Too cool for a Segway tour? No need to worry, battery-powered skateboards will soon be on the market thanks to a new company called Boosted Boards.
Less bulky than bikes, these boards have the potential to change the way people explore cities. They can be carried anywhere – including on airplanes – allowing people to stop and go as they please (and easily hop off to bypass obstacles like stairs). A handheld remote control allows the rider to control the speed and brakes, so all the rider has to do is worry about balancing and avoiding barriers.
The battery lasts for about six miles, and when its time to recharge, the board just needs to be plugged into a normal wall outlet for 15 minutes (at that rate, it means about a dollar of electricity can power one of these skateboards for more than 600 miles). And if you’re worried about oomph, consider this: the boards have so much gusto they can climb up the hills of San Francisco at 20 mph.
More than 1,100 people got behind the boards on Kickstarter, where inventors reeled in more than four times the money they needed to launch. Boosted Boards is now accepting pre-orders for the new mode of transport, which the company plans to deliver in winter 2013.