Whether you’re goofy or not, a Santa Cruz-based US company has taken the legwork out of skateboarding with the coolest EV to cruise the concrete.
It weighs less than 6kg and packs an internal lithium-ion battery to power twin electric motors. Max speed pegs out at 38km/h on level ground and the battery pack gives the EV skateboard a 16km range.
Self-described as having one foot in action sports and one foot in technology, Inboard Technology is located between central California’s surfdome and the Silicon Valley.
Ryan Evans, CEO, and Theo Cerboneshi, CTO, co-founded Inboard Technology in 2014 as a small self-funded start-up.
The story over the past 18 months, however, is pure Silicone Valley. Evans runs through the numbers: “We launched with money out of our own pocket and worked off of that for a year. We did our Kickstarter proposal in April and raised $US421,000 over 30 days and sold 370 boards off of that.”
“We used that funding to raise more capital through angel investors, and we just closed that round after raising $US2 million,” says Evans, who hands over his smartphone playing a video of his 64-year-old dad riding the ‘crete on a prototype.
You get the idea: anyone can ride it. Evans and friends did most of the testing on the hilly streets of San Francisco. “I used to take Uber across town and it would take about 20 minutes. On the electro skate, I could do it in 15 minutes.”
Evans is now negotiating manufacturing deals and global distribution deals. “We have $US5.5 million in pre-orders right now from distributors globally,” he claims, and one of those distributors is Arisit based in Dandenong, Victoria.
Production starts in April and Evans confirms shipping to retailers begins in May. He expects the top three markets to be US, Germany and Australia. Retail price in the US is $US1399.
The EV technology driving the skateboard is well hidden and well designed. An electric motor is mounted in-hub in each rear wheel, and the Samsung lithium-ion battery pack lays flat within the board’s body.
Inboard Technology co-founder Cerboneshi developed a unique high-torque and high-speed brushless motor. It spins at max 2200rpm. The motors are sealed and fully water resistant to an Ingress Protection rating of 6.5 and 6.6.
Evans, speaking from experience, says the motors produce impressive torque -- enough to go up a 15 degree hill at almost 30km/h. “I tell ya, when you go past a bicyclist in the bike lane going uphill, that’s when you’re like this thing has paid for itself.”
As the rider, you hold a controller with a kill switch and a toggle switch. Riding instructions from Evans are brief: “Just hold in that kill switch. Push the toggle forward to go forward and pull back to brake.” Not brakes like you have on a car, but it does use both motors to slow itself.
And when stopped, pull the toggle backward to reverse. Yes, a skateboard with reverse.
Through a mobile app, you can limit the board’s top speed and acceleration rate. Evans explains: “You can make it so the top speed is only 10km/h if your kid is going to use it for the first time. I set it at 6km/h for my mom and I set the acceleration at like 20 per cent.”
Dude, how the humble skateboard has changed.