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Comment by VBprogrammer | Hacker News Reader

I keep being tempted by an electric scooter (of the Vespa variety) for commuting . I'm moving a little closer to work which would mean I only need 30 miles per day plus reserves.

Unfortunately, the named brand ones are ridiculously expensive (£12k+) and having ridden a couple of Chinese made motorcycles I'm disinclined to go for the cheaper ones (£3-5k). Especially when you consider that even if the fuel cost were completely free on the electric one it would take nearly 5+ years to get the money back given a named brand 125cc petrol scooter can be bought for next to nothing and will struggle to use more than £10 worth of fuel a week.

For me it would be an optimum balance of environmental consciousness and convenience though. I guess that is worth something.

https://www.bmw-motorrad.co.uk/en/models/urban_mobility/cevo...

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Would also love to buy a great electric motorcycle/scooter.

It's puzzling how much more robust the ebike market is compared to the electric vespa market.

It isn't even a price issue, fancy ebikes are about the same cost. (The Genze is $3699). It doesn't seem to be regulation, you don't have to pass a bunch of tests or crash them to ship one like with a car.

Maybe the large number of bike part manufacturers and builders give it more sophisticated supply chain? I really don't know.

I'm hoping I'm just a little bit ahead of the curve. Doing a bit of reading it seams Honda and Yamaha have electric motorcycles being released in some form or another this year. Hopefully they find a market for them and the competition will start to push prices down.

An e-bike with pedal assist requires you to pedal so you get at least some exercise out from it. E-mopeds are also much heaver than e-bikes and may not be allowed (depending on jurisdiction) on all bike paths. They are also locked at their 25 km/h top speed, while e-bikes can go faster if you pedal.

> 25 km/h top speed

In California, mopeds can go 30 MPH (48.3km/h). I think it's 25 or 30 in most US states. The GenZe has 4 horsepower which is the CA limit (used to be 2) but some states only specify displacement as 49cc or less.

http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection....

Mopeds are also allowed in bike lanes in CA, though police & cyclists don't seem to know this.

Moped laws around the US: https://www.mopedarmy.com/wiki/Moped_Laws:_United_States

edit: did some more research. US doesn't have the equivalent of a German Mofa (25km/h) only Mokick (45km/h) https://smartexpat.com/germany/how-to-guides/transport/drivi...

Though the stand-up scooters in CA do happen to have a 15 MPH limit.

This is not what the author is talking about. In this case the scooter is a small item that weighs 10 lbs, not a mini-motor cycle.

Yes, that is why I clarified of the Vespa variety.

I'm aware they aren't the same thing, but it's two wheels and an electric motor. They aren't that different.

surely the 2 orders of magnitude cost difference suggests they are more different than alike?

A BIC pen can be 5 orders of magnitude less expensive than a nice Caran D'Ache.

Anyway, I just though someone might be interested in discussing the merits of electric scooters rather than arguing about how different the two types of scooter are.

The Scoot service in SF uses GenZe scooters and they're fantastic to ride. Granted, I don't own one because I just use Scoot. They're about $4.5k on the website.

Nice. The main part of my journey is on a 40mph road though so it would need a little more get up and go. I also ride a 650cc motorcycle so the temptation to get a faster one is hard to resist!

Yes, I was about to cite GenZe too https://www.genze.com/e-scooters/ . That BMW scooter looks good, but:

> £12,350*

Uh, no.

You should look into an e-bike conversion. I do 14 miles a day, and just added a kit to my bike for about ~$500. For an extra 100-200 you can probably get a kit that covers 30 miles fairly easy. And the power/battery will probably be similar to what you get on those lower end scooters. I know UK has speed limits on e-bikes, so that is a consideration, but if you are in a unrban-ish area like me, your commute is probably more limited by traffic and stop lights than it is by top speed.

Yeah, that is a possibility. I'd have to avoid the most direct route though as that is fairly fast moving (Chertsey to Hammersmith in / around London). From memory I think the limit is only a few hundred watts. There is an ebike shop near me, I might pop in and see if they do test rides.

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