
Flux Electric Mopeds - fisherjeff
http://www.fluxmopeds.com
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donclark
2 other options: this one is in a similar price range (kickstarter)-
[http://www.gizmag.com/moto-parilla-carbon-e-
bike/43224/](http://www.gizmag.com/moto-parilla-carbon-e-bike/43224/) this one
is around $10k and up -
[http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/shop/index.php?cPath=1&myCoun...](http://www.zeromotorcycles.com/shop/index.php?cPath=1&myCountry=223)

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eweise
I could buy a Harley for that amount.

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jabits
But then you have a Harley...

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taylorhughes
My friend from college is the founder of this company. He has spent many years
building Flux and trying to bring electric scooters to the US. (They spent
several years just iterating on the design before the DOT would approve them
for use here.) I have a Flux moped in San Francisco, and it's great for
cruising around the neighborhood.

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douglance
Tell him to make a sexier bike. The Italian moped look is lame.

Why didn't they follow the Tesla model? Sexy high-end bike first, then move
into more economy-class rides later.

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lxmorj
I have one of these in Chicago. It is fucking brilliant.

The 20 mile range with 2 people is more than enough for tooling around all
day. I bought an extra $70 charger that I keep on the bike so I can charge a
bit if needed. It gets a full charge in about 3-4 hours.

The bike being silent is really, really nice. That makes it much easier to be
aware of your surroundings. It's also really nice to be able to scoot between
cars at stoplights, especially when turning left at a street during busy
times. Cars can get stuck for 2-3 turns of the light, and since the bike has
really good acceleration (without being obnoxiously loud) you don't end up
impeding the cars at all.

Getting around twice as fast as an Uber (only during heavy traffic) for ~$0
marginal dollars is quite satisfying.

The guys actually have an office here, so they're able to fix any issues
pretty quickly.

If you can't tell I am very happy with my purchase :)

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schwap
Uh, those aren't mopeds. Mopeds, as their name implies, have pedals.

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ohitsdom
Yeah I'm confused why they don't call these scooters.

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jonny_eh
Aren't scooters those two wheeled skate things with handles?

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esoteric_nonces
This looks cool and the price is appealing. For me personally, the range is a
bit short and 30mph doesn't cut it - in some cities it'd work, London is full
of 50mph roads.

I'd love to buy a Zero (linked lower in the thread) if I had a safe place to
store it or some good insurance (motorcycle theft is common in the UK).

WRT weather and other concerns - frankly, the time saved by riding a
motorcycle in a congested city blows that out of the water, IMO. In conditions
other than gridlock you can maintain an average speed ~50% higher than all
other traffic.

I'd love to see electric bikes go mainstream because I think they address
almost all of the concerns people have about cycling (sweaty, no good for the
unfit/disabled, etc).

You can park 4-5 scooters in a car parking bay, tuck them away at the side of
footpaths and in front of stores, if the roads became populated with them it'd
possibly double or triple throughput for single riders.

I currently own a 125cc motorcycle and it's a godsend. Especially in the
summer months it turns commuting into a joy, and reduces the time taken to
perform errands by 5x over public transport (there are plenty of places I can
ride to in 20 mins or take a combination of buses and trains to get to in 1.5
hours).

I think living in a large metro area for an extended period of time would be
unbearable for me without owning a motorcycle. Most cities have radial
transport networks - concentric journeys outside of the core have ridiculous
routing as a result.

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fit2rule
Living in Europe, a moped can be an utter joyous way to get around the world.
I've dusted mine off and gotten it ready for the road, and there are great
days ahead, on it. Having an electric version - no brainer for me. I'd buy an
electric replacement for my Vespa in an instant, were there one...

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azurezyq
Do anyone know why electric mopeds are still rare in US, even in big congested
cities? In China there're already hundreds of millions of them running on the
road.

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Brendinooo
Top speed of 30mph limits the usefulness of this for me. I could motor around
in my borough just fine, but if I wanted to get to my nearest major city
(10-15 miles away), I don't know if I can do it without going on a road that
has a speed limit of at least 35, and that road has a lot of 18-wheelers with
whom I would not want to share the road.

