Vectrix is apparently having a hard time selling their sweet-but-expensive electric scooters, maybe a little celebrity buzz can help.
Category: Green Scooters
Vectrix: $819,000 sales, $54m losses.
Vectrix clearly has a lot of money behind them, an exciting product, and a bright future, but financially, they didn’t have a great 2007. I’d hate to see this turn out to be one of those stories where they don’t live to see the market they created.
NYPD Vectrix Test
Autobloggreen reports the New York Police Department will test Vectrix electric scooters in January. The NYPD has been using Piaggio BV200 scooters for several years, most famously in an undercover attack on protesting bicyclists at the 2004 Republican convention. This election, protesters won’t even hear them coming, and the hippies can rest assured that their captors are riding environmentally-friendly vehicles. (Thanks, Lalo!)
MIT’s rent-a-scooter concept
Neat-looking concept from MIT: A well-designed folding scooter for commuters and the rental market. There’s stuff like this out there already, but not as well-designed. Most electric bikes have a restrictively-heavy-and-large battery, not sure how they avoided that. (Thanks, Brooke.)
Peel microcar video and Hammacher Schlemmer
POC Phil posted this must-watch Peel Trident & P50 minicar video as a comment to my microcar book review, but it deserved a more prominent link. In the sixties you could buy a two-seater car made on the Isle of Man for £200 but these days a similarly-sized Chinese electric car costs $25,000. Nitro sent that Hammacher Schlemmer link, along with this $6000 2-person scooter coupe. He says “Imagine if you changed the cheap Chinese subframe for maybe a kitted 125 or so.” I guess, or you could buy an MP3 for the same price.
MP3 HyS: late 2008
French site Scooter Station reports that Piaggio plans to offer the gas/electric hybrid MP3 125 by late 2008. A prototype hybrid MP3 was unveiled in August along with the release of the Ape Calessino and the Vespa S, but no date was set for its public release. The bike features the HyS hybrid engine that’s been on test by Milan municipal vehicles since April, 2006. No word yet on whether the other HyS-equipped Vespa and Piaggio scooters will be available sooner (or at all).
News chunks 10/23/07
- A Korean student in England decided riding his scooter back to Korea would be less uncomfortable than a 13-hour flight.
- The Times of London is digging the new Vespa S. Current rumor is 50cc and 150cc versions to the U.S. in the spring.
- The Age of Melbourne, on the other hand, may be the first media outlet to see through the façade of Piaggio’s “green” marketing, after receiving a life-sized non-recyclable promotional piece featuring the MP3. Australia is hot for scooters this month. A University of Tasmania team has assembled the first Australian-made hybrid scooter, powered by Ethanol and batteries, and Sydney is apparently searching for its identity as a scooter city.
- The Sun rides Aprilia’s new Mana 850cc automatic motorcycle.
- Leonardo DiCaprio’s ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend sideswiped a photographer’s scooter in Israel. Oh, sorry, that’s not even interesting to E! Online readers.
- If you’ve always thought “Sure, Segways are great, but man, I hate standing up, and I wish they were uglier, lower-tech, and more expensive,” Toyota has a concept vehicle for you.
- In London suburb Croydon, citizens are teaming up to document “antisocial” scootering and report it to police in the wake of the death of a local police officer.
- D.C. police are on the other side of the fence, after a scooter cop was hit-and-run by a white van. (Fact: recklessly-driven white vans now outnumber all other vehicles on Chicago streets, 6-to-1.)
- For some reason there were at least… let’s see… 1, 2, 3, 4, 5… five stories in the press last week about Piaggio’s new plant in Vietnam, without any new info beyond the announcement they made in February. Thanh Nien News had the decency to follow up their PR-wire story with a fairly interesting story on the vintage scooter scene in Vietnam.
- A New Jersey yoga instructor and mother of six becomes the first woman in America to eat thousands of dollars of depreciation and trade in her SUV, replacing it with a $11,000 Vectrix electric scooter. The expense is totally justified by her reduced carbon footprint and the dozens of dollars she’ll save on gas between now and the first day it snows and she has to make six separate trips to drop her kids off at soccer practice, girl scouts, and karate. Yes, that’s pretty cynical. As Smarthouse points out, the Vectrix has many merits, and it’s a positive step for ecology, but as I’ve said many times, it seems that consumers aren’t considering all the factors when looking at the economic benefits of scooters, like this Wisconsin couple who seem to be ignoring the fact that riding a pair of 60mpg scooters isn’t really any better than driving one 30mpg car.
