Farewell to visionary Elio Marioni, the entrepreneur who dreamed of the Italian electric car

He left on tiptoe, as was his style, but he leaves behind a deep echo that resonates far beyond the walls of his company. Elio Marioni, President and Founder of Askoll, was not just a successful entrepreneur: he was a visionary, a pioneer who knew how to combine technical ingenuity, entrepreneurial courage and genuine humanity.

Born in Pontremoli in 1946, but Vicenza by adoption, Elio Marioni has represented for almost fifty years a rare example of conscious entrepreneurship, building from nothing a reality that is today international. His career began with momentum at Zoppas, where he became an executive at the age of just 28. But it was in 1978 that he made his boldest choice: to found Askoll.

In the beginning, Marioni led the company in the realisation of cutting-edge technology in high-efficiency synchronous electric motors, becoming a benchmark in the fields of aquariums, household appliances.

The real turning point came in 2015, when many still doubted the future of electric mobility, Marioni set up Askoll EVA, focusing on Italy to build electric scooters and bicycles. A brave choice, the result of a precise vision and an unwavering will: to innovate without ever betraying the environment, work and people.

Marioni bequeaths a global reality with over 800 patents, 11 factories in Brazil, Mexico, Slovakia, Romania and China, and more than 200 researchers, but what remains, above all, is the dream of a man who believed that doing business also meant improving the world