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Thoughts on my first electric scooter purchase
- andrewxdiamond 2y agoThe linked scooter looks great, but is out of stock :/ Any other recommendations for entry level scooters?
- JanSolo 2y ago200 bucks for an e-scooter is really really cheap. Don't expect to get anything worthwhile for that price unless it's some kind of sale. The realistic price for a basic, entry level one is more like $500. A decent one is $1000 and a good, dual-motor one will be $1500.
- jabroni_salad 2y agoIt's ninebot, arent they a somewhat reliable company? They also make the segways. It seems like they are just offloading an older model to me.
- saagarjha 2y agoYeah the companies do this every so often. Unagi had a similar sale a few months ago where I picked up mine for $200 as well.
- haiku2077 2y agoI have two scooters. One I bought for 300 USD and is basically a kids toy, OK for popping down the street to the store. The other I bought used for ~1200 (comparable new price ~1800) and is viable for daily use/commuting, but the manufacturer doesn't recommend using it in the rain and I would want a brighter headlight for evening use in traffic.
- saagarjha 2y agoWalmart seems to have it: https://www.walmart.com/ip/Segway-Ninebot-Air-T15-Electric-Scooter-Lightweight-Portable-Energy-Efficient/703271430 https://www.walmart.com/ip/Segway-Ninebot-Air-T15-Electric-S...
- JanSolo 2y agoI have an electric scooter with 3000kms on it. I use it for commuting to work several times a week. I much prefer it to driving; you get to experience the open air; it's exciting, there's no traffic and it's often faster than driving. If I look at the money I've saved in gas & parking, my scooter has paid for itself almost 3x so it's cost-efficient too. I heartily recommend that anyone with a commute of 30km or less per day try one out. Especially if you live in an area with good cycle-lane coverage. It really hits that sweetspot of efficient, enjoyable and cheap transportation.
- haiku2077 2y agoBetween: - No insurance required - No registration - Can use both bike lanes and sidewalls where I live - Park anywhere I can lock it to something - Nearly maintenance free (tires and bearings only) - Saves unnecessary wear on my vehicles; could replace them entirely if I wasn't a motorhead I have absolutely no regrets about my dual motor scooter
- saagarjha 2y agoYeah they’re super enjoyable. To think, when I was a child I would have considered it a toy, and now I can ride it around while having fun and feeling good about it?
- supertrope 2y agoThe key bit being cycle lane coverage. In many areas of the United States the "bike lane" is the shoulder of a 45 MPH stroad.
- haiku2077 2y agoA dual motor scooter will keep up. I often outpace cars on local roads. Though if you're gonna go that fast, wear a helmet and eye protection!
- Toutouxc 2y agoHelmet and eye protection is what you wear on a regular e-scooter or bike. You wear motorcycle gear if “keeping up with cars” is a meaningful concept for your vehicle.
- wuj 2y agoThe linked scotter originally retails for $799 but is available for $199, and it folds too. What a great deal!
- haiku2077 2y agoIt's less capable than ones you can get for $300 without the Segway branding and warranty, though.
- itsdrewmiller 2y agoDo you have a recommendation? This seems pretty good for $200 and only 23 lbs. I had a Xiaomi before which was ok but $400 at the time and much heavier.
- haiku2077 2y agoMine is just some random Chinese one off Amazon that is no longer listed. At this price range you are one level above aliexpress junk and the scooter is essentially disposable after the solid tires wear down or the battery wears out.
- mikestew 2y agoThere is no way anyone ever paid $800 for that thing. $800 gets you far better than the scooter in TFA. This thing has probably always had a street price hovering around $200. It's bordering more on "toy" than "adult transportation".
- richiebful1 2y agoThe main factor that's been an issue for me using an electric scooter was road surface quality. Even small potholes and cracks in tarmac make a scooter dangerous. A bike, electric or acoustic, can go just as fast and be less particular about road quality. A Walmart pedal bike can get you a long way for rather cheap
- j45 2y agoI have a few friends with much wider scooter tires, and a bit of a suspension and they report it makes a big difference.
