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Comment by justchilly | Hacker News Reader

The old Bird and Lime scooters had 250W motors. The new Skip scooters have 350W (plus suspension which is nice). The skips can get to a walking pace up to ~10% grade, but grind to a halt anywhere near Nob/Russian Hill. You need at least 750W to do the trick.

They also all have just a single break, which makes going down those hills dangerous.

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The Xiaomi scooter I have has 2 brakes, but you only have direct control of one. The motor does some regenerative braking any time you let off the accelerator, which I've found is enough to cruise down a moderate grade quite nicely. Sometimes on a steeper grade (which SF has some of) you need to reach for the disc brake. This essentially gives you a front and rear brake.

To my knowledge all the scooters do some sort of regenerative braking. The Segway-brand scooters that Lime uses seem to ONLY have regenerative braking but those give you a little paddle to control it with. I wouldn't trust one of those to go down-hill, but anything with a disc-brake is fine.

You need to look at torque for hill climbing. Power defines top speed. Higher voltage batteries mean higher torque. There are ton of road-legal bikes with huge 52V batteries and top speed capped at 25km/h.

I have a 250w ebike and I have powered up slopes so steep I have to put my chin on the handlebars to keep the front wheel on the ground. Power isn't the issue. Its just piss weak motors.

What about Jump bikes? Because they go up hills pretty easily. Not the steepest ones but I get around pretty well with them in my neighborhood, which has lots of hills.

Jump bikes are 250 and yep, pretty good for SF hills. 250 W goes a lot further on an ebike (as a compliment to to leg power) than a scooter.

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