E-Go: A sub-$1000 electric longboard | Hacker News Reader

E-Go: A sub-$1000 electric longboard

e-go.com

82 pointsvladgur84 comments

I was an early backer of the boosted boards on kickstarter. Got my board just over 2 months ago now. Its really impressive. Goes forward and backward with ease, which is really nice, and it can get moving pretty fast. Bonus, my dog loves to chase me while I am riding on it. And it runs over everything. Overall, I would sum up my boosted board experience as feeling the same way I did when I used the iphone for the first time. So in essence, I feel like with these boards you will get what you pay for.

Had you previously looked into other boards? Why did you choose boosted over all the other options out there?

I've had an Altered skateboard (600 watts, 20mph max speed) for over 7 years now and it costs $700. An electric longboard at this price point isn't exactly revolutionary. What makes this board different?

It's not 42 pounds, like an Altered board? This is, in fact, a main selling point directly on the page...

That's a good point. I did my senior project (mechanical engineer) on the boards. Developed a NiMH replacement to their lead acid batteries which dropped off 10-ish pounds. I also milled out a handle so you can carry it by the back (leave the front two wheels on the ground and roll it like a suitcase). Both of those things combined the board ends up being 18 pounds in your hand. It's totally not stock though, and I sometimes forget that :)

That's great! Note that the going board weight now is 14 pounds (they are claiming 6.3 kg)! We should say our thanks to BoostedBoards for paving the way and setting the target weight number to 14 pounds, down from 40.

As a BoostedBoards kickstarter backer and a rider of both 40 pound bords and 14 pound ones, I can tell that we've got to the point when they are actually finally usable!

And I'm looking forward to a 8 pound carbon fiber board with electronics and battery integrated inside the board and 4-weel drive brush-less out-runner motors integrated into the wheels. (BTW, if anyone is interested, no promises, but say 500k and 1 year of time and I can try making you a prototype of a board like that ;) )

Interesting timing, Boosted have just announced final pricing at $1995 USD. It certainly looks impressive, it's slightly lighter than a Boosted board. I couldn't see a top speed though, Boosted has always seemed on the verge of terrifyingly fast (20 mph, 32 km/h) but the riders in this video seemed to be going slower than that.

At the bottom it said range 30 km and time "up to" 3 hours, which might mean a speed of 10 kph? That seems too slow to be interesting, at least after you've ridden it a couple of times. The videos were confusingly cut to hide something, which I'm guessing is the slow speed.

The E-Go Cruiser can do 18 miles or 30km and you can see plenty of videos at www.youtube.com/YuneecEGO We have nothing to hide and can reassure you that 12.5 mph or 20km/hr is fast enough and you can 'run out' a fall at that speed. At faster speeds you can't. This satisfies 90% of people, 90% of the time.

It says on the site under the "Controller" tab that it can go 13 mph.

It's certainly interesting, as you could literally buy almost three of these for the price of one Boosted Board. I'm on the preorder list of Boosted, and was actually pretty upset/angry that they increased the price by more than 50%.

I'm really sorry about the price increase. We honored the promised price for everyone we asked for money from, even though we lost money on each one. If we could build our technology at the original price estimate for all our preorders without shutting down, we would absolutely do so. But the only other option is compromising the quality or performance of the board, and we'd rather build a few great boards than a bunch of mediocre ones.

I wouldn't sweat it too much, the cheap knock-offs will come and go. If you guys can deliver quality, then it will be worth it. That being said, 1300 I can justify as a toy, 2k is pushing it a little.

The E-GO is far from a cheap knock off. It comes from Yuneec.com who make real electric aircraft and are experts in Electric Propulsion Systems. It is our ability to do mass production which has brought the price down. The design and testing was done by an international team in including several ex-pat Europeans and American employees of Yuneec. We make most of the components in the E-GO and our own motors have a 15 year development history. We also now use auto short circuit protection Panasonic batteries, the best and most expensive in the industry, just like Tesla does.

I wish you would've given clear cut apology in your email. Instead, your email only focused on justification of the increased price. I don't think people doubted you when you said there's been extra cost in the parts, your early adopters BELIEVED in you anyways. We know we didn't deposit any money, but we still waited 17 months anticipating to buy the product that we pre-ordered at the price of 1299. We felt special. We felt entitled. With all that being gone, it's natural for us to feel bummed, and a sincere, empathetic apology would've gone a long way.

My car is worth less than a Boosted board :(

I honestly didn't realize there's a market for 1,000-dollar boards.

When I used to skateboard (not longboard), I enjoyed the simplicity and flow of just pushing and coasting. I also didn't have to worry about holding controllers, damaging the board (a replacement cost $30-$50), or battery life.