- ErigmolCt 2y ago> The main factor that's been an issue for me using an electric scooter was road surface quality. Even small potholes and cracks in tarmac make a scooter dangerous. Totally agree. Loss of control, jolts to the rider or potential damage to the scooter
- schmookeeg 2y agoI have never heard a non-electrified bicycle referred to as "acoustic" before and I love that so much. :)
- mikemac 2y agoI got an electric cargo bike 3 years ago and it has fundamentally changed the way I move around my little suburban town. I can do pretty much every errand I'd normally do with a car. If it weren't for the heavy snowfall we get I would be able to get rid of one car; for now it just sits unused for 1/3rd of the year.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- djtango 2y agoWhat do you do in the rain?
- philips 2y agoI have rain pants and a jacket and my two kids sit in a tent on the back. They love it. I love it. Together we have put over 2000 miles on the bike in two years. Patagonia makes great rain jackets that have hoods that can adjust to fit over a helmet. https://www.ternbicycles.com/us/accessories/473/storm-shield https://www.ternbicycles.com/us/accessories/473/storm-shield
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoWhat about safety? I have an ebike too similar to yours, I bring both my kids (it requires some serious efforts on steep hills with both kids though), but I fell down once in the rain that gave me a decent scare, especially since my wrist is taking so long to recover and I could have hurt my daughter (lucky, nothing happened)
- philips 2y agoI took a spill with my kids over a bridge that had black ice. Luckily everyone was ok. We all wear helmets, we almost exclusively use bike/walk infrastructure, and we take it slow. The biggest risk in my mind is interacting in any way with cars. And so I avoid cars on our routes as much as possible. And I regularly “break the law” by riding on sidewalks because paint on the road is not bike infrastructure and my life is more valuable to me than some ticket for a ridiculous law.
- noirbot 2y agoI keep feeling like I should buy an electric scooter. I really just want a non-electric scooter, but it seems like no one makes adult-sized kick scooters that don't have a motor, so buying an electric one and just not using the motor feels like the only option.
- iseanstevens 2y agohttps://xootr.com/products/xootr-kick-scooter-mg https://xootr.com/products/xootr-kick-scooter-mg These are great
- ErigmolCt 2y agoI think it's hard to make adult-sized kick scooters with reasonable weight
- noirbot 2y agoI guess, but there's no way it's harder than making a bicycle, right? I don't really care if it weighs 5-10 lbs, it's still easier than walking places.
- saagarjha 2y agohttps://razor.com/products/kick-scooters/a5-lux-scooter/ https://razor.com/products/kick-scooters/a5-lux-scooter/? Was popular with many when I was in college.
- Toutouxc 2y agoProbably not what you have in mind, but I’m literally buying two of these [0] tomorrow (for me and my fiancée). It’s a local manufacturer, they have both smaller models and larger models, this one has two 20” wheels and is foldable in two dimensions. [0] https://www.kostkafootbike.com/twenty/899-foldable-footbike-kostka-twenty-max-fold-g6.html https://www.kostkafootbike.com/twenty/899-foldable-footbike-...
- noirbot 2y agoYea, I mostly just want it for popping down the street for those 1-3 mile distances that are a bit slow/hot/long to walk. Not having to do a lot of unfolding or locking it up is a big value to me.
- ErigmolCt 2y agoElectric scooters scare me a little bit
- mfkp 2y agoAmazon reviews for that scooter are rather negative: https://www.amazon.com/Segway-Air-T15-Lightweight-Step-Control/dp/B08CBCQFXJ#customerReviews https://www.amazon.com/Segway-Air-T15-Lightweight-Step-Contr... I've found that for a decent lightweight commuter scooter with a suspension to make it somewhat comfortable to ride, getting closer to $1000 is a more reasonable budget. The model in the blog post is more of a kids toy.
