
Boosted Boards Review – One month in San Francisco - JGuo
http://www.jisiguo.com/blog/boosted-boards-review
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dvcc
Went in expecting the board to cost around $200-400, came out extremely
disappointed when I saw the preorder was around $2000.

Product looks awesome but not so much at that price point. How much do they
actually expect to sell?

~~~
doorhammer
Echoing the article and what another response said: "It’s quite expensive, but
if you think of the board as a vehicle, I think it’s a wise purchase."

I'd definitely think of it more like a scooter or a bike. I used to commute by
bike a lot and wouldn't flinch spending $900 - $1200 on a commuting bike, but
my bike also completely replaced my car, so money saved on gas, repair bills,
parking, etc was well worth it.

I imagine this is the kind of thing that would only be worthwhile to most
people if you're really going to integrate into your lifestyle as a primary
mode of transit.

There are obviously a lot of ways this is different from a bike but a few that
seem important to me (mostly compared to a bike, and this is all pretty
subjective and just my opinion on how it looks):

Pros \- If you don't push at all, less (almost no?) effort to get where you're
going. Possibly less sweaty. \- More portable/compact (than most bikes); not
having to stop to lock up a bike seems pretty nice, especially if you have a
bag you just clip/slide the board into.

Cons \- Battery life; bikes don't have batteries, and while you're putting
more energy into a bike, they make super efficient use of that energy if you
have a geared bike \- Last I checked, the board couldn't be used in the rain;
not sure if that's still true. Seems like it'd be more difficult to make this
your lifestyle if you live somewhere it rains often (this is a big one for me)
\- Terrain; this less than the others, but there are a lot of obstacles I can
deal with smoothly on a bike with large diameter wheels that seems like they
might be annoying on a board

as always, ymmv

------
Isamu
>One caveat is the board can’t engage regenerative braking when it’s fully
charged. [...] I’m not sure why the board can’t just continue braking without
the regen.

The power generated by braking has to go somewhere. If not to the battery, it
would have to be shunted to a big resister array, and wind up as waste heat
that might require cooling fins. This would add weight and cost.

I remember riding a metro car with regenerative braking that dumped the power
to a resistive array on the roof that made a kind of buzzing noise when
braking.