The job to be done here is quite different from traditional longboarding. While you could skate 6km to work, you are likely to get sweaty and need a shower. I see this as somewhere between a bike and a moped in the travel capabilities it gives you.

Im a lucky owner of a Boosted Board and i can tell that with my 220lb frame the board can go much faster than I would feel comfortable and its torque is scary good. Whether its 3 times better than this board, I wouldnt know untill i try the E-GO if ever.

One thing that jumped at me right away from the E-Go pics is that the singular compartment that probably holds the battery and the controller is placed across almost entire length of the bottom of the board. And when somebody flexes it by moving around, the whole compartment flexes. [1]

I think that makes the plastic more prone to cracking than that of a Boosted Board where controller is placed on one side and the batteries are placed on another with nothing in between them.[2]

[1] http://youtu.be/_MqTg2bGv3E?t=41s

[2] http://boosted.staging.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/...

As an owner of a Boosted Board, how realistic is the range that they spec? Are you getting a full 6 miles?

I'm the same size as you and I have owned 2 electric skateboards (e-glide / evolve). Both of my previous boards promised much farther range than I have been able to get ... with both actually delivering about 6 miles of real range with real world riding.

HEre is what somebody shared on facebook

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152007349208170&se...

Yes! I'd second you here. And I think there should be a third setting actually. With the same acceleration and braking (to not loose the fun factor), but with the speed limit.

Currently, in the expert mode it is pretty scary at the top speed. It is definitely a lot faster then one can run and I can imagine it picking up a rock and blocking a wheel with pretty nasty consequences. Especially if one is riding without knee protection (BTW, in my opinion D3O armored jeans should be a standard option of protection gear, and an option to be sold with the board)...

Yuneec's E-GO has a patent on the battery design which flexes really nicely and traditional longboarders love it for the natural feel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LiKgNySW0E

This appears to be a pretty straight ripoff of Boosted Boards, down to color. Though with an obvious price difference.

It's got a common longboard design with a common wheel color. The tech is the differentiator, and yea, as you said, 1/3 the price.

I thought Loaded Boards was attributed for creating this style?

It's a very generic shape. Loaded started out making flexy boards, from bamboo, aiming at the more casual cruising/carving/dancing market.

They've recently released some stiffer boards, more focused on downhill and slides.

I'm honestly just talking about logo design and color. The Boosted board is from Loaded.

I fail to see similarities between boosted's logo and e-go's logo. They are so incredibly different. E-go's logo looks more similar to ubuntu's logo, so one could argue that boosted borrowed their style from ubuntu?

I don't think boosted invented their style of board. I've seen many long boards that have their exact style. I guess if you've only seen boosted first, you'd think everyone is ripping off from boosted.

Yup, such a blatant copycat attempt. All the way down to the angle the photos are taken from. Good thing for Boosted that you can't just copy a well engineered drivetrain.

Actually, Yuneec Technology started our E-GO Cruiser design even before Boosted Boards launched their Kickstarter campaign. Yuneec are experts in Electric Propulsion Systems, be they for light aircraft, ultralights, drones or electric longboards. We design and manufacture everything and our new and substantial office and warehouse in California is creating plenty of US jobs.

IIRC Boosted boards are based on boards from Loaded Longboards. If these guys also used Loaded Longboards, they are going to look very similar. Wheels as well are going to be one of the commodity items on the board. Bright orange, green and Grimace purple are some of the most common colors for longboard wheels.

Loaded makes awesome boards and their bamboo construction is excellent and quite springy (great for pumping and carving).

I actually bought an e-go a couple of weeks ago (had a boosted preorder but couldn't wait)

to address some of the comments on this page:

- flex: the orange things on the side of the battery are rubber, conceiling gaps in the plastic. This allows the entire battery enclosure to flex.

- range: I was sceptical about the 30km claim, but so far I've only been able to run the charge down to 50%. I opened up the battery enclosure, and they're using 28x samsung ICR18650-26F cells, so it does seem there's quite a bit of juice.

- planes: note that the battery is above 100Wh (more than 200?) and can't be brought on a plane. I did not know this and took it in my luggage..

- downhill: I noticed that the braking has a maximum force, so on very steep hills (20% ?) it would be braking at its max but you'd still be accelerating. Probably not a big issue for experienced boarders, but scary for a beginner like me.

I ordered mine today and am super pumped to get it! When I got the email today about boosted raising the price to $2000 I was bummed. Then I saw this post on hacker news and it totally made my day.

How long did it take to ship and arrive after you ordered?

