Choosing the Light Wheels That Are Right For You

by Edward B. Driscoll, Jr.
April 2002

"People are starting to discover that with the electric car or scooter, or maybe the electric bike, maybe I can get by with one less gasoline-powered car in my family now. And that becomes more and more true as people just use them in their lives, and see how convenient they can be."

Rob Means, the owner of Zap Electric Scooters of Milpitas, California certainly knows of what he speaks: deep down inside, almost everybody feels that there's some form of transportation that could offset the use of their cars. But what are the choices? When does it make sense to buy a scooter as opposed to a powered bicycle? And just what the heck do those strange terms such as "power-assist", "pedal-assist", "NEV" and "hybrid vehicle" mean, anyhow?

Let's start from the smallest to the biggest, and find out what some of the choices in the world of light wheels are.

Electric Scooters: An Entry Level into light wheels

There is a plethora of sitting and standing electric powered scooters available, in prices that range from around $100 to $1000. Not surprisingly, for the most part, you get what you pay for.

Andy Koblick, the owner of Rockland County New York's Electrik Motion says that in the $300 and less range, "you've got the lower-end scooters, a lot of these things that are coming from China, there's been a lot of problems with them, you see them in a lot of the discount outlets, eventually they end up in the peddler's marts, or the odd lots, just the job-shoppers trying to get rid of them."

In the mid-range, orbiting around $500 are several choices, especially the popular standing and sitting scooters manufactured by Currie Technologies Inc.

Koblick feels that Currie is the best scooter brand at the $500 price range. "Once you get above that", he says, "you get them with the lights and the brake lights, and they look more like a little electric motorcycle. There used to be some scooters that were over $1000, but I think most of them have come down under that figure. When you get that price, you're not really going to get much faster; what they're really adding is a lot of bells, whistles and features."

Koblick strongly recommends that potential scooter buyers make sure that the scooter they're looking at has a proper factory warranty. Otherwise, that low-end scooter could cost big bucks to repair.

To Seat or Not To Seat?
Many of the scooters on the market are available in both standing and sitting models, with optional seat kits. When does it make sense to stand or sit? Rob Means of Zap Electric Scooters says that it depends on how adventurous you feel. "Generally speaking, younger, more able folks really prefer to stand-up. I've never been on a Jet Ski, but that's kind of how I imagine that a Jet Ski would be on ground. You can just kind of swing your body around and drive and zip around on it standing up." Of course, a seat takes away some of the standing room only excitement. But Means says they're great for those of us who are getting older and less fearless.

Some scooters, such as Currie's Phat-E, have optional baskets available. Trailers are even available for some scooters.

Gasoline Alley
While electric-powered scooters are extremely popular, for real power in a scooter, it's tough to beat gasoline. There are gas-powered scooters in both stand-up and sit-down models, with two main types of engines available, two-stroke and four-stroke. "The two-stroke motors give twice as much power as a four-stroke motor of the same displacement," Gabe Ets-Hokin, sales manager for SF Moto and Scooter says. "But two-stroke motors have a higher-maintenance requirement, you have to mix oil with the gas, and they also pollute more. But they're a lot lighter and more simple and cheaper to make than the four-stroke motors. But anything over a 50cc two-stroke can't be sold in the United States."

Among their product line, SF Moto sells two popular brands of 50cc scooters, Malagutti from Italy, and Derbi from Spain. Derbis start at $2099, and Malaguttis run about $2500 to $2700. In addition, Honda and Yamaha, better known for their motorcycles, also make large four-stroke scooters.

Starting at about $3000, for their two-stroke ET2, and $4000 for their four-stroke ET4, perhaps the ultimate scooters are those produced by Vespa. Compared to most other gasoline-powered scooters, they're heavier, but they make up for it in style and history. They've been hugely popular in Europe since the 1960s (there's a Vespa on the cover of The Who's 1973 album Quadrophenia and whole fleets of them in the 1979 film of the same name).

Building on the popularity of vintage Vespas, Bajaj Auto Ltd., an Indian manufacturer which was licensed by decades to manufacture Vespas, has recently introduced a four-stroke motorized scooter for about $2000, "and it looks just like an old Vespa", Ets-Hokin says. "They're pretty cool!"

While state laws vary, 50cc scooters typically require a motorcycle license to drive. California law requires at least 150cc of engine displacement to go on freeways, which several of the more powerful scooters, such as the Vespa ET4, have.

How to Power-Assist Your Ten-Speed
A step up from the electric scooter is the electric bike. Several manufacturers make kits that can be retrofitted to a bike to increase its range and flexibility, as well as complete, ready to ride powered bikes.

Complete powered bicycles can run from about $500 to over $2,000, depending upon type of motor, the level of quality, features and "bells and whistles" desired. Andy Koblick of Electrik Motion says that at the low-end, most of these bikes tend to be powered by hub motors (a small motor mounted around the spokes), which he considers to be a good motor, but unfortunately, there are many low-quality imported versions of it. "The real high-end quality hub-motor is called the Heinzmann motor, but that's on the $2000 bicycles. In the lower price ranges, right now, Currie's bikes are all starting in the range of $600. They have the exact same drive as their scooters do: it's a direct-drive freewheeling system, and what's nice about that is that it doesn't make the bike look like an electric bike."

