Micro-mobility Electric Society Transportation

Meg said yes, $605.54 Hiboy S2 Pro
36 lb Battery Electric Kick Scooter
500 Watts, 19 mph, 25 miles range

Think highly efficient, energy efficient, tiny, powerful electric kick scooters that can go faster than you would probably ever want to ride them! In city use on paved surfaces ideal for a machine like this, though you can get higher power off-road electric scooters if your willing to spend a lot more! 

Some existing volume production dual motor electric kick scooters can go 80 miles per hour. Those cost thousands of dollars & are completely overpowered & have a mass close to or slightly more than 100 lbs. 

That's crazy fast for such small wheels & such a short wheelbase! Can you imagine biffing on such a vehicle at such high speeds? Meg & I opted for one that was smaller & lighter that can fold up & easily be loaded into the trunks of our cars at only 37 lbs so that Meg' can lift it into the car without injury if need be. So far we mostly take it out the front door of our apartment & ride it directly in the bike lane of the streets nearby in downtown Issaquah, Wa, USA. 

Hiboy S2 Pro cruises at 12 mph & I kick assist it on steeper inclines or walk behind it with it powering itself with a little thumb throttle so it glides along side me on the steepest sections at walking speed. 

On downhill stents I have hit 38 mph max before activating the brake region left red thumb switch to max regenerate 3 orange bars which charged up the battery pack when going down hills, adding 10-15% more range. For faster stopping the right handle squeeze activates the mechanical rear wheel disc brake, while the rear suspension helps to soften the otherwise harsh NVH from the drilled solid tires, but I never have to worry about a tire puncture or airing up the tires. 

Calculated Energy Economy of Hiboy S2 Pro almost 1000 MPGe 

36vdc x 11.6 AH = 417.6 WH Lithium NMC Battery pack

Real range 16 miles max (rated 25.6 mi best case, unicorn hypermiling range new) 

Top speed 19 MPH in sport, actual 12MPH in green mode cruise speeds 

Math 16mi / 0.4176kWh = 38.31 mi/kWh Energy Economy Sore ^^ that's exceptional! 

Our 19 LEAF SV gets 4.6 mi (hypermiling)/kWh or more like 4.0 or slightly less driven normally

38.31 mi/kWh / 4.6 mi/kWh = 8.33X more efficient than 19 Nissan LEAF SV driven with hypermiling

If low speed city driving LEAF rated for 120mpg-e

8.33X more than 120MPG-e means Hiboy S2 Pro gets 999.5 MPGe

Ongoing testing will be required to find the most energy efficient speeds, but it seems to be hyper efficient at 3 to 5 mph, with Meg walking along side me at 4mi for about 4 mi it does not even register a drop in battery capacity the motor never causes the power bars to illuminate more than 3 green segments, often one or none gliding or even a 1 orange bar of regeneration on small downward slope sections. It glides nice in kick & glide mode like a non-electric kick scooter & regeneration pulse recovery like this can slowly recharge the battery. Not as authentically intensive as walking or bicycle riding but a bit more than just standing still. Much more testing required to learn more about it thankfully :) 

Uncar- Think Car Alternatives

I wrote this posting hope that it will encourage people in big cities to embrace an electric bike or electric kick scooter or electric skate board as a transportation choices to commute to work or school or the grocery store. 

I think car's are really neat, but a bad transportation option for 10 billion people at the same time. To make 10 billion cars would require several Earth's worth of additional natural resources to mine & refine into the needed materials. 

The fuel & energy requirements for 10 billion 1800 kg (~3000 lb) metal automobiles would enormously increase worldwide energy consumption, with fossil fuels like gasoline & diesel dominating mobile vehicle energy prime drive technology even though battery electric vehicles are trending and popular, creating new levels of stressful time wasting traffic congestion of storied intensity that suck away peoples finite time alive in congested stop & go traffic. 

