The “Personal” Electric Vehicle Story

The idea of our product was born out of my very personal and very scary experiences riding a Boosted electric skateboard in the streets of Manhattan.

I’ve been skateboarding since I was a little kid. After I moved to New York City back in 2002 I discovered longboards as a dignified adult alternative to skateboarding. I really enjoyed riding my Loaded Vanguard board on the loop around Central Park — that made for a very intense and fun workout until one day I had a spectacular wipeout going full speed down The Great Hill descent in Harlem, a feat that landed me at the Mount Sinai Hospital emergency room. I kind of gave up longboarding after that accident but later was very excited to find out about the new Boosted electric skateboard, which was supposed to not only solve the issue of not having the brakes on my longboard but also could power my daily commute without any sweat, required by the alternatives such as CitiBike bicycle share. Long story short, I bought a Boosted Dual+ 2000W model for $1,499. The first warning sign flashed when a representative from Enjoy company, who delivered the board and provided personalized instruction to me, mentioned that I had to be very careful in Midtown, especially around Times Square, because the remote control would randomly lose connection to the board in that area. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that the remote was losing connection to the board throughout the whole route of my commute from home on the Upper East Side to my office in Midtown East! And most connection losses happened in the intersections, where not being able to control the board is especially hazardous due to pedestrians crossing the street and vehicles turning! Other Boosted riders I encountered confirmed the same experience, so it wasn’t just a faulty board that I received. At some point I got fed up with this issue and submitted a ticket to the Boosted tech support:

“I ride my Gen 1 board to work in Manhattan and it’s been losing connection to the remote spontaneously all the time, especially in the intersections.
I’ve heard from other NYC riders they’ve been experiencing the same thing.
Please provide me with a fix — it’s a major ride safety issue!”

This is the response that I got in two days:

“Hey Alex, thanks for reaching out.
You are encountering wireless interference.
Wireless interference unfortunately is unavoidable, and the occurrence of interference is more prevalent in dense urban areas. Interference is usually localized to specific areas rather than at random; approach areas you’ve experience interference before at with greater caution. We can’t stress enough to never ride at speeds or down hills faster than you are comfortable stopping an unpowered longboard.”

Seriously? I purchased your $1.5K board to be able to ride at speeds or down hills faster than I’m comfortable on an unpowered longboard! I then responded with this message:

“So I assume Boosted is not planning to fix this through a recall. As far as I heard from other riders, Gen 2 doesn’t suffer from this issue in Manhattan so it must be a simple matter of replacing the wireless communication units. I hope you guys realize you are potentially exposing yourselves to a massive legal liability if someone is injured because of this “wireless interference”. ”

To which I got the following response:

“Alex,
Wireless interference is something any bluetooth enabled device is susceptible to, be it your headphones, or the board. Short of inventing a new wireless communication platform, bluetooth interference will always be a risk.
We outline this on page one of the owner’s manual (pdf attached): “Your board can lose power and brakes at any moment due to radio interference, a dead remote battery, unintentional release of the Engage Button, downhill overcharging of a full battery, or other factors.”
In testing, the bluetooth module’s in the 2nd gen board seem to be more resilient to wireless interference, but they are by no means immune to it. Wireless interference is still a risk on the 2nd gen board.”

Now, that answer was insulting to me personally, as I am an engineer and the claims that it wasn’t possible to build an interference resilient system sounded like a bad excuse. I realized that the Silicon Valley dudes at Boosted simply had no idea how to design a product for “dense urban areas”— the board was designed for San Francisco, not for NYC! So I took up the challenge and invited my friend Mad Max, the former lead engineer at Violin Memory, to join me in this endeavor and design a product suitable for New York commuters. While we were at it, we also realized that instead of building yet another electric skateboard we could design a radically new transportation system and fulfill the original vision of Dean Kamen that his Segway never delivered — disrupt the urban mobility. We named our product Personal Electric Vehicle or PEV. The PEV has the following key features:

• Doesn’t lose connection to the remote control!!!11
• Has a higher ground clearance than regular longboard trucks in case you encounter a small stone on your path and a sturdier build than your average electric skateboard
• Comes with all-terrain airless tires for smoother ride on uneven pavement and getting onto sidewalks, as well as for being resistant to that broken glass and nails discarded in the street by the friendly New Yorkers — you can even safely teach your kids how to ride on the soft grass of the Great Lawn in Central Park instead of the hard asphalt
• Features convenient carrying handles to instantly turn you from a rider into a pedestrian and cross that busy intersection by foot or take the board on the subway or commuter train as your last mile vehicle
• Capable of riding on wet pavement or in that pesky light rain, which always starts unexpectedly in the middle of your ride
• Supports riding without a helmet (just kidding!)
• Guaranteed to turn heads (not kidding!)
• Features glow-in-the-dark artwork painted by world-renowned Brooklyn artist Olga “WizArt” Klimova exclusively for char(G)iot PEVs
• Helps you get around in style on a certain dry ancient lakebed during a certain week before Labor Day — good luck trying that with a Boosted board!
• Comes standard with an awesome 2400W power of two brushless electric motors
• Retails for under $1K while having all the superior features above, which leaves the $1,499 Boosted Dual+ 2000W model in the dust and makes personal urban mobility more affordable than ever!

It’s high time to get stoked — order your PEV now at https://chargiot.com or reach out to us and mention this post to get a special crypto discount for Steemit readers.

Alex Cyborg