Iaroslav Tugai
Founder, AF Scooters
Iaroslav Tugai fixes electric scooters in Spain and builds the battery packs that keep them alive. He opened a workshop in Valencia in March 2017 to repair bicycles, and by June of that year he was taking in electric scooters, machines that almost nobody in the country knew how to service. He spent about six months learning them properly and then stopped repairing anything else.
By autumn 2023 a local newspaper counted eight of his workshops across the city and quoted him on some fifty thousand scooters repaired. The expansion did not hold. He shrank the estate, moved most of the trade online and kept the part a chain cannot copy: the bench where a dead battery pack is rebuilt cell by cell instead of being thrown away.
Credentials
- Opened a repair workshop in Valencia in March 2017 and began repairing electric scooters that June Confirmed by Las Provincias, 3 October 2023, quoting him directly
- Ran eight A-Fix workshops across Valencia by autumn 2023 Confirmed by Las Provincias, 3 October 2023
- Told the same newspaper he had repaired about 50,000 electric scooters in six years Confirmed as his quote in Las Provincias, 3 October 2023
- Builds custom lithium battery packs, including range-extending second packs Confirmed by Las Provincias and by the AF Scooters site
- More than 90,000 repairs by July 2026 Self-reported in the editorial questionnaire
Areas of expertise
- Electric scooter diagnostics and repair
- Lithium battery packs and range extension
- Independent workshops versus retail chains
- Personal mobility rules and usage in Spain
Materials about this person
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The Repair Network That Found Its Limit
Iaroslav Tugai's failed expansion revealed which parts of scooter repair could move online and which still depended on craft.