Tag: electric
If only Zero electric motorcycles did scooters…
Everytime I see anything from zero electric motorcycles, I dream of a Akira style maxi-scooter
Where are all the Electric Maxi-scooters?
I do enjoy my Honda Silverwing scooter but I keep thinking its time for a Electric vehicle. Especially seeing how it currently wouldn’t pass the new London ultra low emission zone and frankly its time for more environmental focus.
The problem I see is there are two extremes when it comes to electric motorcycles/scooters.
At one end you have your electric scooters (don’t look up electric scooters, as you get something very different and questions of where to ride them). I remember looking at scooters to hire in Berlin, thinking where the disc breaks and will car drivers actually see you on such a small thing? But at the other end there are electric motorcycles like the new Harley Davison livewire. But theres little in between.
What is needed is maxi-scooters which are electric powered surely? However I have had such a hard time finding them.
The closest I can find is the BMW Cevolution
Whats my options for a new scooter?
I love my Honda Silverwing, its one heck of a scooter at 600cc. But the time has come to think about replacing it with something else. So I thought I’d just see what people recommend. I do want…
- A scooter, not a motorbike… Yes I know but it suits me better
- A CC of about 600 or more, I can’t really imagine dropping down now.
- Lots of storage space and ability to put my Givi box on the back
- Automantic transmission (although all scooters this size have that)
- I’d love to have a electric or hybrid scooter of a good road size but there seems to be so little of them.
I guess everytime I go somewhere, I’m on the look for what kind of scooters they have.
Thoughts are welcomed, but don’t just say get a motorbike…
The future of personal transportation?
I had the joy of going to Bucharest as part of Techweek there. It was quite something and I honestly was caught totally unaware of how different from my previous experiences in eastern europe it was. The weather was wonderful and hot and I pretty much walked around with my swingblade trainers. My only complaint was having to give 1 star to a uber driver for a crazy ride.
While at Bucharest Techweek, there was a expo which showcased some of the latest consumer technology. It was very popular and for good reason. There was a lot of personal transportation technology. Everything from hoverboards & segways to electric assisted cycles & electric cars.
I hoped the electric skateboard would be great but it really sucked. It was more like a long board with little flexability you get with skateboards. I also tried one of those hoverboards and that thing with one big wheel and you sit on.
I spent a lot of time on a segway, something I haven’t done since BarCampLondon3 at Google’s headquarters in London Victoria many years ago.
But quickly moved from one with handle bars to one with the handle bar replaced with a thing between your legs. I’m happy to say I never crashed or fell off once. I actually got so comfortable with it that I started doing videos riding around the expo on it.
Such a shame you can’t legally ride these things around in the UK, you can actually buy it though; and not as bad as I first thought too. I mean expensive but not the 3k I guessed.
Patent reform starts with bold pioneers
You got to hand it to Elon Musk CEO of Tesla motors. He just opened up the patents they had on the electric car for anyone to use.
When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.
So it sounds pretty interesting so far… Specially the stifle progress part.
Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.
We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.
This is pretty incredible and its amazing to see and hear, bold and altruistic sound decisions like this from the very top.
Google along while ago talked about Patent reform but then they bought Motorola’s mobile patents and we heard nothing more till very recently.
Maybe one day we’ll see many more bold moves like Tesla’s?