SEAT, as we reported yesterday, has shut down its Leon production line in Barcelona, and turned the factory over to making ventilators for Spanish hospitals. Here in Ireland, too, SEAT has now turned its efforts to helping the HSE do its best to fend off coronavirus.

An e-scooter mobility initiative

As part of what's being called 'a mobility initiative,' SEAT Ireland has ordered extra EXS electric KickScooters, which it's providing to the Mater Hospital in Dublin, to help keep staff on the move.

The EXS KickScooter is a SEAT-designed electric city scooter which can reach speeds of as much as 25km/h, and which has enough battery capacity for a journey of around 25km (or much longer if you just push it along with your feet). It weighs a relatively trim 12kg.

Keeping key staff infection-free

The fleet being provided to the Mater is to try and help keep key staff off public transport as they travel to and from the hospital - crowded buses and trains are seen as a major potential infection node, and it's critical that medical and other hospital staff be kept infection-free for as long as possible.

Scooters can also be used to get across the hospital itself, quickly

"As you would expect we have very little SEAT or Cupra motoring news due to our factories and retailers closed but to support our frontline heroes working for the HSE we have teamed up with The Mater Hospital as part of a new mobility initiative" said a SEAT Ireland spokesperson. "One of the challenges the HSE front line staff have is trying to avoid being diagnosed with COVID-19. One of the risk areas is when many need to use public transport to get to and from work. To address this issue, we came up with a solution to increase our order of EXS electric KickScooters and offer a fleet of them to The Mater Hospital. In addition, the hospital are using some of the scooters for staff to move within the hospital grounds to get to and from different locations more quickly."

To which we say; bravo SEAT, good job.