None of that stuff is an absolute dealbreaker, but if I have a bicycle to
schlep around the borough and a car to get into the city, getting something in
the middle is a tough value prop.

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MBCook
Ignoring range issues (wouldn't be an issue for some of the shops near me I
frequent) many of the bigger roads around me have 45mph standard speeds. I
don't want to try driving 30 on them on something the size of a scooter.

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dahjelle
The problem with these (for me) is 1) rain and 2) winter. That's a significant
part of the year in many parts of the US. Something like this covered, four-
wheel bicycle seems more useful: [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/podride-
a-practical-and-f...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/podride-a-practical-
and-fun-bicycle-car/x/14054493#/)

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Pxtl
I bike through winter here in Canada. As long as you dress for weather, make
other plans during blizzards, and live in a city with good road clearing it's
not nearly as bad as people think.

Just bundle up like you did when you were little.

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dahjelle
I don't mind bundling or the cold—it's biking on ice on two wheels next to
traffic that scares me. :-) Perhaps it just takes some practice?

I suspect it is also a function, as you said, of the road cleaning and
available bike paths. Smaller cities and towns with lower traffic flows are
probably not as effective at this for the purposes of bicycle traffic.

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Pxtl
That'd be it. I live in a place where they're _very_ aggressive with road-salt
and plowing.

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upofadown
So basically a reasonably priced electric replacement for the 50 cc "moped"
class scooter. So interesting...

How bad are the laws still? A lot of places specifically define a moped in
terms of internal combustion engine displacement. Is there a generally
accepted electric motor equivalent for the purposes of the exception?

What is really needed is a reasonably priced scooter that can go 50 MPH. It is
hard to commute in most cities with something that can only go 30 MPH. You are
better off going in the other direction and getting an e-bike, which in a lot
of places gets you access to the bikeways. ... or heck, since you are willing
to be rained on, just get a stinking bike and be much more likely to survive
the experience...

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Pxtl
Hah, here in Canada e-bikes are sadly the domain of DUI convicts and other
losers. They're sold and Wal-Mart and generally ridden by the social
underclass.

We develop the perfect solution to fighting global warming and then
immediately hate on its adopters.

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douglance
I have been working on classic mopeds (with the pedals) for the last 10 years.
I know everything there is to know about internal combustion mopeds. I wish I
could ride a clean electric version. But the Italian-style, legs-together
scooter look is just so painfully lame.

Men want to ride something sexier. This is my benchmark:
[http://bikevx.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/04/featured5.jpg](http://bikevx.com/wp-
content/uploads/2014/04/featured5.jpg)

There is plenty of room for batteries and a drive train on that type of bike.

Please do this Flux!

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neolefty
What's the battery chemistry, does anyone know? I had an electric scooter in
China until recently. It was pretty great. Lead-acid battery, 40km range, 40
kmph top speed (about 25 mph).

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MBCook
It's on the FAQ page. It's a Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt battery.

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jakobegger
What's the news? Electric mopeds have been around for several years now.

(A couple of years ago I almost ran into one when I absentmindedly walked on
the street because they are completely silent. Their silence makes me wish gas
mopeds were outlawed (at least in residential areas))

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FluxMopeds
You are correct. Electric Mopeds have been around in multiple types of formats
but they have not become a platform of hyperlocal transit. That is our goal.

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uvtc
These look nice! Are they belt or chain drive?

Wow. Regen braking too.

What does one of these weigh?

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chvid
How are these different than the Chinese electrical scooters?

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FluxMopeds
They may look similar but the Flux EM1 meets DOT standard and, more
importantly, is built to meet the high standards of the American consumer to
be a very low maintenance, fun and dependable vehicle for years.

E-mopeds in China often come with no warranty and the market is fix them
regularly to just keep them going.

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pinot
I've been riding electric mopeds in SF for a while now through Scoot. They're
pretty great except when they run out of batter.y

