Automotive & Transportation

Honda’s Foldable Electric Scooter Earns CES Innovation Award

The Honda Motocompacto electric scooter can go 15 mph and has a 12-mile range. All photos courtesy of Honda

The lightweight Motocompacto is fun to ride, and easy to carry and charge

The scooter weighs just 41 pounds and when fully folded, can easily be carried using the handle on top.

Honda engineer Nick Ziraldo believes in the value of personal mobility solutions that are small, lightweight, portable and eco-friendly. That led him to resurrect and revamp a decades-old Honda concept that earned a Best of Innovation Award this month at the CES 2024 show in Las Vegas.

The Honda Motocompacto is a stylish electric scooter that folds down into a slim, suitcase-sized form factor that can easily be carried or slid into a car trunk. The vehicle features white panels molded from ABS resin with a UV stabilizer to protect against yellowing.

Behind the panels, Honda’s engineers hung an internal structure molded from black polypropylene onto a welded aluminum frame. The resulting cavity provides significant storage space when the scooter is expanded into riding mode. The team used a polymeric, non-animal-based “synthetic leather” for the seat cover and handlebar grips.

Lightweight scooter has a 12-mile range

Honda uses a polymeric synthetic leather for the seat cover and handlebar grips.

The entire scooter weighs just 41.3 pounds and can support up to 265 pounds. It accelerates up to its maximum speed of 15 mph in just seven seconds and has a range of 12 miles.

When folded, the Motocompacto measures just 3.7 inches wide by 21.1 inches high by 29.2 inches long. Using the carry handle, the vehicle can easily be brought inside and fully charge in just 3.5 hours using a standard 110-volt outlet. A phone app enables riders to adjust their settings, including lighting and ride modes, via Bluetooth. (See a promotional video.)

Ziraldo, design engineering manager at Honda R&D Americas LLC in Powell, Ohio, said in a Jan. 22 phone interview that this latest scooter concept drew its inspiration from a model that Honda introduced in 1981. Called the Motocompo, that vehicle featured a two-stroke, gas-powered engine, weighed nearly 100 pounds, and had to be stored upright because of the fuel tank.

‘Time is right’ for a small-mobility product

This demonstration model with transparent body panels provides a glimpse of the vehicle’s internal architecture. The cavity in the middle provides storage when the scooter is unfolded.

This latest iteration, said Ziraldo, draws on the spirit of that collapsing small-mobility product to bring the concept into the new electric era. “Now is the perfect moment for this,” he said. Honda sees the zero-emissions vehicle as ideal for people to quickly get around in a city or on a college campus.

Ziraldo, the Motocompacto project leader and a 15-year Honda veteran, said one of the biggest challenges involved fine-tuning the production of the large, molded-in-white body panels to avoid warpage while keeping the weight down. It was also important for the various components to snap together well for good fit, function and aesthetics. Unidentified members of Honda’s global supply base mold the parts.

Latest iteration was born from a sketch

Honda leveraged its plastic molding expertise to provide a superb fit and finish to the body’s external white ABS panels.

The current scooter “started with a sketch from one of our auto stylists in Los Angeles, on our Torrance (Calif.) campus.,” he said. “And then a few of us in the company saw it” and latched on to the idea. “I saw it as a unique challenge and I really wanted to bring something like that to life” and see how far we could take it.

Ziraldo said this was a really a passion project for him. It was an additional part-time job for him and a few others who worked on it. “I developed a lot of the engineering for this at home, after my kids went to bed “–– especially when many people were stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We really wanted to make this fun to ride,” he said. “It’s unique in its form factor. But when you sit on it and ride it, it’s hard not to smile. When we would demo this for our executives, it was always the same: People would ride it and then turn into little kids. You could see the joy immediately.”

Refining the final packaging

When folded, the Motocompacto is easy to transport, or to charge in your home or office.

“We had to go through multiple prototypes to get to the final product. The first version was very heavy and we spent a lot of time trying to refine the mechanics. Our specialty is packaging, so how everything packages into that box, there is no wasted space.” At the same time, the team had to balance other key factors, including making sure it was both fun and safe to ride as well as durable.

Ziraldo said he is most proud of Motocompacto’s riding dynamics, combined with its sleek, novel form factor.

The Motocompacto is available now for $995 via participating Honda and Acura dealers. Ziraldo says initial demand “has been overwhelmingly positive” and has outpaced Honda’s conservative expectations. “So right now we are very busy working to meet market demand.”