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Monday, August 11, 2008

Electric Bikes & Scooters

I’m not sure we live in an area where it makes sense for us to own one of these nifty machines. It’s rural, hilly and the winters are pretty darn long. Still, we’ve been thinking about them for a while. But we haven’t sorted out the intersection of price, speed, battery life, carrying capacity, charging costs and so on. They are definitely on our radar and I wanted to see if they are on yours. Here’s another good link with lots of useful information.

On a similar note, Jeff over at Wormtown Taxi posted about a local fellow who converted his gas powered car to electric. Recently? No. He did it back in 1973 at the height of the last oil and gasoline crisis!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'd love one, it would be perfect for us, except ... Sydney's drivers are the rudest and most aggressive people and I wouldn't trust them not to run me down and squash me into a pancake. They are the reason I don't have a bicycle, they park in the bike lane and run people down all the time - it's a frightening place, the road!

Pink Granite said...

Hi DMM -
Eeeeeeeek!!!
That's absolutely dreadful!
I'd be nervous driving any of the electric bikes/trikes/scooters in a congested urban environment. I think the best areas would be suburban or quieter residential sections of a city.
But it sure would be nice to hop on a little electric whatnot and zip off to the post office, bank and grocery store without burning any gasoline!
;o)
- Lee

Ms Brown Mouse said...

Lee, give us another 15-20 years and we will all be on them, or bicycles, since no one will be able to afford driving cars! I'm waiting until then.

Sue said...

I'm also dying to get myself a scooter. I live about 2km away from work and it seems pointless to lug a car in every day. My only concern for owning a scooter is that I can't use it to carry Jake. Not that I'm not allowed to, I just wouldn't take the risk of it. Drivers are so careless with bikes on the road. Plus, I'm pretty sure that in a few years time, he'll be nicking it!! It does make financial and environmental sense to own something lighter on fuel and you do get electric ones now days too!

Good luck

Pink Granite said...

Hi DMM & Sue -
I think they are a great idea. But you've both got me thinking about the safety issues. Around here there are still a lot of really big SUVs (Sport Utility Vehicles) and pick up trucks on the roads. Not to mention all the commercial trucks. I'd want to be sure one of these electric bikes or scooters would be visible to those drivers!
- Lee