Boosted's Electric Skateboard (YC S12) | Hacker News Reader

Boosted's Electric Skateboard (YC S12)

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51 pointssethbannon34 comments

I can't wait to see what kind of vehicle Boosted start working on next now they have this done.

Electric bicycles are a good, existing market (especially in Europe), but there are already some good options there and I suspect their prefer something where their R&D is more directly applicable (bicycles are heavier and human power can take a bigger proportion of the propulsion load). OTOH, it might be possible to engineer an add-on solution for existing bikes that would work well.

Electric scooters seems like a good bet. The form factor is similar, and I'd imagine many of the technologies can be directly transplanted. I think a folding electric scooter could be more practical than a longboard for many people.

There are of course more exotic options. The self-balancing electric unicycle (which was on HN the other day) was interesting, and I'd hope there are other things waiting to be invented.

Anyway - I'm very excited about the increased diversity in transport options.

There's an interesting electric scooter that just launched a few months ago called the URB-E: http://urb-e.com

Last time an article about Boosted Boards frontpaged HN, commenters raised very valid concerns about the legality of it. While it's still a niche thing it'll fly under the radar, but if this thing becomes super popular, it's pretty certain a law will pass to end the fun.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4506979

Other than that, as a longboarder who sadly can't longboard to work in downtown SF because of slight hills on my commute, I'd love to get one of those. If there are Boosted Boards employees/founders reading this: do you offer the possibility to come to your office and try one out? At a third or half the price it'd be a no brainer, but at $2000 I' m certainly not buying one without having tried it first.

There was at least some effort to legalize them in California:

http://blog.sfgate.com/stew/2014/03/11/california-bill-would...

Though the CA DMV seems to classify them as motor scooters:

http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/motors.html

It doesn't seem like the law is a serious concern at any rate, although I didn't research other states. If the question is if you need a motorcycle license or not, it seems like the industry is in a good position.

Skateboarding is illegal in San Francisco, and nearly every other US city.

For example, San Francisco Transportation Code Sec. 7.2.13: Illegal to ride on the sidewalk, Illegal to ride on the roadway

Founder here. Yup, email us at community@ and we'll set you up with a test-ride.

Regarding the legality issue, there are different laws about both electric and non-electric skateboards in different states and cities. They tend to be decades old and don't reflect modern technology. We're working with our legislative reps and other companies to change this, and that process is moving along.

I'm excited to see the number of players in the electric skateboard market. I'd like to see costs come down though, it seems like all of them are in the $1200-$2000 range with not much differentiation. I suspect the one who can bring costs down while maintaining quality will be the winner in this market.

I'm not sure what Boosted is bringing to the table honestly, compared to brands like [Evolve](http://evolveskateboardsusa.com/) that have been out for a while now and have better specs at a significantly lower price.

Boosted is using Loaded longboards which are high-quality longboards. As a longboarder, it gives me confidence that the board will be fun to ride as opposed to being just a plank of wood on wheels. On the other hand, those Evolve boards look decent. The costs of all of these are really too high for me right now, so I'll admit I haven't seriously looked into it.

I don't have an Evolve board but I'm considering one. I'd suggest giving them a look (much longer distance on one charge). I think I'll end up with either an evolve board or a onewheel. I do wish it was possible to test them out first to see how the ride really feels but I'm sure I would end up pretty happy with anything.

If you want to try a Boosted board, email us at community@. There are different boards, and some are better for different riding profiles. Happy to help you decide.

The cost is totally prohibitive, even for the early adopter market. Boosted - I was working on this problem (far less successfully than you - hat tip) and came to the conclusion that you have to give people a low starting cost and the ability to upgrade over time. Give me brushed motors, NiMH batteries and cheap trucks to start with for closer to $600USD. Once you've hooked me on the product (and I'm confident you will) offer me upgrades to LiFEPO4 batteries, better bearings, brushless motors, RadiKS wheels, etc. Up-front pricing will not win this market!

I've used mine every day since I got it. It's hard to describe how amazing the riding experience is.

Thank you!

Boosted boards are 6.8kg. The Marbel board is even lighter at 4.5kg(!), so it's even easier to carry, and the range is greater as well (16km instead of 9.6km):

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1664522105/marbel-the-l...

That Marbel board has a nice form factor, interesting to see the different choice of material for the deck. It's great to see some competition in this space. Hopefully someone will put a spring bushings option on one of these products.

It actually looks like they made it this way to hide batteries in the middle cavity.

I'd wait until the product is shipping before 100% believing Kickstarter claims.

Yes, it is possible to do everything they claim. To get it into a reliable, shipping product is another matter.

http://howtomakeanelectricskateboard.wordpress.com/ has some intersting reading

They are on the right track weigh-wise. And it is obvious that boards should be molded out of carbon fiber and all the electronics and batteries should be inside. It is also obvious that wheels themselves should be out-runner motors. All four of them. From pure tech perspective this should be it. So Marbel team might be on the right track.

