Hacker News Reader

Comment by bryanlarsen | Hacker News Reader

This doesn't make any sense to me. Nobody ever drives more than 30 miles in one direction on a scooter, so plugging it in overnight would be a lot more convenient than driving to a swap station. Sure, it might only take 6 seconds to swap a battery, but even if the swap station is really close by, driving there every day will get old really fast.

View on HN

When I travelled in Vietnam, they have drive-thru gas stations that are built for motor scooters. Cars seem awkward there. It would fit perfectly in a place like that. The general population is very poor. Motor scooters are parked outside. Having access to an electric cable doesn't work for most people. They live in apartments.

Going to a government run gas station and having the attendant swap a battery for you is the easiest way to make this work.

Yep, been travelling through SE-Asia for the last 3 months. Loads of scooters here and they're parked anywhere on the street or sidewalks. Even if you'd theoretically get a power outlet from an apartment onto the street, there would be no way of controlling who uses it (=probably everybody).

Actually, that wouldn't even work in the apartment building I live in (in Berlin, Germany). Some people park their scooters in the courtyard... a public power outlet would probably be used for anything imagineable before a scooter would even get a half charge.

Actually, for my purposes, having batteries that I could charge indoors and swap in and out of the scooter as and when needed would be neat.

But "swap station", no. That's just as bad as having to get petrol. Refueling already only takes about 60 seconds, but any station that's on a commuting route will have a queue during commuting hours.

I commute by scooter. My scooter, along with our 4 other bikes, live outside, and not conveniently placed for plugging in.

As to 30 miles, I've toured Scotland and Ireland by scooter, round trips from London. But I understand your point. Most days, for most people, scooters are used for commuting single-digit mile trips. Of all the vehicles you could make electric, scooters makes some of the most sense.

In Taiwan people do (e.g. plenty commute from Taoyuan to Taipei city, that's a round trip of > 50km).

err... yeah, but not on a scooter!

Same here, very confused by no plugin option.

When I saw the article originally, got very excited. My 8 mile commute to the office is perfect for something like this... but swapping the battery kinda kills it for me.

The proprietary part thing is also very strange. It's unlikely (I think) that they will be able to keep others out of the market anyway, but it's also a very weird idea that you could buy a bike but then have to pay a subscription otherwise you can't use it. Maybe the pricing model will make this more straightforward somehow, but Chinese four-strokes are very cheap now, so it's difficult to imagine how this might be price competitive.

I think it makes sense for big dense cities. Living in SF I have a biased view but it would work great here. I dislike the idea that you are locked into swapping battery BUT I see the ability to swap as a huge benefit. A lot of cities do not have off street parking or at least those riding scooters do not want to pay for it. You park on the street and plugging it in becomes a nightmare.

SF already has a network of electric scooters[0]. They're underpowered, but they're great unless you're going up one of the big hills.

[0]: http://scootnetworks.com

> Nobody ever drives more than 30 miles in one direction on a scooter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lSnwG61B7g

60 miles each direction... frequently done by quite a few people and not just as a mass event (though it looks better for YouTube).

Wouldn't want to trust a 60 mile range battery on it though.

How about a pizza delivery guy with an 5 hour shift?

which is precisely an example where plug-in wouldn't help but quick battery swap does. A pizzeria easily justifies having their own swap station.

Yeah, I think you'd want a home charger option for this thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com