'In the last 13 years, I have gone from working from home in the back of my kitchen, to three offices later, eight strong Technical Trainers, two administration staff and a Training Centre based in Surrey.'

Our Founder and Lead Technical Trainer, Eliot Smith FIMI has written some words sharing the Origin Story of Pro-Moto Europe Ltd and how he and the team have grown the company to what it is today.

After leaving my role as Technical Trainer after 12 good years at Honda Motor Europe Ltd in 2010, I followed my dreams and took on a new role that promised the world. Unfortunately, quite quickly I realised that it failed to deliver what was promised. When I left Honda, I was told the door would always be open for me, as much as I loved working there, I decided it was time to do something different and opted for the self employment route offering technical training/course writing on a consultancy basis. 

I enjoyed technical training and teaching people new skills, as well as writing new course content, I’m always keen to learn new things. So, within a week, I had registered Pro-Moto Europe Ltd with Companies House, completed the forms from HMRC to become VAT registered, I was then ready to go. I was then ready to tell anyone that would listen that I was available for work. One of my last projects with Honda was sitting in on the Expert working Group to advise on the Hybrid/EV Qualifications. It didn’t take long for the IMI to hear that I had left Honda, they immediately asked me to draft up the qualification documents, the rest as they say is history.

My next thought was “I have drafted up the qualifications, I know them inside out, why don’t I deliver them”. I applied to the IMI and enquired about becoming an Approved IMI Centre, went through the process and was then able to deliver the qualifications, from IMI Levels 1-4 in Hybrid/EV Technology. 

At first I didn’t gain much interest, I carried on promoting them and gradually the work came in and the qualifications were proving more and more popular and people were showing a lot more interest. So much so, in the last 13 years, I have gone from working from home in the back of my kitchen, to three offices later, eight strong Technical Trainers, two administration staff and a Training Centre based in Surrey.

Pro-Moto have adapted over the years to the demands of the Automotive sector in enabling the transition to Electrically propelled vehicle technology, be it an independent garage technician through to research/design and serial production of new products. With the introduction of three new battery courses covering HV Battery Repair, HV Charging Systems and EV Troubleshooting introduced in 2022, we have contributed to the upskilling of almost nine thousand qualified vehicle technicians and counting. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg as there are still many thousands of unskilled technicians, unprepared for the future of automotive.

Pro-Moto Europe Ltd believe Electric Cars are the future, people just need to be educated about them, from selling one, to owning one, to service and repairing one.