Lithium prices have risen from $4000 per ton in 2012 to over $78,000 per ton in 2023, meaning the development of lithium & cobalt free batteries like Na-Ion or sodium ion batteries in full commercial swing at CATL and Toyota, Tesla, VW, Mercedes,  BMW, Nissan, Mazda, Hyundai & other automakers where BEV or battery electric vehicle battery technology moving to Nickel, Manganese & Sodium technology that Tesla developing actively with Panasonic & Toyota. 

Safely Slowly Lane Splitting to Save Time

Splitting the lanes & traveling between cars also reduces your fuel or energy consumption & exposure to toxic tailpipe emissions. You get where you are going faster, with less time, less fuel & less black funk to wipe off your face or clean out of your nose. I recommend wearing protective clothing, a motorcycle jacket, leather boots, eye protection or a helmet or full face helmet, leather gloves & other protection so that you are less likely to be hurt if you crash. 

Protective gear also insulates your body from wind-chill since riding an electric scooter not going to pump up your metabolism like a brisk walk would, so your body does not get as sweaty or warm from metabolic heat like it would from jogging or running or hiking. It's more like standing with a few kicks here & there on the steeper parts since it's only 500w max. You need a more powerful scooter to climb steep hill grades. I suggest the 5600w dual motor scooters for 40mph hill climbing at 50 deg angles.  

I like wearing sound blocking earplugs when riding at higher speeds, to prevent wind noise that can damage hearing. I also wear protective gear for safety protection to reduce risks of serious injury during an accident or crash. 

I do not listen to music when operating vehicles and stay focused on situational awareness & what is happening around my vehicle, so that I can predictively anticipate what's about to happen to avoid hazards & prevent an accident from occurring. 

The intense focused vehicle control method also to engage in hypermiling to maximize fuel economy while riding the Honda PCX150 scooter or Yamaha MT03 motorcycle, or when driving our 3rd gen Toyota Prius or 01 Audi A4 Quattro, or boost the range and energy economy of the Segway Mini Pro or Highboy S2 Pro, or when riding our bicycles :) 

With the Nissan LEAF SV I am always looking to get 5mi per kWh but its hard if any fun acceleration boosts are used with the pedal pressed all the way down :) The best part is the 147kw of instant acceleration fun that makes the Nissan LEAF SV a blast to accelerate quickly :) 

Slip Between Cars Stopped in Traffic

Why not get on a small motorcycle, motor scooter, electric bicycle or electric kick scooter & politely lane split right through the stopped cars stuck in traffic. Many states have legalized lane splitting at lower safer speeds, so that people riding motorcycle can ride between stopped cars to get where they are going. In a city, there are lots of open road spaces where you can ride a small electric kick scooter without riding on the side walk or blocking cars or trucks or busses in the main right of way; other paved surfaces to ride on.  

Tiny E-kick scooters are easier to park, do not take up much space, are low mass, energy efficient, low emissions, low materials use, if there is a vehicle that's good for 10+ billion people, E-bikes & E-Scooters are the best technology, even if they need a tiny turbine generator range extender motor generator to get long range on highway capable units to keep the battery mass lower :) 

I always toy with the idea of a tiny portable range extension generator plumbed directly into the main battery bus connectors with that float charge the batteries at just above the packs nominal voltage. But then again messing with fuel, engines, noise, emissions, what a headache. A better E-bike with dual motors and 2000 watts of brushless, with 1kWh or more of battery & full suspension, but then mass goes to around 100lbs, the same problem as the 80mph electric kick scooters with 5600watts of dual motor power :) 

Ride with Honor & Dignity & Treat Other People the Same

Be curious & polite to other motorists & bicyclists & pedestrians, yielding the right of way & obeying road laws, but you can have a lot of fun riding an electric kick scooter, a self balancing scooter, e-bike or similar anything to get you where you need to go without a car! Especially around King County where I live, where the bus transit system very mediocre in terms of how long it takes to go somewhere with multiple transfers, to the lack of bus stops where people actually live, in the suburbs. 

It's autumn now, or fall, heading into cooler winter weather, well actually it has not rained for over a month & the weather report says it will hit 80 F in a couple day, a record breaking weather temperature for this time of year (year climate change is happening) so it will be fun to test this unit in less than optimal conditions even later in the year when it actually starts being colder outside! 

