New Electric Skateboard

Posted byRandall 315 Comments on New Electric Skateboard

Happy pi day, everyone!

My skateboard was broken for the past five or six months, and rather than get it repaired, I traded it in for a new, more powerful model. For a cost of about $120, I now have a board that can go zero to 20 mph in four seconds. This is a pretty alarming speed and has finally gotten me to buy a helmet, but it also means I’m one step closer to becoming a Kourier. I just need to talk to Neal Stephenson about some engineering issues with those radial-spoke wheels …

For anyone interested in buying a board, I recommend going to eBay and looking for a cheap used one to try the idea out. My first board, a vaguely toy-like e-skateboard ($31 on eBay in 2004) had an 80-watt motor (still surprisingly powerful — it managed to tow four people at one point). I bought a few other cheap used ones, and then, having decided these things were indeed awesome, I decided to spend some more money on a proper board for getting around the city. I got a 250-watt Exkate Raptor 3.0 for $320, which I talked about in an earlier post.

This new board, a Pro Module 600, is also made by Exkate (now Altered Electric Skateboards):

The old 250-watt board was still not quite powerful enough to climb Somerville hills without complaint (I’m at the upper end of the 170-lb weight limit), but this new one has a 600-watt motor, which handles them no problem.

According to Science, 600 watts is about 80% of a horsepower.

This suggests that if you found a smallish horse (say, 75% the strength of a standard one), and started a tug-of-war using this new board, you could actually win.

This is of course dependent on friction and when the board can actually supply maximum power and so on. But let’s pretend it would work.






Edit: Taylor of Exkate posted with some technical info, and I answered some other questions in the comments. He mentions that if you want to order a board, call him (949.951.9500) and mention xkcd for free shipping (which can be significant). Disclaimer: They aren’t paying/giving me anything, they didn’t ask me to write this, etc. If you’re interested but don’t want to spend a lot yet, I recommend trawling eBay for a cheap board to try the idea out.

 

315 replies on “New Electric Skateboard”

  1. Now, if you were to put this skateboard on a treadmill and turn them both on, what would happen?

    Ryan North would appear out of nowhere.

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  3. Pingback: Not today again… « The Unapologetic Mathematician

  4. Am I the only one amused by the fact that the skateboard he bought is a Raptor?

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  6. i’m not sure if i missed this somewhere.. but does it have brakes? is that a remote control in your hand?

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  9. I noticed that too, myself.

    But with these skateboards, do you actually have to know how to skateboard? I’ve tried before, and that crap’s hard! Plus I have terrible balance when I’m standing on something other than my feet, so does it turn roughly at all? And how well do they work on normal grass?

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  10. “Am I the only one amused by the fact that the skateboard he bought is a Raptor?”
    I wonder how many HP a raptor is? Also, how much of a squirrel could 600 watts levitate?

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  11. You can get electric motors for bicycles for fairly cheap, if you’re willing to pedal on the uphill parts. I believe a friend of mine priced a whole setup out for about $1200.

    I’ll ask him for a link.

    I know, biking is lame compared to cool skateboarders. I ski instead of snowboard too. Old school 4 life.

    And personally I salute your stick figure love story. Truly love transcends gender, or any visible genitalia.

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  12. “Also, how much of a squirrel could 600 watts levitate?”

    From my math, it would take 2,016,667 of these skateboards to lift a squirrel. So with one skateboard you could lift 0.0000495% of a squirrel which is like, what, half a hair? Not a lot, regardless.

    In case I calculated wrong:
    It takes 1.21 GW to lift a squirrel.
    1.21 GW=1,210,000,000 W
    Divided by 600=2,016,666 with a remainder of 400 watts, which means it would take 2,016,667 to fully lift it.
    100 divided by 2,016,667= 0.0000495% of a squirrel could be lifted with one board. Somebody correct me if I did that wrong.

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  13. You need some of those reverse bumper stickers to stick to windows. Then you could teach the locals to signal their turns 😀

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  14. ugh.

    it’s such a blunt shock to find people who still haven’t converted to metric.

    but. the real reason why i am writing this; does exkate sell to australia?

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  15. If you are looking for a MUCH lighter and higher tech Electric Skateboard, check out the Metroboard (http://www.metro-board.com), Designed and Made in Portland, Oregon, USA! The Metoboard uses High Power Lightweight NIMH batteries, has a 450 Watt motor, and get a 12 mile range with a 22 lb skateboard, making it much more portable. Exkate’s products, such as the Raptor 4.0, can’t boast that kind of range, and they weigh 50 lbs, a real back breaker!

    Although you pay a bit more upfront, NIMH batteries last roughly double the number of recharge cycles compared to SLA, so in the end with Exkate, you’ll end up paying more when it’s time to to buy the second set of batteries, and you’ll be stuck with a much heavier product! Metroboards are currently being discounted by $50 for the month of March+ Free US Shipping! Prices start at $449. Check it out!

    Email info@metro-board.com with any questions.

    -Ilan
    Metroboard Designer and Builder
    Portland, Oregon

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  22. The entire post is all the more amusing for imagining the horse’s inner monologue throughout.

