Boosted Boards Review – One month in San Francisco

http://www.jisiguo.com/blog/boosted-boards-review

by JGuo • 12 years ago

14 4 12 years ago

dvcc• 12 years ago

Went in expecting the board to cost around $200-400, came out extremely disappointed when I saw the preorder was around $2000.

Product looks awesome but not so much at that price point. How much do they actually expect to sell?

JGuo• 12 years ago

A Loaded deck alone would cost that much. Yeah it is pretty expensive. But factoring in parking costs, taxi costs, muni costs, time, etc it's definitely worth it. I think about it as a transportation vehicle, so it's more in the league of a scooter, motorcycle, nice road bike. Perhaps the price will come down with time, but as of now I think demand is well exceeding supply.

doorhammer• 12 years ago

Echoing the article and what another response said: "It’s quite expensive, but if you think of the board as a vehicle, I think it’s a wise purchase."

I'd definitely think of it more like a scooter or a bike. I used to commute by bike a lot and wouldn't flinch spending $900 - $1200 on a commuting bike, but my bike also completely replaced my car, so money saved on gas, repair bills, parking, etc was well worth it.

I imagine this is the kind of thing that would only be worthwhile to most people if you're really going to integrate into your lifestyle as a primary mode of transit.

There are obviously a lot of ways this is different from a bike but a few that seem important to me (mostly compared to a bike, and this is all pretty subjective and just my opinion on how it looks):

Pros - If you don't push at all, less (almost no?) effort to get where you're going. Possibly less sweaty. - More portable/compact (than most bikes); not having to stop to lock up a bike seems pretty nice, especially if you have a bag you just clip/slide the board into.

Cons - Battery life; bikes don't have batteries, and while you're putting more energy into a bike, they make super efficient use of that energy if you have a geared bike - Last I checked, the board couldn't be used in the rain; not sure if that's still true. Seems like it'd be more difficult to make this your lifestyle if you live somewhere it rains often (this is a big one for me) - Terrain; this less than the others, but there are a lot of obstacles I can deal with smoothly on a bike with large diameter wheels that seems like they might be annoying on a board

as always, ymmv

Isamu• 12 years ago

One caveat is the board can’t engage regenerative braking when it’s fully charged. [...] I’m not sure why the board can’t just continue braking without the regen.

The power generated by braking has to go somewhere. If not to the battery, it would have to be shunted to a big resister array, and wind up as waste heat that might require cooling fins. This would add weight and cost.

I remember riding a metro car with regenerative braking that dumped the power to a resistive array on the roof that made a kind of buzzing noise when braking.

Boosted Boards Review – One month in San Francisco

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