the same shopping trip in the car (compared to the Mercane)

Tonight I went to the same shops in my car as I went to on the Mercane Wide Wheel last week. I thought I'd use the GPS Tracker software to check that journey. It was interesting because (as you see on the map) its actually shorter on the back roads than on the highway.

For reference here is that trip again:

Although I didn't go to that point I went to the shops just a bit further to the bottom. This is the stats from driving home by the freeway in the car:

and to refresh this is the stats on returning home from the exact same place by the scoot last week:

obviously there are some minor differences in what the GPS thought the altitude was and such, however the times are interesting:

• 12:48 in the car
• 20:51 on the scoot

which is about 60% faster.

This may not like much of a competition (if we were racing) but in the reality of transport and transport costs the scoot would sure as shit beat the bus or other public transport.

Also, looking at the speeds, if it wasn't for the highway enabling me to be over 65kmh for a fair portion I reckon that the difference would be much smaller. Meaning in suburban transport situations the scoot would be much closer in time.

discussion

There is a classic example of transport speeds given in computer science that involves walking, bicycle, cars, trains and air craft. Its designed to show that there are distances and speeds at which going faster just doesn't bring much to the table. The eScooter has stood out to me from the time the moved out of kiddie league into the 500W area that this would be true here too.

To me anything under 5Km and its a "hands down" choice to take the scooter (unless its raining) because it will be faster (especially factoring in getting out of the secure area where my car is), not least because of short cuts and avoiding traffic. Equally there are distances I just would prefer to use my car over (and if its raining ;-) such as my 200km drive from my town to the city where I work at the moment.

The scooter sits in the back for the  trip down and gets used around town so the car just does the highway trip.

This has an added bonus (to me) of not actually contributing to the air quality issues present in the city by minimizing my car usage in a place where there are litterally millions of cars. Even far more than electric cars the eScooter further reduces emissions because it uses far far less electricity per trip because its so much lighter.


Very nice