Scooter

While electric motorbikes are creeping steadily into the marketplace, most of the ones we’ve seen here on Gizmag have been designed either as commuters, racers or for some weekend fun in the dirt. What we haven’t seen so much are electrics made for haulin' – something motorcycles are relied on heavily for in many parts of the world. How did you know I was going to say “until now”? Read More

Being a single, childless (as far as I know), male my experience with baby strollers is largely limited to trying to avoid parents using them as battering rams at my local shopping center. That task could get a whole lot tougher if the Roller Buggy gains widespread popularity. A simple pull of the lower body extends a platform and transforms the Roller Buggy from a run-of-the-mill baby stroller into a scooter that lets parents transport baby around town at breakneck (hopefully not literally) speed. Read More

Trying to do the right thing by the environment and ride a scooter or bicycle to work is great – unless you have to wear a suit. Wear it riding and you can sometimes look like the “great unwashed” by the time you arrive at your desk. Place it carefully into a backpack and by the time you’re unpacking it, it looks like you ironed it with the leg of a chair. The Suit Commute, however, is designed to hold your neatly pressed suit and shirt in place so you arrive for the board meeting or job interview looking fit for the part (just don’t forget to fix your “helmet hair”). Read More

British company econogo has launched the yogo, the first electric scooter that uses a fully detachable and portable lithium battery. Traditionally, electric two-wheelers in the UK have used impractical fixed silicon batteries which require the owner to run an extension lead from a mains electricity socket to the vehicle’s integrated battery. yogo owners can remove and charge the two LiFePO4 batteries inside an hour. Two spare batteries offer the option of an instantaneous swap for a further 44 miles of range. The GBP1999 (USD$3000) yogo has a 1500W motor, a top speed of 38 mph giving it the acceleration of a 100cc motorcycle, if not the top speed … and almost negligible running costs. Read More

A new electric motor designed for use with electric bicycles, scooters and other lightweight vehicles has been launched by Swedish company, Höganäs. The motor takes advantage of "metal powder technology", resulting in high performance but with reduced size, with a range of up to 75km between charges. The motor has been shown during the World Expo in the heart in Shanghai, China, one of the world’s stronghold for electric bicycle manufacture and deployment due to its cost efficiency, flexible and environmentally-friendly means of transportation. Read More

American manufacturer ZEV has issued a fairly blunt challenge to other electric motorcycle manufacturers such as Vectrix, Zero Motorcycles and Brammo, by claiming to have the fastest and most powerful production electric scooter on the market in its US$7237 ZEV7000. "We tell them to bring their street legal production bike and to bring their betting money. There can be only one "fastest" street legal production electric motor scooter or bike in the world." Read More

The yogo, by fledgling British company econogo, is the UK's first and only full production electric scooter that has removable lithium batteries. What’s so good about that? Well, instead of having to run an extension lead from a mains electricity socket inside the house or garage, the yogo’s removable battery allows owners to recharge their scooter’s battery inside their home - or office, which greatly increases the flexibility of a scooter that only has a range of 22 miles per battery charge. Carry another charged battery with you and double the distance you can travel before having to recharge (it only takes an hour). With a top speed of 38mph, the Yogo’s 1.5kW motor is billed as the equivalent of 100cc motorbike. Read More

The Magic Wheel Scooter fits in a niche somewhere in the middle of a skateboard, a unicycle and in-line skates. While riders in the promotional video below make riding the scooter look easy, we reckon it will take some getting used to, as will the stares from passers-by. However, it looks like a bit of fun, and certainly not as radical as the Loop-In concept board. It appears functional, too, especially if you live at the bottom of a hill and need to get home in a hurry. But with no handlebars, pedals or brakes, an element of bravado is required to master this piece of technology. Read More

According to a new study entitled “Electric Two-Wheel Vehicles”, cleantech market intelligence company Pike Research is forecasting that more than 466 million electric bicycles and motorcycles will be sold worldwide during the period from 2010 to 2016. Given that the annual global motorcycle market is currently around 80 million units a year, almost all of them based on the internal combustion engine, this anticipated explosion in electric bike demand could double the size of the two wheeled market, not to mention dampen the demand for electric four-wheelers. Read More