The Boosted electric scooter is fast, durable, fun and … really heavy – TechCrunch



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Boosted, starting which debuted with electric skateboards, officially launched its first electric scooter program with the launch of Boosted Tower.

I've spent the last few weeks running the Rev in the streets of San Francisco and, as I said in the headlines, it's fast, durable, fun and very heavy – 46 pounds to be exact. If this was part of a shared scooter model, the weight would not matter, but going up and down a few stairs every day is not ideal.

It weighs so much, says Jeff Russakow, CEO of Boosted, because of the power it contains.

"But you give about seven or eight pounds to do it," Russakow said. "But, I mean, you get six times more power and years and years of sustainability in exchange, it has a little more weight."

It should be noted that I do not to have bring the scooter to the inside. The Boosted Rev can be locked on a bicycle rack, but you know, bolt cutters exist.

The Boosted Rev, which costs $ 1,599, is equipped with two-wheel drive AWD engines (1,500 watts each), is capable of driving at a speed of up to 24 km / h with a range of 22 kilometers and climb and descend to slopes of 25%. Rev is also designed to travel thousands of kilometers a year for several years. Thanks to the double motors, he transports the hills. Seriously, I was defeating the San Francisco hills at 19 mph.

The Rev has three driving modes that reach respectively 12, 18 and 24 mph. Unlike many other scooters on the market, the Rev features large air-inflated tires to help with shock absorption and traction. The Rev also has three different braking mechanisms: the handbrake, the electric brake and the foot brake. From my experience, the electric brake worked well enough to require none of the other brakes, but it was still nice to have the handbrake for more peace of mind.

"If you look at standing scooters today, without any disrespect, it's more like a toy or a recreational product that's never been designed to ride in real streets and potholes with a Mack truck behind you, "said Russakow. . "So we started by saying that if you build an electric scooter that would be a vehicle, how would you design it. And so, everything ranged from the amount of energy to the type of frame, from the wheel range, to the type of wheels, until it was incredibly durable – mechanical, electric, ecological. So, it looks more like a car or a motorcycle, in terms of the quality of its vehicle. And we always knew from the first day that it was the vehicle we wanted to manufacture. Can he climb hills can not stop on a penny, can he handle all the time, will travel dozens and tens of thousands of kilometers a year and requires very little maintenance? "

That's true. The scooters of Bird, Lime, Skip, Scoot and others are not in the same sphere as Boosted. This becomes evident from the moment you step on the Boosted Rev. The Rev feels sturdy, handles bumps well on the road and easily tracks the pace of cars.

The special feature of Boosted's scooter is its acceleration and deceleration wheel. The idea is to be able to do everything you need to do with one hand. So when you need to report, you can simply use your left hand without having to worry about dropping braking for signaling.

The two main warnings for me are related to the weight of the scooter and the safety. Safety has more to do with driving any micromobility vehicle in the busy streets of the city and the fear of a car or truck that kills me. Moreover, because this scooter goes so fast, the possibility of seriously hurting me if I take off the scooter increases considerably.

I would not like to note a technical problem, but incoherent, with the Rev. Sometimes I had to restart the scooter or fold it up and put it away, then unfold it to speed it up. Boosted said I had a pre-production unit, so maybe that's why.

But the Rev is not the only scooter you can buy. Bird, for example, recently started selling scooters directly to consumers, then to Ninebot, Xiaomi, Unagi, Jetson and many others.

Russakow said the property market is "a different but bigger market".

"It's great to see the share of scooter share because people are exposed to scooters as moving options," Russakow said. "But we think we serve the market by far the biggest."

If I were at the market for an electric scooter (which I am not) and I live somewhere where I do not have to lug the scooter every day (I do not do it), I Would buy the Boosted Rev for its absolute power in the hills and its maximum speed.

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