Riding Warm & Dry Enjoyable

Most people think that riding 2-wheel vehicles a lot more fun during warm spring and summer days! I usually only ride motorcycles, scooters or other two-wheel vehicles on clear dry days, with no or very light rain, because of traction safety issues that the curved wet tires of two-wheel vehicles do not share with 4 wheel automobiles, i.e. significantly less traction interface between the tires & pavement or road surfaces, making it easier to brake traction & loose control, through sometimes power sliding can be fun the vehicle has enough power & the operator skilled enough to do so safety. 

Wet & Cold Less Fun

I do not enjoy being cold & wet at the same time! Wet clothing can steel body heat 600x faster than dry clothing, so that makes rain + wind chill feel very cold indeed! Gliding on the Segway MP not exactly much more a workout than simply standing, so the body not warming up like it would while running, skiing, snowboarding, bicycling pedaling, doing exercises that raise the heart rate & breathing rate so high that its hard to squeak out more than a few words before taking another breath, meaning your close to or in your target heart range, high enough BPM & breath & beats per minute to give a cardiovascular benefit, improving blood flow & body temperature, causing the body to sweat to modulated it homeostasis to keep from overheating. 

Human Body Energy

At rest our human body energy about 0.2vdc at 500 amps, low voltage very high current. That works out to about 100 watts, though the metabolism can scale human energy output up to 500 watts peak or sustain shorter duration pulses of 250-300 watts when someone working out hard or getting a hard workout in, for 10min-30mins, a few times per week at maximum intensity, like HIIT training or similar, running up a steep hill, swimming full out as hard as you can or other short maximum intensity workouts. 

Human power-to-weight determines acceleration & speed during cycling hill climbing events, such that the cyclists muscular power output decreases as fatigue sets in. For example a physically fit processional cyclist an product 20 watts per kilogram of body mass or about 0.012 horsepower per public of body mass for a 5 second maximum interval. 

Dead Mass (Wet Flesh Weight)

Humans have a lot of body water & bone mass & flesh that cannot make muscle power output, so a lot of body energy used for digestion, brain function thinking & coordinating movement & the processing & analysis of incoming sensory data from the eyes & ears, such that the brain always trying to make sense of the world, stuck inside a lightproof fluid filled scull, the brain cannot derive anything about the world directly, it takes never signals from the body & integrates these inputs against existing long term memories to adapt both its change & function in response to what the person is doing with any regularity. 

Human Brain Automation

Habits are a form of powerful brain automation where you start doing things on autopilot. You can drive a car sorta spaced out with no memory of the drive after your have completed the trip, for example. This means that humans also have executive function & cognitive limitations. 

We are better at using our brain & body as a tool, but when people are calling the shots, look at what happens, all the bad problems in the world, largely unresolved, chaos, strife, social division, crime, scams, corruption, lies, misinformation, disinformation, other forms of conflict, anger, bitterness, jealousy, frustration, negativity, bigotry, racism, ignorance & a myriad of other mental disorders & limited thinking problems that inhibit people from engage a more excellent way in all domains of their lives.

Human Powered Aircraft

Athletes in tip top physical shape can maintain 250w output for over an hour, something professional bicyclists due in competition. A human powered aircraft was operated by such a man, an excitedly fit strong man who pedaled through a chain link system that turned the propellers to generate trust near the winds to produce aerodynamic lift. 

This been done by several teams on several different machines, like the MIT Light Eagle & Daedalus respectively. SUMPAC 1961 was the first human powered aircraft, which flew 908 meters. The Gossamer Condor 2 bully by Dr. Paul B MacCready was energized by amateur cyclist Bryan Allen, who flew a figure-eight for 2.172 km at a speed of of 11 mph (18km/h) using only 0.35 hp or 260 watts of human energy, winning the 1st £50,000 Kremer prize. 

