Race and Range Anxiety

The story so far.

If you haven’t been keeping up, one of the parts on my Boosted Board came loose. I put a video of it on my Instagram @maulakai. Shortly thereafter, I was contacted by Boosted, who invited me to return the board for a repair. They even furnished me with a return mailing label, so it didn’t cost me anything.

I was very impressed with their customer service. Remember at the same time, one of my Evolve trucks broke. They asked me to ship the broken part back to them, at my own expensive. After a wait and another email, they finally said they’d be sending me a new set of trucks.

I’m still waiting for both the Evolve trucks, and the Boosted Board. It’s a strange waiting game. It’s almost become a race in my mind. Which company’s return will reach me first?

In the meantime, I’ve been taking my old Evolve Snubnose. I can’t say enough about what a good board it is. To this day, I really love the way that board can carve, the way it rides. It’s so much fun, and its been very good to me.

Yesterday was such a perfect day, I decided to ride around a little extra. My usual commute is approximately four miles. Maybe I added a mile to that, going down a nice road, and doing figure eights in a parking lot.

I was kind of surprised to see the low battery light come on before I got home. I’d always estimated the battery life of that board closer to eight miles. The board completely ran out of battery just as rolled to my front door.

It’s hard to say what’s going on here. But probably, the battery is old, and losing some of its range. Which isn’t really a big deal, but its the kind of thing you have to keep in mind. So I realized that electric skateboard might also get what Tesla owners get: range anxiety.

I mean, if you’re using your board to commute, you probably know what you’re capable of. And if the battery loses range over time, you’d know it before it would ruin your day. But if you just want to take the board out for a joy ride, then sure, range anxiety comes into play. Because no one wants to end his ride by kicking his board home that last mile.