Oxygen in scooter deal with Peugeot

Oxygen Electric Scooters has signed an assembly agreement with Peugeot Motorcycles in a boost for the start-up producer of zero-emission delivery vehicles.

The French automaker's subsidiary will produce Oxygen's battery-powered Cargoscooter at its plant in Mandeure, France, with the capacity to produce up to 1,200 units per day, the Italian company said.

Oxygen currently has about 350 of its scooters on the road, where customers testing them include Domino's Pizza in the Netherlands, the Whole Foods Market in London, and the postal services of Belgium and Switzerland.

Raffaello Locatelli, the company's managing director, said the company had a current order backlog of about 1,000, and that the manufacturing deal with Peugeot would free it to focus more on its sales, after-sales and research and development efforts. "We believe we are just entering the commercialisation phase," he said.

Oxygen is hoping to capitalise on companies' move toward greener company fleets, and aiming for a "major portion" of that market that could reach up to 25,000 units annually over the next three years, Mr Locatelli said.

Most conventional petrol-powered scooters pollute more than passenger cars. Oxygen claims its zero-emission scooters can travel up to 150km on a single charge to their lithium ion batteries.

John Reed, London