By virtue of Mike’s link, and a few hours of internet crosschecking, I just picked up the X-treme XG-470 for $279, including the shipping. 50 lbs and foldable (supposedly). Wanted a full electric, but I live in a land of rain and hills.
My job is only a mile and a half away, and, since it’s under 50 cc, in my state, no motorcycle endorsement is required.
http://www.advancedelectricscooters.com/
Many thanks for the link, Jeff! Looks like exactly what I’m searching for. There is a freight company within ten miles where I can pick it up.
It might be just the thing you need.
One person asked me about the electric model because their commute to work was only one block! A lot of people might be “disabled” if they didn’t have that minimal boost to get them over the threshold to full functionality.
In the old days, by setting the bar too high, we eliminated a lot of people from participation. A few decades ago, they actually made operating a computer as difficult as possible to protect the valuable information inside — until somebody came up with the bright idea that more people would want to use them (and buy them) if operating a computer was virtually idiot-proof.
That’s how the whole world got turned around. Many people don’t have to travel more than a mile or two but going that mile may be a high barrier to achieve.
There was a time in my life in which I could barely walk a block — without sitting down for a few minutes to relieve the pain every 25 feet. One day as I was sitting down in the portable chair I carried with me, I saw somebody else zip by in a standup electric scooter.
When I saw them come up with the seated scooter — on Home Shopping Network a few times (among other places), I thought we were off to the races. A lot of people are “crippled” but not designated and diagnosed so — but could be pretty nearly fully functional if they could remain seated. That is the advantage of the electric model because they’re pretty much the traditional wheelchair on two-wheels and on steroids — as it is prudent to use in that manner.
If you ride it slowly, people think it’s a wheelchair, or give you the benefit of being “disabled.” So you wouldn’t want to be zipping around at top speed in a crowd of unsuspecting pedestrians. so a lot of the protocols for its use has to be worked out.
About a year ago, when I checked this site, prices were about $50 lower but the shipping was over $100 separately — which was a barrier probably until they figured out to raise their prices a bit and throw in the free shipping. Not too many people want to pay as much for shipping as they do for the product — although that is fairly common practice with those “life time free supplies” — -just pay for the shipping and handling, which of course, is enough to make their profit.
But at prices one would pay for a quality commuting bicycle, that’s the crossover point for even a lot of bicyclists to consider shifting over — particularly when they have the range up over one’s commuting distance. That’s all one needs. It expands personal mobility beyond the old mass transit paradigm. A lot of people’s limitations is just getting to the bus stop or rail station.
Then with the enabling vehicle to do so, they might not even need the mass transit to complete their journey.