it’s something we discussed with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) and sports council in a workshop about safer micro-mobility held alongside the Dubai Electric Scooter Cup. It was fantastic that the Dubai stakeholders have been open to listening to our federation.

What were some of the fastest speeds and times recorded in the Dubai Electric Scooter Race?

The track in D3, Dubai’s Design District was a very compact setting, slightly limited for the top speed of our RS-Zero DXB edition racing scooter. The scooter can reach a top speed of 140kph, but with a short straight of 80m at the D3 track, we reached just over 100kph.

Finally, is there a business model behind the sport?

While we all are part of launching this new sport because we simply love it, the business aspect has got very healthy ingredients. The cost to set up a top end global event or championship is significantly lower than a Formula E race for example. The track build time is much faster and much cheaper and yet the market is much bigger. The audience demographic is also wider, spanning a large age range, and the on-track show is very market and consumer friendly. A top end e-scooter race costs 10 per cent of a Formula E event, is built up and down in 10 per cent of time, and it occupies maybe 10 per cent of the footprint of a Formula E track. In addition, the scalability of electric scooter racing is 10-fold higher than Formula E or event karting.