At its core, a scooter is this:

Honda Ruckus

The form can be stylistically dressed up to offer a more classic Italian look…

Honda Metropolitan

…or even to ape a Japanese superbike aesthetic:

Honda ADV160

Those three are Hondas, chosen for presentation here because they're the global leading producer of scooters. They've got roughly 40% of the two-wheeled market (which includes motorcycles) worldwide.

Competitors exist, of course—Suzuki, Yamaha, Piaggio to name a few—and much of their offerings are often an ungainly mashup of aesthetics.

As far as we're concerned, it was BMW Motorrad who pushed scooter design into a new generation with their CE 04 in 2020. While all scooters have a deconstructed element to them, visually speaking, BMW's designers made it look purposeful and aesthetically pleasing, with lines and angles that actually relate to one another. The overall look is anime-esque and cyberpunky.

Honda may not have noticed—with 20 million units in sales in the last year, they're not exactly looking in the rearview mirror—but another company has. Chinese startup Omoway, formed by ex-employees of EV manufacturer Xpeng, have rolled out this sharp-looking OMO X. In my opinion it takes what the CE 04's designers did and refines it further.

Honda dominates in India, the world's largest scooter market. However, there's another large scooter market in the region: Indonesia, where scooter sales are projected to hit $6.2 billion this year. Thus Omoway has set up shop there, unveiling the OMO X in Jakarta, where they're setting up an Indonesian-government-backed production facility.

The OMO X's design is modular, with riders being able to click various storage units into the bike. The rearmost unit slides backwards to accommodate a passenger.

The OMO X doesn't just look hi-tech: The vehicle is self-balancing and autonomous. Meaning you can hop off of the vehicle, and ask it to go park itself. The company demonstrated the self-driving feature at the vehicle's recent launch event:

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In addition to having it park itself, you can also summon it via smartphone app.

Production is scheduled to begin later this year. I'll be interested to see whether Honda's design team finds the new aesthetic worth addressing.