Later Allen. B. flew MacCready's Gossamer Albatross 35.82 km (~22.3 miles) in 2 hours 49 minutes, from England to France, thus winning the second £100,000 Kremer Prize! FIA world record for HPA set 23rd April 1988 when pilot Kanellos Kanellopoulos flew the MIT Daedalus 115.11km or 71.53 mi from Iraklion, Crete to Santorini. Even human powered helicopters exist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human-powered_helicopter though they cannot fly far or fast! 

Human Energy Limitations

That's why most commercially produce helicopters use flat 6 engines burning 100LL high octane low lead and even better Jet A fuel burning turbines energize larger more expensive helicopters with more capacity & better performance. Human cannot produce as much mechanical energy as engines burning fuel, not even electric motors energized by lithium ion batteries through cleaver variable frequency sine wave motor controllers.

Many Kinds of Electric Vehicles

Battery electric helicopters have gone the way of multi-rotor designs where electric motors power 4, 6, 8 or more rotating life propellers, each controlled by a computer that can steer the craft or vector its direction of locomotion by varying power to the motors, thus controlling the speed of each propeller & the amount of thrust. 

If one corner, produces less thus, that corner drops & the other lift fans push the craft in that direction. This is how all RC quadcopter work, like my DJI Mini 2 photography 4k video drone. Some smaller lower performance electric aircraft are used for pilot training at airports. Battery electric cars are made by nearly all the worlds major & some minor automakers. 

Battery electric motorcycles & electric highway scooters exist. There are cool emergent vehicles like the monowheel that allows the rider to surf the pavement, though snowboarding & surfacing provide water & snow as surfaces to fall into, such that making a mistake on a mono wheel might be really painful or worse! 

Smaller Electric Vehicles are Cool 

E-bikes & e-scooters & other first mile last mile electric motor energized battery electric vehicles of all scales, from 100w battery electric children toys to Megawatt high performance electric vehicles from Tesla Inc. Think 0-100 miles per hour in 2 seconds using battery energy pumped through motor controllers into brushless AC drive motors with amazingly powerful magnets & electromagnetic fields from the energized windings. 

I am talking about amazing brushless motor technology that's currently used in electric airplanes, electric passenger drones, RC photography drones & racing drones, RC cars & electric cars & electric vehicles of all kinds today! 

Cities Best Case

Think urban city environments with lots of paved surfaces, at city speeds where most gasoline fueled vehicles get their worst rated fuel economy, noting that when stopped the engine burning fuel & the vehicle not moving so gas & diesel vehicles get negative fuel economy or negative miles per gallon while sitting idle. 

The use case best in areas friendly to skate boards & roller blades, engineered walking paths of asphalt & concrete or tarmac, roads & trails & more, some dirt or gravel, sometimes oiled to keep dust down, often covered in layers of small rocks suspended in a thick matrix of hot tar, that solidifies after being laid down hot into asphalt. 

Asphalt cool because it can be torn up & recycled into new asphalt over & over again. Concrete roads and pathways are stronger & last longer, but they cost much more per unit area & are much harder to resurface, remove or replace. It is possible to recycle concrete, but very costly. 

Electric Scooter Road Trips? 

I am not saying that you cannot go on an electric kick scooter road-trip using a credit card & backpack, camping with a tent from your hiking backpack with folding solar PV charger dangling behind it capturing sun energy to charge your smartphone that you use for satellite navigation with turn by turn voice direction streaming to wireless earbuds inside your head protection, helmet or similar; using hotels to stay at & charge up along the way, eating at restaurants, grabbing snacks on the go, drinking water out of plastic water bottles etc. 

There are some $3000+ electric kick scooters that have a longer wheel base, bigger wheels, dual wheel motors, a 5+ kWh battery pack & can rapid charge using L2 EV charger meant for electric cars, charging up at a Tesla charging station, out of an out door accessible standard power outlet, Spartan charging anywhere you can find a power outlet on the go. Those are big & heavy (over 100lbs, hard to safely lift upstairs or into the trunk of an automobile)( & you would probably be better off on a motorcycle or motor scooter, something with a seat & storage! 

I recently installed a $88 seat on the Hiboy S2 Pro to make it more useful as a commuter / grocery errand go getter 5x faster than walking :) With an energy economy of 33.8mi/kWh or 999.5MPG-e the Hiboy S2 Pro electric kick scooter one of the most energy efficient transportation devices ever made! 

