Electric Scooter!
Posted by Patrick on September 20, 2008
Finally, I got my electric scooter yesterday. I’m stoked…
I went for a ride in the little mountain roads this morning and I my brain was on overdrive, jumping from one thought to another:
- This is so peaceful: Beautiful small country roads. Completely quiet. The sun shining. The wind blowing on my face.
- It’s so smooth: No vibration from a loud internal combustion engine. Only the irregularities of the roads, dampened by the suspension system.
- It’s beautiful physics: The lack of engine compression yields very low friction. Slowing down from 50km/hr takes forever. It’s Newton’s First law [1] at its best. Then going down a hill and picking up a lot of speed, and using it to climb the next up-hill. It’s conservation of mechanical energy the way roller coasters know how to use so well.
- It’s clean. At least it feels clean. It makes me wonder where the electricity that was used to recharge it comes from. And then, at the top of a hill, I see two wind turbines…
- It’s the future. We’re not there yet. But it’s definitely the way to go. Clean energy, and clean transportation systems. We need to keep going in that direction…
I drove near two wind turbines. Imagine if thispicture was the norm instead of the exception.
I also made a little video [2] to show how quiet it is. As I drive towards the main road, notice how you can year the cars pass by in the distance over the quiet hum of the scooter…
Links
- Wikipedia: Newton’s laws of motion,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_laws_of_motion#Newton.27s_first_law:_law_of_inertia> - Patrick Truchon: EVT-4000e ride,
<http://secondary.hisdomain.hdis.hc.edu.tw/users/truchonp/misc/EVT4000e.mov>