- In that same story an Oshkosh, WI urgent-care clinic director estimates that scooter-related urgent-care visits will rise to 5,000 nationally this year, up from 1,300 in 2000. If the national urgent-care industry is actually keeping stats like that, we’d love to see them, but it seems a little unlikely that anyone would have been accurately tracking nationwide motorscooter injuries in 2000, or that any study of that sort would differentiate urgent-care visits from emergency-room visits.
- A new SYM dealer has opened shop on the Incriminators’ turf. “You see them all over Hollywood,” store manager Tonya Stewart says, “[Scooters are] in movies and music videos, and stars are riding them as well.” Well, sure, Tonya, but those aren’t really SYMs now are they? God, I’m bitchy tonight. This is like 2strokeTMZ.
Gizmag rides the Vectrix Maxi
Starting up the Maxi is a disconcerting affair – switch the key on, hold the left brake lever in, touch the right brake to start the bike and… Well, nothing happens. It’s completely silent. Only a large “Go!� on the well-designed instrument display gives away the fact that the power’s on.
The Vectrix electric scooter has been on the market for a while now, but this is the most thorough review we’ve seen. It’s clearly leagues above other electric bikes on the market and it features some innovative technology beyond the electric motor, but it sounds like it just can’t quite compete with a gas-powered scooter on price and performance. Kudos to Vectrix for trying though, it’ll only get better and better.
Vespanomics Go Green videos
What VespaUSA is calling “your chance to show and tell the world what Vespanomics is through your creative lens” is what the advertising industry calls “spec work,” doing work for free in the hopes of accceptance or a prize. I’m not knocking the entrants, and there are some pretty decent entries, but contests like these always come off as the last gasp of a company with no ideas, and the inequal footing of entrants (some amateur, and some professional enough to know better) and the corporate overview that’s necessary usually strips out most of the fun. With video editing capabilities in the hands of more and more consumers, and the “rise” of “viral” video, it’s not surprising to see contests like this popping up all over, and they are. PiaggioUSA surely borrowed the idea from recent well-publicized Heinz or Doritos contests. While it’s tempting to think they’re doing it to save a few bucks (Heinz’ $57,000 prize was far less than the creative cost of a “real” national advertising campaign), it’s funny to think they also had to spend lots of money and time advertising the contest, which makes it seem even sillier. To be fair, Vespa’s contest isn’t really a “make us a commercial” deal, I think they’re just looking for some viral love (and more mailing list names to whom they’ll never send anything), and the prize (a $5000 scooter) reflects that, though also makes it that much less enticing. Again, the entries themselves are pretty decent and worth checking out, it’s the contest itself that pushes all my wrong buttons. Judging by the fact that no “end date” is posted anywhere, I’m guessing this will be yet another promotional media-bandwagon-jump that will succeed despite PiaggioUSA’s instant abandonment of the project, thanks to the devotion of scooterists and the scooter community. (See also: Vespa Blogs),
Yamaha’s EC-02 hits Japanese market
Photos of the Superman-logo-shaped Yamaha EC-02 electric bike have been circulating since 2005, but InventorSpot reports that it’s finally available (at about US$2000) in Japan. Unlike the Vectrix, it doesn’t come close to the performance of even a 50cc gas-powered scooter. But it has several pluses over the many ho-hum electric cycles on the market: an iPod dock with speakers, an original and distinctive design, the Yamaha name (and dealer network), and some sort of mysterious 3-D glow-in-the-dark coating. (Thanks, Kevan!)
Piaggio patents 2-wheel drive electric “moped”
Scooped again by the Scooter Scoop, who report Piaggio today published a patent for an electric moped with two motors, one driving the back wheel, the other located inside the front wheel. Over the years, many manufacturers have tried to power the front wheel, usually from within, as seen in the 1922 Megola to the current Revo Power Wheel. Most of these met with little success, but Piaggio seems bent on innovation lately. Perhaps this patent is just a legal lockdown of a rough idea, or maybe an integral front-wheel electric motor is an alternative to their HyS gas/zero-emission concept, or even a powerplant for the Carving Tool. Who knows what madness Piaggio is up to?
New Ape, VespaS and Hybrids from Piaggio
Piaggio made three big announcements yesterday, each with large implications on the scooter market:
Ape Calessino
This was the surprise, of course, an absolutely retro and luxurious new Ape dubbed the “Calessino.” Appointed with whitewalls, chrome, leather, and tropical wood, with a 422cc 4-stroke 4-speed diesel engine the Ape Calessino is being released in an edition of only 999. It’s safe to assume no one reading this crappy excuse for a scooter blog will ever see one in person outside Monte Carlo, let alone own one, but it re-establishes the dream that someday Piaggio may just surprise us with a loving reproduction of the GS160 with a modern geared engine.