Pretty quick, like a week. They didn't ship to Canada at the time so I had to use a mail forwarding service.

Sweet!

As someone who's been longboarding for years (including commute), I would be interested in something that:

* Would let me ride normally, without using the motor at all (e.g. gear in neutral).

* Would recharge going down hill.

* Would assist me going up a steep hill.

My current board is 40+ inch Arbour board that I got for around $200 5-6 years ago. Every couple of years, I spend ~$40 on new barings (too lazy to maintain).

I don't actually want an electric board most of the time, as it's one of few sources of exercise for me, but it'd be nice to have an assist going up hill.

Not sure I'd spend more than $400-$500 though.

It looks like the E-GO hits the first two points, and, purely speculating, I'd imagine that at full power it would assist you uphill as well.

On the website it says it supports up to 10%, so I'd say yes on that.

Got mine a few weeks back and can address this from my experience.

• Yes, you can ride normally but not the neutral gear scenario. The motor only adds a 2 pounds or so and is barely noticeable, but it has a switch under the board and on the hand control. You could turn everything on and only use when you wanted though since the charge is lengthy.

• It has regenerative breaking, so only recharges on break. But any real hill and this option is kind of a godsend.

• The motor shuts off if it goes beyond a certain degree up hill. Not ideal for this. But great for moderate or small hills to keep speed up.

Am I the only person who would rather buy a $1000 beater Jeep, a moped, a camper, a couple bicylces or some mid 70s, so-ugly-it's awesome car than a $1000 skateboard?

Don't forget cost of ownership - $1000 for a car is just the start - after that you need to insure it, service it and pay for the gas - that's probably more per year than the initial price.

If you were looking for a beater, many of what I listed could be purchased for $500. The bike has almost no cost to upkeep, the moped very little, the camper a little more. Any vehicle that would be bought as a nice weather toy could be insured at a lower rate and would not be used as much as most vehicles, so it would have a much lower maintenance cost.

I think the board is pitched as the _last mile_ of transportation. It's light, small and easy to carry so you can ride the bus or the train and use the board to get from the stop to home (final destination).

Most of those are quite impractical for an urban environment.

Give the technology a few years, and you'll probably find $200 beater e-skateboards.

Parking in Seattle downtown is ~$300 per month.

Vehicle registration in Australia alone is about $700/year, then there's insurance, parking and so on. For anyone a short drive from work or who could avoid a second bus, a powered board might be a great option.

No, you're not :-). A moped or bicycle is perfect and can be a lot cheaper...

Sorry but I think (long time) riders won't go for it. I've been riding a longboard for 15 years, every time I do is pure bliss, and it comes at the price of some old-fashioned muscular effort, and believe or not, the effort is part of the bliss.

As I once said to a rider friend, I think of electric longboards like "the lazy hipster version of the electric shopping cart". Useful, but not fun.

I got mine E-Go Cruiser about a month ago and it really has brought back the love of skateboarding in me. Now I take lunch breaks to just hit the streets, which has a nice zen-like quality.

It is light, fast, can bowl over anything, and the charge lasts a spooky long time. The one note is the brake takes some getting used to in how touchy it can be, but by far worth the money.

The video shows them riding these around Shanghai, which, having been a pedestrian in Shanghai, seems like a really good way to get killed (though Shanghai is MUCH better the many other parts of China).

Cool board though! Looks a bit sluggish. I'd probably shell out the extra grand for a Boosted Board.

The team is made up of plenty of International ex-pats and yes we designed and manufacture the Yuneec E-GO at Yuneec HQ (www.yuneec.com)just outside Shanghai. It is not sluggish, we experimented with many speeds before deciding on the final one to satisfy 90% of people, 90% of the time and we put safety first.

As a long time skateboarder (mostly street and transition with dabbling in longboarding with some friends' boards) I see this as the segway of skateboards. Looks like a neat commuter ride for those who want minimal effort and minimal excitement, but it removes much of the joy of skating.

You don't see anyone sliding these boards or reverting (180) - I wonder what the effect on the motors is if you try that. And several posts here mention speed and this really looks spiritless. I suppose their target audience is a far cry from the street skater, but even my purely commuter long boarding friends opt for quality bearing/wheel combos for speed, control, and certainly fun in their ride.

As I see it, the real advantage is it's ability to go up hills. However being limited to a 10% grade isn't great; I would have to plan my routes carefully to stay under that at all times.

