Hey, the ZuumQuest is starting this weekend and the ZuumCraft people are in Silicon Valley doing a little bit of visiting corporate groups etc before their trip starts. There's been a couple postings on this site about the Zuumer and I wrote a blog entry based on talking with their founder ... tonight they had a special meeting of the Silicon Valley EAA group to host the Zuumer people and we got to talk about the scooters and ride them around HP's parking lot. Starting this weekend and going for the next couple weeks they'll be traveling down Hwy 1 from San Francisco to San Diego, that's the ZuumQuest.
Details: 1000 watt hub motor in the front, the front fork is essentially motorcycle quality, the frame is rigid (unlike many standup scooters it does not fold down), it looks very large, but not as large as the old Badsey scooters, it's larger than a Currie scooter though, and it ends with two wheels behind the deck rather than one wheel behind the deck. Twist throttle on the handlebar, regenerative braking, the brakes also interrupt the controller, disk brakes on all wheels, Li-ION batteries under the deck. 20 miles/hr max so it fits the regulations (in some states) as an electric bicycle. 30 mile range. Price expected at $2200. Availability this winter.
The ride: THIS THING IS AWESOME... I've ridden a Segway and a few two wheel tandem standup scooters.. this is nothing like them, absolutely nothing. Within 20 seconds of getting on it the first time I was slaloming and within a minute cutting donuts. With two wheel tandem standup scooters I never got that brave. The handling is totally phenomenal, and it's so easy to learn to ride.
I looked real close at the rear end and couldn't puzzle it out.. The designer was there and he says flat out, it does not look like it can do what it does, but it does.
What I mean is .. well, it will help to go to my blog entry (linked above) and view the longer video. Towards the front of the video is a closeup of the front end and it might give a little hint of what I'm about to attempt to describe.
There's two rear wheels.. each on an arm which swings independently. While you'd expect them to be a normal swing arm with shock absorbers, that's not what you have here. Each arm has two segments ... there is a turnbuckle of some kind involved with these segments. The arms are mounted in a gizmo which appears to have something to do with the flexing of the arms. ..etc..
However it does what it does the basic point is the rear end is immensely flexible and allows for very natural and fluid extreme maneuvering. Further the designer says unlike most three wheel vehicles where you steer with the front only, on the Zuumer the steering is BOTH front AND rear wheels. That's why it's so different than other vehicles.
Their vision is awesome.. it's a fun vehicle and that's part of the game. The Tesla Roadster shows if the EV is fun then people will be even more interested. So while they have very practical markets they intend to target ... e.g. these could be used in warehouses or factories or corporate campuses for traveling around the facility, and those are markets they plan to target ... but by putting fun first it ought to help the sale ... also the maneuverability isn't just about the fun factor. There's a safety aspect where the scenario they describe is you're going down a street, someone in front of you opens a car door, what do you do? Do you slam into the car, etc. Well, because of the maneuverability it's easy to slalom out of the way in an easy move.