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  23. andy (weedeater motor): my cousin and i found that chainsaw engines are good for powering BMX’s. you need to gear it down a bunch of times, its insanely noisy, the exhaust tends to burn your leg, and it takes about a block to speed up. but all things considered, it was probably the most fun thing i have ever ridden

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  27. dckx: “It takes 1.21 GW to lift a squirrel.”
    Nope, 1.21 JW (jigawatts). Completely different. 😉

    mr_monolith: “I wonder if we could make electric surfboards>?”
    Well, the whole point of a surfboard is to use the wave for power. You could attach a motor for getting out to sea but it wouldn’t be much use until it approaches jet ski power.

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  28. @Randall/XKCD

    > Charlie: I know a guy around here who got an electric bike when his license was revoked. The big problem is batteries — he used NiMH cells and the whole thing ended up costing about $12,000. The folks at Exkate tell me that I might be able to equip this one with lithium-ion batteries for $600, giving it a 60-mile range. That might be my project later this year when these lead-acid cells start to get old.

    For that amount of money, your friend could have gotten this beauty! I want one of those…

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  29. To quote the wiki

    Horsepower from a horse
    R. D. Stevenson and R. J. Wasserzug published an article in Nature 364, 195-195 (15 July 1993) calculating the upper limit to an animal’s power output. The peak power over a few seconds has been measured to be as high as 14.9 hp. However, for longer periods an average horse produces less than one horsepower.

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  33. Aaahh Somerville hills…. terrifying to go down on rollerblades without decent brakes.

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  35. friend of mine mentions http://www.pal-v.com/ (more flying car than skateboard.) i used to own a few shares of zapworld.com, which makes/sells electric bikes and a range of other electric vehicles. not saying better than the e-raptor, just has some additional product. horse vs horsepower point has already been made.

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  37. Hmm.. your tom foolery with this skate board has me thinking up one of my own.

    Two wheels rather then four, with the center of gravity below the medium of the wheels.

    Interchangable battery packs (have a set at work charging and one at home.. this way, no down time.)

    And a smexy white finish..

    EVIL PLAN HATCHING!
    ~oh.. its a boy
    ~Tweet.

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  38. Powered skate board is pretty cool I guess…but check this http://www.ebikes.ca/projects/Emanual/ out. A powered skateboard with only two wheels opposite each other that (almost) automatically balances its self.

    (ie picture a skate board, now, take the front two wheels, then move the back two wheels into the centre, and attach a motor to each of the wheels, and add control electronics to actuate the motors in such a way as to keep the board level)

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  40. I’ve been looking at getting a goped ESR750EX electric stand up scooter (http://www.goped.com). There’s a possibility they may be ramping up to Li-Ion batteries in the future although right now they use SLA.

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  42. The idea of using one of these on the hills of Somerville anywhere near the wintertime is frightening at best. Simply walking down the ice-covered hills and remaining upright was always a challenge, although I did live up a particularly steep hill at the time. Good to have that helmet!

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  44. Is that a typo in the post? You said that you got this new board for $120. Looks like it sells for $470 to me.

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  47. “The electric skateboard, but of course
    Has enough torque to drag a small horse
    But that kind of kinetic
    Don’t compare to magnetic
    Elevation of squirrels by force.”

    And now you can see why, of at least 11 submitted, not one of my limerickeries have made it to limerickdb 😦

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  48. Hi there,

    I actually am lagging just a bit behind you in my electric skateboard love affair. I bought one of those eBay boards, got it stolen, and then bought another, which is currently in limbo—need to get a MechE over here, as my math-major brain doesn’t really know how to diagnose all these wires on the inside. But as someone who’s been there, could you help me out with some buying questions for future stages of this relationship?

    1) Noise!? These things are very loud going over anything with discontinuities, such as sidewalks, brick paths, or cobblestones. Some earlier blag post mentioned getting an electric skateboard with rubber wheels, but I haven’t found very many of those. I would also imagine this would have some bearing on shock absorption…

    2) Wireless control? I really like the current foot button + foot brake system on the eBay board, but clearly this is not a popular system. How does the wireless remote control compare to this system, in your opinion?

    3) Price? The Pro Module 600 you mention is definitely not $120… I guess that was the price difference for the upgrade? Generally, is it really worth it?

    4) Size and weight? I like the shortboard form factor of the eBay board, but this is again pretty unpopular. Similarly, the eBay board is like 27 lbs, whereas the Pro Module (for example) is around 40. How much do these differences affect you?

    Think that’s it… hope you can help :). Feel free to email me (domenic@domenicdenicola.com) as well. The internet is not as helpful on these kinds of things as I’d like it to be.

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  49. Keep in mind that the term “horsepower” has been reduced over the years to make stuff sound more powerful than it actually is (My physics teacher told me this). So 80% horsepower is probably closer to 80% humanpower (again, according to my teacher). So the skateboards probly a bit stronger than you =)

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  50. What I think I really love about xkcd is the bonus humor from the blag and then the bonus bonus humor from witty commentary from readers of the blag. *bathes in the glow of good wit*

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