Most powered bicycles come in one of two types: power-assist and pedal-assist. The pedal-assist version requires the pedals to be moved for power to go to the wheel. If you have a pedal-assist bike, and you floor the throttle, if you're not pedaling, you'll still be standing still.

In contrast, the power-assist does just that--it provides power on demand. Whether you're pedaling or not, it doesn't matter: as soon as you hit the throttle, you and the bike start moving.

Why the two types? Largely because each state has different laws to regulate bicycles and scooters. Certain states view the pedal-assist version as a bicycle, and the power-assist as a moped, because the power-assist can move the bike independently. Clearly, whichever vehicle you purchase, it pays to work with a dealer who knows the local laws regarding their products.

Cruising the 'Hood in Your NEV
The neighborhood electric vehicle, or NEV as it is often called, is an interesting concept, which provides greater flexibility than a scooter or Segway (see our article on that revolutionary new device in this issue). Like a car, it can haul passengers and larger payloads. Unlike a car, it maintains speeds of 25 miles per hour or less, and therefore the laws don't require the NEV to have complex impact reducing bumpers or airbags, keeping the weight and complexity low.

San Jose, California based Salas O'Brien Engineers, Inc. co-funded a demonstration project along with the California Energy Commission, and other groups. Their goal was to determine if NEVs would work in a medium density city like San Jose, or if they were strictly a suburban phenomenon.

Their results help to answer many questions about whether or not owning a NEV makes sense for someone. Melissa Johnson, the project coordinator for Salas-O'Brien, says that because of their limited range, they found that the vehicles don't work well for even short commutes. "We couldn't find anybody who really wanted to do even a five or ten mile commute, because then you'd have to charge it while you were at work, or be concerned that you might not make it home," because it takes six to eight hours for a full charge. Although Johnson says that there are aftermarket products that 'quick-zap' the batteries in three to four hours, "but they're fairly expensive".

Johnson says that the range of most NEVs is about 20 miles, but that actual figure is closer to 15 if the weather is cold, or the trip involves a number of stops and starts. "It's just like gas-the quoted gas mileage is never what you actually get."

But if your goal is to run out to the neighborhood grocery store, an NEV could make more sense than a regular full-blown automobile. Johnson, who describes herself as one of the most enthusiastic participants in the research project, says the vehicles have real potential to reduce pollution. Because so much of her life (her office, kids' school, church, bank, grocery store) is within a 12 block radius of her home, "with three kids and me in a four passenger vehicle, we'd start and stop a car ten or twelve times in a day, picking them up, taking them to lessons, and that sort of thing, and it's those cold-starts that really intensify the pollution," with a conventional gasoline powered engine.

Johnson's concern is that because California is such a car-oriented culture, most families wouldn't want to make a NEV their second car. But they might want it as a third, especially during warmer weather. "During the cold season, the NEVs are just brutal: there's no heater. Even if you have canvas doors, it's freezing." Johnson says that if it was raining, which is what Northern California weather is typically like in the winter, "you just didn't feel as comfortable or as safe.

"So for the price that they are right now", Johnson says, "it seems that they're priced just a little bit too high than for what the average person can withstand."

What are the typical prices of NEVs? From about $6000 to $10,000, Johnson says. When Johnson began her study a few years ago, she says that the only significant manufacturer of NEVs was GEM, short for Global Electric Motorcars. "But now there is Dynasty Motors up in British Columbia; they have an enclosed vehicle. And then there's Daimler-Chrysler, and Ford has one, called the 'Th!nk'".

The Hybrid: The Best of Both Worlds
Perhaps the ultimate alternative to gasoline-powered cars is the hybrid, which combines an internal combustion engine along with batteries with the goal of providing the best of both types of engines, and a vehicle that can go anywhere a traditional gasoline powered car can go.

It uses two engines, because gasoline has a much higher energy density than batteries do. One gallon of gasoline is the equivalent of about 1,000 pounds of batteries. But the electric motor in the car helps to reduce pollution and provides a backup, allowing for a smaller engine to power the car. And conversely, the use of an internal combustion engine helps to reduce or eliminate the need for a painfully long recharging time.

Unlike those NEVs, hybrids are full-sized automobiles (well, medium-sized, when compared to say, a hulking SUV or Lincoln Continental). And traditional automobile manufacturers, such as Honda, Toyota, and others, make them, currently in two main types of designs: the parallel hybrid, and the series hybrid.

Honda's Insight is an example of a parallel hybrid. It has a fuel tank, which supplies gasoline to the engine. But it also has a set of batteries that supplies power to an electric motor. Both the engine and the electric motor can turn the transmission at the same time, and the transmission then turns the wheels.

In contrast, Toyota's Prius is a series hybrid. Its gasoline engine turns a generator, and the generator can either charge the batteries or power an electric motor that drives the transmission. Thus, the gasoline engine never directly powers the vehicle.

Time to Kick the Tires!
So that's a sample of what's out there in light wheels land. Somewhere among the sit down and stand up scooters, the powered bikes, the Segway, the NEVs and the hybrids, there's an electric vehicle that's perfect for your needs. All it takes to begin is to simply determine those needs, kick some tires, and take a few for a test drive. Have fun, and drive safe!

Edward B. Driscoll, Jr. is a journalist who writes on a wide variety of topics.