Motorcycle makers in Taiwan have been forced to brainstorm, besides relying on filling OEM orders in rosier times, to come up with creative ways to effectively compete in the increasingly harsh global arena, especially with players in emerging economies ready to reduce costs and margins to paper-thin levels. One recent example of the local makers` innovative attempt is the prototype RoboSooter, a compact and foldable electric scooter.

Three major participants in the joint RoboScooter project recently demonstrated the ingenious foldable scooter in Taiwan, after its global premier at EICMA 2007, the 65th International Bicycle and Motorcycle Exhibition in Milan, Italy.

It’s a humble home for what might be the future of urban transportation. Locked in an office here at MIT’s Media Lab is the latest prototype of the RoboScooter, delivered just one month ago from Taiwan. Outside this room, the Media Lab is almost too eccentric for words: an open space lined with offices, teeming with art and an explosion of plant life. It’s the exact opposite of this austere little space, where the scooter’s detached seat is sitting on the floor and wires snake from the cavity where the removable battery pack should be. The rear wheel is clamped in place, and under the fluorescent lights, in these cramped quarters, the RoboScooter looks like a hospital patient. Its immediate prognosis is still up in the air, but here’s the good news: Whatever it eventually looks like, and whatever it actually does, this vehicle is going to make it.

The RoboScooter, a lightweight folding electric scooter developed at MIT, is moving toward commercial production, with an eye toward a public-sharing model based on successful bike-sharing projects such as Velib’ of Paris, according to Raul-David Poblano of MIT. Poblano made the announcement at last week’s Systems, Cities, and Sustainable Mobility summit at the Pasadena Art Center College of Design.

The scooter was designed by William J. Mitchell, the Alexander W. Dreyfoos Professor of Architecture and Media Arts and Sciences, and several of his students in MIT’s Smart Cities Group, in collaboration with SYM, a major scooter manufacturer in Taiwan, and ITRI, Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute. A prototype of the new design was unveiled at the Milan Auto Show in November 2007.