These were the modes of transport:
#1 with over 6000km is my first electric. It's a bicycle. Does 65km/h, 0-50km/h in about 3 seconds, has a range of 50km, weighs 38kg and is loads of fun offroad! Here's a video:
#2 with a tad under 4000km is my most recent electric. I call it a bicycle because I don't want to have to try and license it and it can be pedalled. In reality it's a motorcycle. It does 85km/h, gets to 60 in 3 seconds and can do 100km on a charge! The downside is that it weighs 50kg, so it's heavy to pedal. In reality I'm probably not saving much electricity by pedalling, but at least I still get a workout. Here's a rather long video:
#3 is my souped up bladez electric scooter with about 100km on the clock. It's designed to run on 24v 450w of power, but I chucked some lithium in and boosted the volts to 38.4, and power to 3500w. This is the most dangerous vehicle I've ever been on. 40km/h comes up stupidly fast if you can hang on, and on 10 inch wheels is ludicrous. Also a crash on one of these sends you head first to the ground. I won't let people ride this without putting my crash helmet on first.
And that's it. Using electricity for power is even cheaper than pedalling if you consider the cost of food. The smaller bike runs on 1c/km in electricity, the big bike and scooter use double that! I've figured that I save about R2.50 using these toys instead of my already cheap econobox car, and I get some exercise, no traffic, help the environment and have waaaay more fun than I would in a car. In total I did spend R50k on all 3, the big bike was a luxury, not an economy choice. Without it the others would have long paid for themselves, but in the next 8000 km all three would have paid for themselves! The only thing I wonder is why more people don't build their own...
Oh and to keep it somewhat financial, I'll do the next 8000km in just over two years, so considering when I built the first bike, these run on a p/e of 8, great investment!
