gn2 wrote: Electric scooters are still novelty town posing tools for sandal wearing lentil munching treehuggers and a complete irrelevance to those of us with long-ish commutes.

Trolls commute?

Save the moderators some time and drop the insults

Of course not. And my Sat won't get 90mpg when I'm flat out on the M11 either. Instead, it gets around 60mpg on a long motorway journey.

But since only 5miles of my 27mile commute is on the M11, I don't think I would have a problem.

I predict that within 5 years leccy scooters will be both common and good enough in all respects for most of us to use for our normal rides.

Bluebottle wrote:

gn2 wrote: Electric scooters are still novelty town posing tools for sandal wearing lentil munching treehuggers and a complete irrelevance to those of us with long-ish commutes.

Trolls commute?

Not trolling at all, just calling it like I see it.
When an electric scooter can sustain 70mph for at least 100 miles on a charge and be recharged in minutes rather than hours only then will they stand any chance of mainstream acceptance.
And yes, we have had this discussion before and yes I know that there are thousands of electrics in some cities but the fact remains that almost nobody wants them. Yet.

StephenC wrote:....my 27mile commute.

If you can plug in at work you would have a stonking journey!
In my experience power drops off progressively at the end of the range rather getting a sudden halt like a petrol engine. If you could top up at work you'd be using less than half the range so you could hammer it all the way and you would be getting full performance throughout. I don't know how much the published figures lean toward useable and total range.

Usually the range readout is how far you will get at that particular output. So like a car readout it will give a ridiculous high figure when you coast down a hill and a lower one when you boot it. I found the most useful thing was the "remaining charge" display; you soon learn to convert the reading into hilly miles, town miles or booting it miles.

StephenC wrote:I predict that within 5 years leccy scooters will be both common and good enough in all respects for most of us to use for our normal rides.

Given your job, maybe we have seen some of the same embargoed technology.
I worked on the design stages of some military aircraft and was really suprised to hear they were going to be electric. Until I got the full story my first reaction was "are you sure?".

little article in twist and go about electric scooters aimed at moped riders ... the yamaha ec-03 at 2599 quid .. and after a 7 hour charge managed a grand total of 14.2 miles before going flat ........ who on earth would buy one . when a honda vision 50 is 1599 does about 140 mpg .. a thousand quid buys you a shed load of fuel .......

Lets face it electric is a a thing of the future..! and in the world we live in i wont see it taking over from petrol for a good 10 to twenty years....i dont fancy trying to push that home or even leaving it locked to a lamp post.

StephenC wrote:For example, The Register just reported that the slow charge time for batteries has now been overcome. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/15 ... ck_charge/

admittedly i'm not a big fan of electric vehicles, but if this discovery holds any truth and reaches end customer with the claimed benefits, it will be revolutionary.

I'd still not buy an electric vehicle though, as charge time is not the only thing i dislike. I'm just a petrolhead who loves the smell and sound of a petrol engine.