- itsdrewmiller 2y agoSeems like a lot of the negative reviews are abiut a bad purchase experience more so than the device itself, and the prices when mentioned are also several times higher than mentioned in the article.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kkfx 2y agoI'm against such devices for few reasons: - the very first issue is weather. Sometimes it rain, sometimes snow, sometimes it's too hot and so on, open-air travel under this very common weather condition is far from being nice, so they can be used only a subset of the year, but to be usable you need to be in a dense area for all the year, meaning you'll have another mean of transport witch tend to be underutilized and does not offer comfy condition as well because of city density, meaning when it rain the traffic skyrocket; - they encourage producing more waste, yes, you read it correctly: you use something not suited to have anything but yourself, so you'll probably eat ready made packed food and than drop the package, you can't buy large quantities so again more package. Actual narrative sell the city as green, but it's only dollar-green, not spring grass green.
- Toutouxc 2y agoNeither rain nor a bit of snow are a huge problem for commuting on an e-vehicle. In some countries even riding on regular bikes in the snow is perfectly normal. So it’s more of a people issue than a device issue.
- kkfx 2y agoTry, then report. Yes, on icy compact snow you can ride a bike issueless. Definitively not on partially molten snow, yes you can ride a bike when it rain, no special issues, except you reach your destination very wet. You can do the same in hot summers, reaching your destination equally wet, and smelling. It's not a people issue, it's a desperate propaganda issue to being able to sell the modern city, the perfect way to enslave people pushing all back to the classic proletariat. They know cities are absurd. They say they are efficient, of course, it's efficient build big buildings using some just to sleep and some just to work, occupied 50% of the time, keeping commuting between them "but hey, at a 15' range!", they know the city is made to consume, producing a far bigger slice of rubbish than spread living, because you just ride a scooter and so you buy small things, you eat ready made food and so on, a gazillion of packages to the bin, and in your own free time you go outside just to consume services. There is nothing else in a city. With this model you can push people to the zero ownership, rent anything, and to rent you need to work, as the owner of the city, who do not live there, offer. A social score in the middle. Just take a look at https://youtu.be/NXyzpMDtpSE https://youtu.be/NXyzpMDtpSE this is the future western city, where people need to be happy, smiling, the Canon model: https://petapixel.com/2021/06/17/canon-uses-ai-cameras-that-only-let-smiling-workers-inside-offices/ https://petapixel.com/2021/06/17/canon-uses-ai-cameras-that-... The people problem is that many accept such model. They like the idea "hey, renting anything meaning far less to take care and think of", "hey, no need to have money for capex" and so on.
- WaitWaitWha 2y agoHow much weight can e-scooters carry? Besides size and cost, why e-scooter instead of e-bicycle? Asking as I am thinking of getting an e-something, but my travel need is around 29km/18mi. (edit: swap units)
- ChrisGranger 2y agoYou've got your units mixed up.
- saagarjha 2y agoBesides [the reasons to get a scooter], why get a scooter?
- pizza234 2y agoI've used both and it depends on the usage patterns. My city trips are from 5 minutes to around 45. For short trips, where one doesn't use public transport (for me, the threshold is around 15 minutes), bikes are definitely more practical, but when public transport comes into play, bikes are too bulky to comfortably carry.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y agoThe big deal I'm assuming is the ability to fold. An ebike requires a surprisingly complex parking spot, because it needs to be secured, more so than a car. It's a giant pain. I wish I could use bike everywhere.
- decafninja 2y agoE-scooters are probably superior to e-bikes in American cities if for no other reason than that you can fold them up and take them with you into buildings. Yes I understand there are folding bikes, and provisions to allow bikes to be stored inside buildings too. But neither are perfectly implemented. Leaving a halfway decent bike outside, locked or not, is just begging it to be stolen sooner or later.
- pizza234 2y agoI've been using a mix of folding bikes, (shared) e-scooters, and public transport, for a long time by now, and an additional problem of folding bikes is that at best, they're clunky to carry inside metro carriages (except high-end models, which are expensive). E-scooters are not very easy to carry, either (15+ kgs is not light, and they're relatively long), but they're practical enough to use consistently.