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The Rise of the Electric Scooter

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Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#261

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

dmix wrote: post #138
com2kid wrote: post #87

I am amused this is still a topic of discussion in America. Visit China sometime, electric motor scooters (larger than the kids versions we have here[1]) and motorbikes are everywhere, the large majority of small vehicles on the road there are now electric. It is super nice, the streets are far cleaner and quieter than just a few years ago. One huge benefit China has is an existing infrastructure for smaller vehicles…

> Meanwhile in America we paint a tiny narrow bike lane on the road and pretend the white line is going to stop accidents. Separated bike lanes can be equally dangerous and more inconvenient for cyclists. If you can swing around a slow/stopped hazard then it’s not much better. It’s only good for the newbie riders who are scared of the road. The best arrangements are sharrows where both parties are sharing the road wi…

>Separated bike lanes can be equally dangerous and more inconvenient for cyclists.

I'm no expert, but I googled "protected bike lane safety statistics" and every result is touting the safety benefits. The results with reliable looking numbers are reporting injury reductions of 30-90%.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#262

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #229
molodec wrote: post #180

Ok, I understand that there is a lot of benefits to electric scooters. They are fun, convenient, and allow to navigate quickly, and great for the environment, or at least better than cars. Why not driving regular bicycles? Obesity is a growing problem, because people don't exercise enough. Mechanical bicycle is a great low impact activity for modern life. Also, bicycles aren't generally allowed on a sidewalk, but I h…

Concerned people have collectively been banging the ride-more-bicycles drum for decades. It hasn't worked. It doesn't even matter why, it's obvious at this point that commuters at large won't use them given a powered alternative. Why keep butting our head against that wall instead of supporting something people will actually use? (I commuted via bike for years and as fun as it is it's beyond impractical. Parking, hea…

The data I see says bike commuting nationwide grew 43% from 2000 to 2017, despite a dip leading into 2017. It's not just about powered alternatives, but spaces to do it. If you build a road for a powered vehicle and make the barest accommodations for everything else, of course powered vehicles will dominate. People take public transit more when you build more. They bike more when you build protected lanes. It's not about saying people should do these things, but rather saying that cities should better build for them.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#263

Post by NikolaeVarius »

coredog64 wrote: post #248
maccam94 wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dockless and docked bikeshare programs both mitigate this issue, with trade-offs on the inconvenience of finding bikes/parking them.

Citibike in NYC is a dumpster fire. Same price as subway ride for a 30 minute ride. Each ride segment has to be 30 minutes or less or they start charging you by the minute. You can’t check out more than one bike on a single account. The full docks don’t correctly report in, meaning even though the dock is full, you can’t get a time extension while you go out of your way to return the bike.

Been using CitiBike for 3 years. None of these have been an issue for me, except for the 30 minute time limit, but I was going from WTC to 96th st which took me 40 minutes

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#264

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

whenchamenia wrote: post #240
mikestew wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One looks like a complete idiot riding an 1880s highwheel bicycle (well, in the 1880s for sure, at least). Bicycles still caught on. -- Owner of an 1886 Columbia bicycle and 2019 Boosted Rev scooter

To use your own example, bicycles only caught on once they started looking reasonable. The huge front wheel on pennys was a huge damper to adoption.

Or is it that the modern version of a bike looks reasonable to you because it caught on and you grew up with it?

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#267

Post by chestervonwinch »

umvi wrote: post #176
eldenbishop wrote: post #38

I rode a non-electric kick scooter (Xootr) for three years working in downtown SF. It is by far the best form of transitional transport there is and superior to bikes for 99% of actual real world travel. It was easily 4-5 times faster than walking and more importantly suddenly made the entire city open due to how insanely efficient it was for "glueing" together various forms of public transport. I could hop from tran…

> It was easily 4-5 times faster than walking I can walk a mile in 20 minutes which is 3 mph. This implies these scooters can maintain 12-15 mph? Am I just underestimating how fast you can get going on these things? That seems kind of fast unless you are going downhill both ways.

Yea, they can get up to 15-20 mph. Some areas are throttled in Austin, though, e.g., in and around UT campus.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#268

Post by chestervonwinch »

DanBC wrote: post #178
ProfessorLayton wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but that .5mi "10 minute walk" tuns into 20 minutes both ways, adding tons of time (as a % of commute) to the door-to-door travel times.

That's not wasted time though, is it? It's a chance for a bit of exercise, a bit of shopping, to see your local communities.

> a bit of shopping, to see your local communities

It's possible that's exactly what you're doing on the scooter. Maybe your destination is a local establishment to meet up with friends and you don't want to be a sweaty mess upon arrival.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#269

Post by russellbeattie »

Got my kid a FreeGoUSA.com scooter a year or so ago before he had his driver's license. This scooter is a dual motor version with a massive battery - it weighs 75 pounds, goes 30mph and has a 20-30 mile range. Once he got his license, I assumed he'd probably want to just drive a car, but he much prefers the scooter: Faster in traffic, no need to fill it with gas. In fact, the scooter has completely reshaped his perception of gasoline and cars - it just seems like a horrible waste of money while also polluting. Can't say I disagree with him.

Re: The Rise of the Electric Scooter

#270

Post by luu »

mikestew wrote: post #165
Steltek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe cars should obey the speed limit, pass at a safe and reasonable distance, and not road rage at people? I mean, why does every new alternative travel mode need to work around the unacceptable and lawless US driver behavior? That all said, 25mph on scooter wheels sounds terrifying. I've seen some escooters with tiny adorable disc brakes. What's your stopping distance at that speed?

That all said, 25mph on scooter wheels sounds terrifying. Meh, you work up to it. Time and place, though; I tone it down through the downtown part of the trail. What's your stopping distance at that speed? Faster than my car or motorcycle. And that's just using the regenerative braking of the motors. I've never tried a full-on-drop-anchor stop with both the mechanical disk and regen brakes.

> > What's your stopping distance at that speed?

> Faster than my car or motorcycle. And that's just using the regenerative braking of the motors. I've never tried a full-on-drop-anchor stop with both the mechanical disk and regen brakes.

Do you have a heavily modified scooter or something otherwise unusual? I looked up braking tests for cars, motorbikes, and e-scooters, and couldn't find a single e-scooter that's been tested that has the same stopping distance as a normal car let alone a sports or a motorcycle.

I don't think this is super surprising considering the relative size of the contact patch and what the "tire" is made of on most scooters.

In another comment, you said you have a Xiaomi scooter. In this brake test (https://www.zdnet.com/article/mi-electric-scooter-review-com...), it has a 13 foot stopping distance from 12.4mph even when using the disc brakes. This is similar to what other scooter tests show.

NACTO's suggestion for a conservative car stopping distance is 11 feet from 15mph, not including reaction time, which is the same as in the scooter test (https://nacto.org/docs/usdg/vehicle_stopping_distance_and_ti...).

How are you getting your scooter to stop more quickly than a motorcycle?

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