Getting around at 7-12 MPG cruising speeds means going 10 miles takes about an hour, so its not going to replace a car for many people, and more similar to a bicycle or e-bike in terms of performance given its top speed is 19 MPG & peak rate range best unicorn case in warm weather with a tail wind & perfectly level ground with a smaller ride with aerodynamic clothing // it has a rated max range of 25.6 mi per charge, more like 16 mi range real world, where steep hills really sap the battery via the 500w brushless front wheel hub motor. 

Solid tires mean no filling with air & no worrying about nails or screws or other things on the road edges where its likely to be ridden that can easily pop similar pneumatic or vacuum tires on analogue electric kick scooters. The downside of the drilled solid tires more NVH or a harsher rougher ride, so it does well on smooth paved surfaces & not good at off-roading // 

Riding Fatigue vs Endurance 

Standing for 5+ hours riding an electric kick scooter puts a lot of strain on the legs, feet, angles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbow, wrists, hands, neck, back, etc / its intensive on your body, far more than driving a car or riding a motorcycle. 

Running by far the hardest on the body, while swimming & water aerobics are the lowest impact per unit of strength training or cardio training, since the human body roughly buoyant in a pool filled with water, as our body less dense than water & people typically float with very light treading to stay above water, treading water relatively easy & a good workout if you keep it up for an hour! 

I am just saying that electric kick scooters are better as an urban commuter vehicle at 12 mph for 10-40 minutes at a time, which sets your practical daily range. I am not writing a prescription, only you know what your body can handle, and if you start slow & work up by training, you can increase your endurance or resilience bo the kinds of stresses & loads encountered by riding ones of these tiny electric vehicles street as a commuter vehicle, to to work or school or for fun as a recreational vehicle! 

Considering Roads

There are other roads & paths made of ground up car tires, some sporting tracks where people run are made this way. There are engineered foot bridges & elevated pedestrian walkways made of wood planks, steel, aluminum & other materials. Some roads have solar PV embedded into the surfaces, so the roadway makes electrical power, sitting outside facing the sky & sunlight all day & night 24/7/365! 

Solar EV's

There are even solar electric cars now like the Lightspeed, with lots of PV modules on generous sky facing surfaces that charge up lithium ion batteries hooked up to a motor controller & brushless drive motors that energize the movement of the passenger solar electric vehicle utilizing captured & stored solar energy. 

Some homeowners with rooftop solar PV arrays, charger their electric vehicles with solar energy, especially those who work from home, such that their EV plugged in charging while the sunlight making power in the solar PV modules, pumping that power in the EV batteries, making solar electric transportation a reality for a privileged few with such systems; think Tesla Model X with white leather seating, the owner sporting a wrist watch that cost as much a typical new family car.

Thinking Value

I personally refuse to spend more than $400 on a wrist watch, and have so many different wrist watches that Meg enacted a moratorium halt on any further purchases lol :) Thankfully my lovely wife Meg agreed with me about a new micro mobility device & so approved the purchase of the header image electric kick scooter, the Hiboy S2 Pro. I am super excited to get this new e-scooter when Amazon sends it! I am also excited to ride it while she rides our 16 Segway MP, swapping & so we each get to see the differences between these first mile last mile personal electric mobility vehicles. 

Old Renewable Energy Technology

Solar panels and batteries are more than 100 years old as technologies, only now we are seeing better versions of them merged or synergized into emergent products like amazing high performance electric kick scooters popular in NYC for example! Rental scooters & app rental e-bikes are common in larger metropolitan areas around or near big urban cities. 

App Rent E-bikes & E-Scooters

I even see LIME scooters & LIME bikes near Lakemont, near the south easter border of Bellevue, near the western border of Issaquah, Wa, USA, a relatively "out there" suburban residential area, around 10 miles east of Seattle on I90 or interstate 90, the local freeway or highway that people use to go skiing at snoqualmie pass or to cross over to eastern Washington where all of the states republicans live :P joking - I say that in jest or for comedic effect, not being literally, although there is a thread of truth to such a statement! 

