This may not look like
much but it is already there. The day of
the inexpensive electric scooter is coming and their convenience will drive the
market. Until now, scooters have not
been really convenient because of the gas powered regime. As electrics they make suburban and urban
living easily more convenient than cranking up the car for short trips.
My daughter who is an assistant
building inspector for the City of Vancouver is using an electric scooter as a
pilot project for the city and has found it extremely handy.
It also becomes an
excellent alternative for that five minute commute to Starbucks from your home
and that is certainly far better than hauling a ton of car out of your
driveway. Even better it disturbs no
one.
Superior electric bikes
are also becoming available for those who want the option of exercise, but then
that is always technically much more challenging. Actually, I think it is time to get rid of
the whole chin rigging for bicycles and replace it with a simple electric using
super magnets and with a drive pedal system that operates a charging rotor with
super magnets in combination with a rechargeable battery pack.
It would be easy to
adjust the loading to match demand if that is desired or not.
An Electric Scooter
That’s Made More Naturally
Electric scooters,
with their small physical footprint and non-gas powered drivetrain, are pretty
good for the planet right? Sure, but there’s always room for improvement,
especially when you consider what toxic materials were likely used to construct
the two wheeled vehicle beneath your butt. That’s where the Amsterdam-based
design studio Waarmakers comes in, recently unveiling for sustainable mobility
company Van.EkoBe.e, a scooter mostly
made from “natural fibre-reinforced composites” (NFCs) or, more simply put,
mostly made from good old Mother Nature.
The
Be.e, noted the designers,
is a frameless, bio-composite electric scooter with a monocoque body made from
flex and bio-resin. It doesn’t get much more complex than that. The vehicle’s
external skin is of a unique construction that “supports the load, similar to
an eggshell, eliminating the need for a frame and the usual numerous plastic
panels.” This exterior, more natural shell is believed to be so tough that
Van.Eko has put behind it a four year warranty.
In
choosing what materials would go into the scooter’s frame, Van.Eko pointed out
that while even common plastics found in other scooters come from natural
sources in a sense, they are derived from crude oil where once a tree, a plant
or an animal. However, it took over a million years to convert these organic
origins into oil, to then manipulate the oil in refiners to make the base
materials for current plastics. In the case of NFCs we use organic material of
modern provenance. So the materials we use took just one harvesting season to
be created, we then manipulate these resources to be made into a durable
material and use it in a scooter that will be around for another 10 years or
more before we return the materials into the resource cycle.
Specifications
of Be.e indicate a maximum speed of 55 km/h (34 MPH) and a maximum range of 80
km (49 miles) if the scooter is driven an average of 25 km/h (15 MPH). It
operates on a 48V 40AH battery, according
to Inhabitat, and has “the option of a second battery that is able to be
installed and juiced by a 600W charger.” It also sports a 4kW electric motor.
Other
features of note include USB charging sockets, a smartphone holder, cruise
control and “boost function.” Be.e is currently in prototype mode, and is
envisioned for riding around the streets of Europe.
2 comments:
I came in from out of town with my brother and met with Audrey & Mark about a model we had in mind. electric bikes nz
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