Innovative electric scooter company unveils latest game-changing creation — here are the details
Electric scooters and bikes have been changing the commuter landscape — especially in cities — helping reduce traffic congestion, pollution, and travel times.
Two-wheeled, sit-down models have been popping up from a variety of major brands like Harley-Davidson and Yadea, along with NIU, but electric kick-style scooters have become increasingly popular for riders covering shorter distances.
The KQi 200F strikes the perfect balance between portability and performance by including not only a foldable stem, but also handlebars that fold down — an innovation that first arrived with last year's KQi 100F, according to a report by Electrek.
That compactness will help riders more easily store their e-scooter when they're at the office, connecting with public transport, or stopping by the local watering hole.
With a top speed of 20 miles per hour and a range of 33.6 miles, the KQi 200F is more than capable of handling the average commute while saving you from sweating through your clothes on a pedal bike.
A battery with 365 watt-hours of stored capacity powers the scooter's 350-watt rear hub motor, which can tackle climbs of up to 20% with ease.
It weighs about 44 pounds, which isn't the lightest option on the market, but with its relatively high performance, it's a reasonable trade-off, according to the report.
In general, electric scooters are significantly more efficient than other modes of transportation.
A report by Wired explained that one kilowatt-hour's worth of energy can carry a gas-powered vehicle less than a mile, while a more efficient electric car gets about four miles from the same amount of energy.
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An electric scooter, however, can get more than 80 miles of range out of that same one kilowatt hour of power.
A German study also found that widespread adoption of e-scooters as a commuter tool can help reduce planet-warming pollution in the mobility sector by 4%, and shared options may even be more efficient than shared e-bikes.
Private ownership could also lower the lifecycle emissions for scooters by 43% compared to shared options, when you factor in the pollution produced by vehicles used for the daily roundup of the scooters.
The $799 NIU KQi 200F electric scooter is available now on the company's website, but at the time of this writing, it's 25% off at just $599.
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