Re:Scooters are taking cars off the road, a survey says
by saiya-jin on Sunday October 28, 2018 @06:52PM
(#18323715)
Yeah, my experience is different. I mean, I had the same mentality, shaving off 20-30 minutes of commute daily with 0 carbon footprint, just a smooth cool ride into the sunset (or sunrise). On paper many scooters looked fine for my use case (100kg allowance, 25kmh max speed, 25-30km reach). Since its a new technology, I didn't went for the most expensive trendy ones, rather something much cheaper, in case it turns out not-there-yet.
Well, it turned out not-there-at-all. Brand is called V-Max, not sure how popular they are. First one lasted 3 months, then broke down. Mail back to eshop, got another brand new in a week. This one lasted 2 weeks, suddenly battery started giving maybe 50% of the power, it became uselessly slow. Next round trip to eshop, brand new one lasted like 4 days. It just stopped responding to power button unless plugged in. Another round trip, now it works, unless its below +10 degrees Celsius, then it randomly shuts down after 2-3 mins.
You can say, buy something 5x as expensive (meaning good brand). Well, I am not going to shell that amount of cash on just a scooter. For me its a nice to have, nothing more. These things are fragile (imagine cheap electric bike ridden hard). Pavements are often not in good shape (in Switzerland!), so ride is bumpy. Manufacturers lie like hell on real range - its probably 25-30% in real world, on normal +-flat sidewalks. I've seen complaints about this all over internet. With modest uphill, many will crawl slower than walking pace.
One thing I noticed - it is properly dangerous to ride it. My gut feeling says much more than regular bike. People love to just pop out from behind the cars into sidewalks, even small dirt can throw you off balance easily. Breaking distance is way too long. You have to have both hands on steering all the time, if you get a fly into your eye, or sneeze, you need to stop. You don't need to drive fast to make it dangerous - people just don't expect you. Driving on the road is forbidden here, and this is frankly not something that belongs on the roads (apart from regulatory requirements).
Overall, cool idea, one day maybe, unless they will be regulated to hell beforehand.
Well, it turned out not-there-at-all. Brand is called V-Max, not sure how popular they are. First one lasted 3 months, then broke down. Mail back to eshop, got another brand new in a week. This one lasted 2 weeks, suddenly battery started giving maybe 50% of the power, it became uselessly slow. Next round trip to eshop, brand new one lasted like 4 days. It just stopped responding to power button unless plugged in. Another round trip, now it works, unless its below +10 degrees Celsius, then it randomly shuts down after 2-3 mins.
You can say, buy something 5x as expensive (meaning good brand). Well, I am not going to shell that amount of cash on just a scooter. For me its a nice to have, nothing more. These things are fragile (imagine cheap electric bike ridden hard). Pavements are often not in good shape (in Switzerland!), so ride is bumpy. Manufacturers lie like hell on real range - its probably 25-30% in real world, on normal +-flat sidewalks. I've seen complaints about this all over internet. With modest uphill, many will crawl slower than walking pace.
One thing I noticed - it is properly dangerous to ride it. My gut feeling says much more than regular bike. People love to just pop out from behind the cars into sidewalks, even small dirt can throw you off balance easily. Breaking distance is way too long. You have to have both hands on steering all the time, if you get a fly into your eye, or sneeze, you need to stop. You don't need to drive fast to make it dangerous - people just don't expect you. Driving on the road is forbidden here, and this is frankly not something that belongs on the roads (apart from regulatory requirements).
Overall, cool idea, one day maybe, unless they will be regulated to hell beforehand.