£11,000! I can buy an electric scooter here for $700.<p>Unfortunately, the article is really just a Press Release. So it doesn't go into any detail about what you get for all that money and whether it is worth it.<p>Where I live (not the US) there are a growing number of electric scooters. I'd guesstimate maybe 20-30% of vehicles on the road now are electric scooters.<p>It is amazing how much quieter it makes...everything. Internal combustion engines are so noisy yet we've become so accustomed to them.
We have something similar in Germany.<p>The Schwalbe scooter was built in Easter Germany from the the 60s to the 80s and has achieved a sort of cult status. One still sees them today, even in the west. <a href="https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_Schwalbe" rel="nofollow">https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simson_Schwalbe</a><p>There is now a new electric scooter that looks just like the original:
<a href="http://www.myschwalbe.com/en/" rel="nofollow">http://www.myschwalbe.com/en/</a>
> It’s always struck me as odd that scooters, with their pragmatic step-through design and fogeyish upright seating position, so easily outscore motorbikes when it comes to pure panache. They pack more sass and sex appeal into their dinky two-wheel frames than almost any other vehicle<p>That's a very bold statement.
It is very long, at 2 meters. I can't see that size being easy to maneuver or park. In Germany for example, scooters and motorcycles can be parked anywhere on pavements. This would be harder to park and more conspicuous (just by size, leave alone the looks!).<p>I'm all for e-scooters replacing ICE scooters though, for the noise and air pollution benefits. I bought an ICE scooter to putter around in the city mainly because the cheapest e-scooter was almost 3x the price and could only be serviced by the manufacturer. I hope the next scooter I buy will be electric and have a good range.
I think it looks rather clunky compared to a modern e-scooter like the new Schwalbe for example.<p>Say what you want about those modern city scooters but the design is nimble and relatively small. The Čezeta seems like a tractor version of a scooter.
>Power comes via a patented two-way “Sway” throttle. Roll it back as usual to accelerate, then roll it forward to brake<p>as novel and non-obvious as they come...
The word <i>chicest</i> doesn't seem right to me; I keep reading it as a typo for <i>choicest</i> or something like that. Should it maybe be <i>chic-est</i>? <i>Most chic</i>? I'd have avoided the problem by saying "The rebirth of a chic communist-era scooter". Maybe even "a chic Czech scooter".
I really want a scooter, but I'm really afraid of how vulnerable it makes me. I walk and bus most places I go (in Seattle) and I've wondered how much more dangerous it would be to ride a scooter than walk.