I hope they also will be able to make the board actually useful. That's the best part of the Boosted team achievement by the way. Their board (I ride the thing 2-3 days a week) is a) actually usable b) fun. There are many un-obvious variables that come into the usability equation, especially for a piece of sports/recreational gear. In my opinion, boosted had managed to circumvent some of these by building their design around a good longboard and trying 'not to ruin' the experience of a longboard. Even that took them a while, with quite a number of redesign iterations (see. http://boostedboards.posthaven.com/ ), including building a custom controller (that apparently had removed a nasty noise problem of the early releases). It looks like Marbel team decided not to go that way, they are building the board from scratch. Should make the challenge harder in my opinion. But hopefully they will overcome it and will be able to make a 3rd generation board :) that is actually useful :)

I can't understand why these things are so damn expensive.

You can get a longboard skateboard for $100-$300 or so. I'm sure you can spend more but that's a good starting number. That's for the board, the trucks, the bearings and wheels. http://www.daddiesboardshop.com/longboards/complete-longboar...

It seems like a decent, 1000W+ motor can be had for less than $200. http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLM40...

Controllers are around $100 each, I'm not sure if you could use a single large one or if you'd need a pair of smaller ones. http://www.e-fliterc.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=EFLA10...

One of these packs would be enough juice to get you moving, but it might take two to get you the range you need. http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__45145__Turnigy_na... So call that $300 in parts.

Okay so $200 for the board, $400 for the motors, $200 for the controllers, and $300 for the batteries. We're now at $1100. After that what's left? I can think of:

A charger? $200 max http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/__11597__iCharger_3...

Controls? Figure what, $100 for the radio unit and the receiver and whatnot. Probably much less.

Last are all the brackets and driveline parts. I figure you could machine the motor brackets out of aluminum for less than $50 per pair in quantity, the pullies are only $20 each in quantity and the belts aren't terribly expensive either.

So that's $1400 worth of parts if you're buying them at retail. If you're making quantities of these things of at least a few hundred you're going to be getting better deals than that bringing your cost down to $1200 or $1000 each.

If I'm not completely full of shit here (and I recognize I might be, this is 15min worth of googling) I guess I can't understand why these things cost $2k to buy.

You're not accounting for literally any costs besides parts. R&D, assembly, testing, support, shipping, insurance, marketing, administrative, taxes... I actually doubt that they are spending $1200 on parts because if they were, they would be taking a massive loss on a $2000 retail price.

Yeah, sure but I'm also accounting for parts at RETAIL. I'm not talking to manufacturers and getting wholesale pricing.

I get that there's R&D and all the other things you've mentioned. I guess I didn't realize all that was going to cost $600-$1200 per board. I've always made the assumption that when you're not talking about software that your material costs dominate your price.

Given all that it would seem to make sense for someone moderately interested in an electric longboard as a hobby to build their own. If they're going to charge themselves for their time, obviously not as it would be a $20k device. But if you're interested in it anyhow it sounds like you can get a 50% or more discount.

You're also forgetting... they have to make a profit on this! You're also paying for the near-or-at six-figure salaries of the engineers that have worked on this for a few years.

Material costs only dominate your price if 1) you're minimally improving the material, and 2) you're selling so many units that all of your fixed costs get spread very thin.

Both assumptions are not likely true for Boosted Boards. If they sell 10,000 boards per year, each $1 million in overhead costs equal $100 per board sold. And even the companies that sell 100 million units per year, like Apple, have to spend a lot more than material costs on assembly, testing, support, warranty repair, payments processing, marketing, and probably uniquely high liability insurance costs for Boosted Boards.

This is a reasonable cost breakdown of our first prototypes. As we scaled up, some costs became much lower and others actually increased. For example, we moved from hobby-grade to EV-grade batteries, because we found hobby batteries tended to be less stable and reliable.

Our costs include parts, labor, and many of the costs that others mentioned. For example, having a warranty or a return policy are costs that scale with each unit.

You're correct that you can build something with similar performance (if not reliability) for cheaper, if your labor is free. Endless-sphere.com is one of many resources if you wish to do a home build.

They are not at mass production cost cutting scale and maturity yet. It's a new company and a new (or niche) category of thing. It's still a boutique product with a boutique price.

It's like some custom android thingamajig designed specifically for hospital inventory costing $2000. You can look at it and say that it's got the same specs as a $200 phone + some $80 barcode scanner and some odds and ends. The economies are not the same for an Samsung phone produced at 100ks units per month and some niche product produced at 100s of units per month. It's not even a multiplier. It's just completely different for a lot of small reasons.

Do you, or have you ever run a business?

Great product. I was on the pre-order list at $1299 and was disappointed to then get an email a month ago saying the price went up to $2000.

Outside of that, awesome job on the product. Looks great.

I'm sorry about this. I wish we had a way to keep the price that low. If you'd like to try one for a bit, email me at community@

I'm not in the Bay Area and am in Phoenix? Would this still apply?

We'll figure out a way to make it happen. Email me at community@ and we'll set you up.

Anyone know how waterproof this thing is? In the north west more than half my walking commutes are in the rain.

They're not supposed to be used when it's wet outside.

Seems like it needs anti-theft. Maybe a Bluetooth wheel lock if it is away from a paired device?

The article title is a tad too linkbaity (plus slightly misleading, given its final sentence), so we changed it to the caption from the photo.

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