eFOLDi: Lightweight Mobility Scooter

This project was awarded to Edinburgh based design consultancy, ProductWorks. ProductWorks is owned by Ken McCorkindale, who in my opinion is one of Scotland’s leading product design engineers with tremendous experience in the product design sector. I have worked closely with ProductWorks on several projects, including this one. Between ProductWorks and MADE, we find our skillsets complimentary which leads to a strong product design solution.

When eFOLDi approached the team, they already had a folding mobility scooter on the market which had won multiple awards and received a great international response. Our brief was to reduce the weight and improve the design based upon customer feedback.

The project started with an investigation into the products geometry and developing a more efficient means of folding. Alongside the geometry, we also explored the hidden mechanisms required to transition the product from scooter to its folded mode for transit.

Our developed frame is a marked reduction in weight and manufacturing complexity. This also reduced the number of steps required to fold the product and thus improving its usability. We developed the product with the aid of multiple prototypes that allowed us to evaluate and physically test the design. The output from this stage was a fully engineered CAD model.

eFOLDi developed the final design alongside their Chinese manufacturing partners. They utilised our folding frame concept and much of the design work to produce the magnesium framed product currently available.