Electric scooter design that makes a hole lot of sense

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130714-hole-new-design-for-scooters

by pointillistic • 11 years ago

17 10 11 years ago

tonypace• 11 years ago

This looks like it would be insanely difficult to park. Plus, there's nowhere to put your feet, though that's easily remedied.

lozf• 11 years ago

Article dated 15 July 2013

JoeAltmaier• 11 years ago

How about: a regular scooter with a small one-wheel trailer?

Aardwolf• 11 years ago

Nice for loads, but I don't see how you could sit with multiple people on it.

OneOneOneOne• 11 years ago

Good point. In Vietnam I witnessed a family of four riding a single scooter. Baby brother was standing on the seat between mom and big sister!

Roboprog2• 11 years ago

Seeing that kind of thing in downtown Hyderabad made me want to cry.

bazzargh• 11 years ago

An electric-assist bakfiets (dutch-style cargo bike) costs around €1600 - way less than this thing; and it works when out of juice. The scooter is probably a bit faster, but with the speed of city traffic and 30km/h / 20mph zones popping up all over, I don't see much of an advantage there.

Of course, the market has room for many variations on a theme. But it also makes me wonder if the motivation for variation sometimes isn't like the design of the Strida (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strida). According to an interview Mark Sanders (the designer) gave on TV in the 80s, that was originally designed with an X frame and looked more like a normal bike, but then they did a patent search and discovered a folding bike with that design in Asia. So Mark redesigned it to the A frame you see today not because it was better from an engineering/design standpoint, but to make a protectable design. I'd be surprised if this company didn't have a sheaf of patents in its pocket.

Roboprog2• 11 years ago

Comparison by "price point", gotta love it. "This costs about the same as other $5000 scooters!"

Sounds a bit high to market in India to me.

fuzzythinker• 11 years ago

Note that the article is dated 2013. The company http://litmotors.com has now pivoted (don't see that scooter anywhere on its website) to a bigger personal vehicle.

howlingfantods• 11 years ago

I live in China. An electric scooter here is 500 USD, and that's the nice model that expatriates buy.

Electric scooter design that makes a hole lot of sense

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