Rural to Urban Human Migration

Concrete jungles the popular local for people moving from the countryside to move to, in seek of jobs for income, so they can by "things" that people in wealthy privileged countries typically enjoy as normal parts of their "upper class" daily lives. Something the US DOE & Pentagon call the "6 kilowatt lifestyle" referring to the nations energy use total divided by its population. 

This means that each person in a 6kw nation benefits from the liberated net energy from fossil fuels, electrical power plants & other means of making electricity be that from solar PV panel arrays or wind power turbines, hydro electric dams or nuclear reactors. 

Making Electricity

There are at least 12 different industrial scale power plant production technology to make grid power or distributed electricity into power wire networks connected to utility customers. Even more cleverly, many people in poor parts of rural Africa mount 100-8000 watts of solar photovoltaic panel modules to the roofs of their homes, taking the DC from the panels & running it into an MPPT charge controller connected to large format 12v lead acid 8D truck batteries with 220AH of storage capacity. 

In stationary applications the heavy weight of such low energy density batteries irrelevant since they are utilized stationary to store solar energy for later use in domestic electric loads like common appliances, fridges, microwaves, electric stoves, electric ovens, light bulbs or lamps, charging smartphones or similar battery electric consumer electronics, especially portable smart devices of many kinds like smartwatches or tablets or laptop computers; to energize LED or flat panel TV's, wifi routers operating over 4G LTE or 5G NR in bigger locals. 

Storing Solar Energy in Electric Vehicle Batteries

Renewable electricity pumped into EV batteries one of the most feasible ways to utilized energy storage to make intermittent renewables like solar PV or wind power, more useful. By taking the renewable energy & charging electric vehicle batteries with it, the batteries purchased to make the vehicle work as part of the cost of the vehicle, act as the energy storage capacity for the electrical grid, meaning the local utility companies do not have to shell out billions for large scale energy storage installations into substations & similar power distribution facilities, at power plants that collect wind power turbine engines or solar PV energy, intermittently. 

EV's plugged into the grid also can act as an energy buffer to smooth out voltage ripples, making the power quality improve, reducing electric grid energy losses & improving the electrical energy quality as delivered to other utility customers. 

Smart Grids & Smart EV Chargers \ GTV & VTG Power Exchange (Grid to Vehicle & Vehicle to Grid) 

With bidirectional smart chargers, the EV's so equipped can act as whole home UPS batteries, especially electric cars or larger electric vehicles with 100kwh of battery energy storage or similar, like a Tesla Model 3 or Model 7 or Model S P100D etc the next Tesla Roadster & other smart L2 charging installation with smart chargers that can take power from the grid into the electric vehicle battery or extract power from the vehicle battery & put it back into the grid power system. 

This would cycle the customers batteries more, so a system of "use credits" that pays the customer for battery degrading cycle use would be a fair way to make that make fiscal sense to convince more utility customers to upgrade their homes with bidirectional L2 chargers that work with some current & many future electric vehicles for home energy backup or grid stabilization or time of use charging so the utility company can choose when the EV charges, during the night, using cheaper off peak electricity to lower the customers electrical utility bill, making it less expensive to charge their EV, so the EV achieve even lower costs of operation or lower charging costs, lower operating cost per km or mile! 

There are thousands of small battery electric vehicles like E-bikes & E-scooters to choose from. I would hit YouTube & watch some review videos like "Best E-bike 2022" or "Best Cheap E-bike 2022" or whatever quarry criterion that matches your budget, interests or flavors, the differences between people make the difference & are the spice of life, since everyone slightly different & that makes life more interesting & more fun, as we get to know each other & learn new things from new people. 

I think you can learn something edifying or useful from almost anybody, even children with limited life experience. Think differently means you can always learn something new, even when your old, old people constantly learn new things, sometimes they have a harder time recalling what they have learned, since human memory function tends to decline with age, but I know plenty of people in the 80's * 90's who are perfectly mentally sharp, who are still active, and that is also amazing! Its exciting times to be alive!