All Your Green Blog

Well, Dieter (aka TheGreenGir) has outdone himself. His electric commuter scooter (a Segway indoor/outdoor model) might actually have the range required for being useful. Just because my first and second attempts at electric commutation were busts doesn't make me jealous. I'm happy for him.

Ok, that's a lie. I want one now. It's kinda spendy (he burned $6000 that he seems to know how to afford using some accounting voodoo I couldn't follow), but the awesomeness factor is pretty high. It cruises at 12 mph, and has a 20 mile effective range (a claim that we haven't fully tested, but seems plausible so far). It's not running the same lead-acid batteries that starts your car or ran my scooter, but twin lithium-ion packs. For scale, that's a bit like running a scooter on several thousand cell phone batteries. It's pretty neat.

For those who haven't tried one, they're amazingly easy to get the hang of. The machine does all the tricky balancing for you, and all you do is lean where you want to go. It's really that simple, and with a little practice, you can drive it inside! It's based on technology originally built for wheelchairs and similar electric mobility devices, afterall.

Well, Dieter, you win this round of "who has the cooler toys." I'll just have to console myself with a 120 mph Tesla roadster sometime. Someday. I hope.

Enjoy your $1.20 per month commuting costs, you dog.