A petrol scooter is a very economical way to travel and the best mopeds have very good fuel consumption. There are some electric scooter models now available, but by and large they do not yet measure up to their petrol counterparts in either performance or value. For example the MP3 Piaggio Hybrid (so it also runs on petrol) can only manage 20 mph on eletric power alone, costs over £8,000 and doesn’t even classify as a moped as the petrol engine is 125cc!

For the moment I’m going to stick with a petrol scooter, but things could change in the future. If you’ve got deep pockets and are greener than green, I’ve found out about a few manufacturers who do make electric scooters:

Zero

Zero scooters are designed and built in California, but beware, they are not actually mopeds, as they are too high powered. They cost more than £7,000 and need to be driven with an A1 licence – the same as a 125cc motorbike. They do have a groovy design though.

Quantya

These are made in Switzerland and legally not a moped either – so no good for you 16 year olds out there. Given that this costs over £9,000, you would really be expecting to buy some sort of superbike, not a machine with a top speed of 45 mph, but hey it’s a green machine. You might have to plug it in again in as little as 25 miles and wait for two hours to recharge it. That’s a lot of capuccino time when you run out of juice.

Xero

Xero is a British part of a US company and this firm does actually sell a moped with a restricted top speed of 30 mph – and a range of about 30-40 miles before eight hours of recharging is needed. Thankfully this has a more realistic price – from £1,500 – but that is still more than twice the price of a new retro scooter running on petrol.

I’m sticking to petrol at the moment, but I’ll keep open minded about this and look out for changes in the future.