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-d5pZ6lmsM some seasoned skateboarders trying out an E-GO for the first time. As far as speed goes, an E-GO Cruiser travelling at 20 km/hr or 13mph can -- Cruise along at 5.5 meters / 18 feet every second -- Can cross a doubles tennis court in under 2 seconds -- Can do a length of an Olympic size Swimming Pool in 9 seconds before the Olympians have even got half way -- Can do an American football field end zone to end zone in under 20 seconds -- Travels at about twice the speed of an average marathon runner over the same distance -- After your friend gives up after 500 metres running along side you, you carry on for another 20,000m +

Why are Boosted Boards ($1995) at a 6 mile range and E-Go ($700) at a 15 (Edit: 18!) mile range?

With the huge price difference I would expect just the opposite.

Edit: http://e-go.com/feature-1 apparently E-Go has a 18.6 mile range when not in winter (< 50 degrees F) temperatures.

It takes far more energy to travel at 20 miles/h (Boosted) rather than 12 (E-Go).

Also range measurements can be deceptive. Perhaps the boosted board was measured in harsher conditions (more stops and starts say, or different weight, or different incline).

Boosted's battery has 99 Wh of capacity, while E-Go's has 230 Wh. Barring a significant difference in system efficiency, we would guess about a 2.3x difference in range under similar testing conditions.

Boosted co-founder here. Our battery costs more than theirs. Range/capacity is one measure of performance, alongside cycle lifetime, safety, power output, and other factors. Did a technical post about batteries a while ago.

http://boostedboards.com/technical-progress-part-iii-lithium...

I wonder if a Solowheel is better for the rest of us, who are not into boards? Their site is down for now, though :(

Accessing this site from China redirects me to http://e-go.com/geoblocked, which says "CONTENT NOT AVAILABLE. We're sorry, but this web site is not available in your country."

It's funny because the video is shot in China...

Sorry but Yuneec Technology do not sell our products in China, after 15 years in business we have many patents which have been abused too many times in China, so we do not sell there.

Can that really help? I mean, they could purchase a board outside of China and reverse engineer it there...

I got excited at the prospect of a new surfboard. Alas, this is a long skateboard.

Boosted send an email this morning that their boards will retail at $1,995

SO their MFR cost is ~$650....

Incorrect. If that was the case, we would fulfill all our preorders at the original estimated price.

Mfr cost ==??

Is it waterproof? Almost all electric boards aren't, which doesn't make them something you cannot rely on. It could be sunny when you go out and raining on the way back for example.

You don't want to be longboarding when it is raining anyways even on a non-electric longboard. I've done it tons of times myself, but there are the following issues:

* bearings will get dirt in them that will greatly reduce their life * if you don't have expensive ceramic bearings you'll want to pull out the bearings and make sure to get the water out and get them dry, otherwise they might experience some rusting (even the stainless steel ones). * Stopping distance is way way longer when its raining.

If you're riding in the the rain you're greatly limited to fewer conditions under which you can ride and any time saved by riding will be offset by the time spent drying, cleaning and maintaining your board.

For the rainy season around here (FL,) I got a cheap set of bearings and put some lithium grease in them to keep the water out. The grease will eventually wear the bearings down but it definitely keeps them from rusting, and they actually get a bit of vibration dampening out of it, which is nice on our gravelly-textured roads.

Stopping distance would be the real problem for an electric board in the rain, though.

Yep, they mention that it is waterproof in one of the videos on the site. That probably means "splash proof" rather than "submersion proof" however.

The (very funny and large)instructions say not to get it wet. I've gotten it wet without issue so far.

It may be the season, but I'd love for it to be able to go faster (15-20?), and for the rider to be able to attach the board more firmly to themselves, more like a freebord.

You don't want to get stuck to the board in case you want to stop on your own (foot-brake) or bail (college-brake). The grip/concave is enough to lock in.

freebords don't actually lock you in, they're hooked. I'm thinking of the ease and control you have. I was never a skater, so I don't fully understand how you can do hard turns and the like when you're not strapped in, so that is my weakness there. I still think it'd be cool.

I think the control of a freebord comes from the hooks in combination with the third wheels, not just the hooks. Having done a fair amount of downhill longboarding, I don't think having hooks on a longboard would give you any more control and would probably just make it easier for you to face plant. The control would still have to come from body positioning, legs, and weight distribution.

"The future of personal transport".

Is it? Is it really? I skate but this certainly isn't the future of personal transport.

I am not sure why you would want to use the ios app. This is definitely a use case that requires tactile feedback.

Look at the unboxing video. It looks like it comes with a physical slider-switch control.

Wow, I want this, but I can't justify buying another board for at least a few more months :(

>The E-GO CRUISER by Yuneec Technology, is the future of Personal Electric Transportation.

nope, it doesn't fly.

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