Hybrid Piaggio MP3, X8, and Vespa LX
The only surprise here is that the HyS hybrid engine (more info here and here) is still in the prototype stage. These appear to be more or less the same machines tested in Milan last April, apparently the “news” is that the MP3 has newly been outfitted with the HyS as well. Without getting into details again, the technology is promising: an electrical-assisted gas engine that can be switched to zero-emissions electric power only. We love the idea, now please make them available to consumers!
Vespa S 50 and 125
The Vespa S was announced last fall among several other models. It seemed to have been buried in Piaggio’s priorities at the time, though it got a fantastic reception from the press. Now with the top-priority Piaggio MP3 entrenched in scooterdom worldwide, Vespa is releasing the S in 50cc and 125cc versions. The design is a tribute to the smallframe Vespa, notably the square-headlight Vespa S, and it’s nearly entirely successful visually, no other modern Vespa comes so close to emulating the details, lines and style of the vintage models we all love. The only conceivable complaint (at least on paper) is the displacement, but we’d argue that the owner of such a lovely scooter deserves to be cursed with the speed of its ancestors. Bravo, Piaggio, bring it to America ASAP. While previous press photos showed the S only in white, it will be available in “Dragon red, Shiny black and Montebianco white.” Piaggio will also offer several optional graphics kits (“Flowers,” “Europe,” “Sport”) and Jet-style matched helmets.
All photos courtesy of Piaggio
More press photos: Ape Calessino gallery, HyS Gallery, Vespa S Gallery.
Free gas in Denver
From Girlbike: Denver Vespa dealer Erico Motorsports is giving away gas to all scooterists this Saturday as part of a radio promotion. If that doesn’t sell a few scooters, I have no idea what will.
News bits, June 3, 2007
Some news from the last few weeks, See if you can spot the Bob Balaban reference!
- Despite a high-profile drunk-scootering case involving a local radio personality, Sydney, Australia’s Lord Mayor Clover Moore has vowed to turn the city into “the Rome of the Pacific.” Scooter and motorcycle-specific spaces have doubled to 700 in the last two years, with hundreds more slated to be added soon. (Aside from designated parking, similarities to Chicago abound, including meter confusion and strongly-established support for bicycles.) Perhaps part of Moore’s plan to Rome-ize Sydney will involve particulate cocaine in the atmosphere?
- Budapest, Hungary’s government has teamed up with local scooter dealers to promote scootering in the Józsefváros district. The area hopes to reduce overcrowding and pollution with discounts and free accessories for scooter buyers.
- The Observer reviews the Piaggio MP3: “That’s a big iPod! Where are your headphones mate?”
- In another UK review, Metro.co.uk calls the MP3 “the transsexual of scooters”. (Note: The MP3 prefers to be called the “executive transvestite” of scooters.)
- Davison, Michigan Rite-Aid manager Don Dunklee has covered more than 1,100 miles commuting on an EVT4000 electric scooter that he converted to solar power. Two wing-like solar panels fold out to charge the scooter when parked, and fold in when riding.
- Resort-area cable TV network Plum recommends a Vespa to get around Aspen, where gas prices are expected to reach $6 over the summer and scooter parking is free citywide.
- Scooters are neat-o, and growing in popularity, and save money on gas, and Audrey Hepburn and latte and so on. Boilerplate stories from South Bend, IN, Columbus OH, Austin TX, Salt Lake City, UT, Seattle, WA, and Des Moines, IA
- Vespa Milwaukee cites gas prices as the impetus for a recent 25-percent increase in sales, though their Chicago-area pickup and delivery service probably hasn’t hurt sales from Chicago riders fed up with the local dealers.
- Sales in Miami are also up, to a fault: Scooter backlash is underway, and the scooter market has gone downscale (”I had a woman in here last week; she wanted to finance a $600 used bike”), Lane-splitting, slow, helmet-less scooterists are frustrating Hummer and Escalade drivers on Biscayne Boulevard.
- Any High Rollers Rally-goer will tell you that a scooter is a great way to get around Las Vegas, but renting mobility scooters from hotels is pretty lazy.
DOT/Slaughterhouse Meeting
There’s a Slaughterhouse planning meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) night at The Globe Pub in Chicago at 8pm. All are welcome. If you’re coming to/interested in the Chicago Scooterist Roundtable, try to come to this meeting. I met with Charles Roesner from the Chicago DOT on Monday and got a lot of insight into what they’re hoping to accomplish, and I’d like to share the good news and talk about it in a group before the meeting on May 4. As I’ve said, this is the best opportunity we’ll ever get to have our voices heard by the city, they’ve asked us for our thoughts on ecology, traffic, parking, and other scooter-related issues, let’s make the most of it.
If you’re on the email list, sorry to not contact you directly, I seem to have misplaced the list. Please spread the word.)