One of the questions I receive most often from someone that wants to purchase a motorized scooter is, "Which is better, gas or electric?" To be completely honest, there are a lot of things to consider before making this decision, so it is not a simple question to answer. To make an educated decision, there are several items you will want to carefully review. Only after understanding the differences between the two types of scooter, can you decide which is best for your own personal needs.
Here are some of the various pros and cons of each type of motorized scooter:
COST: When it comes to affordability, the prize goes to electric scooters. Generally, an electric scooter will be far less expensive than its gas counterpart that features the same specifications.
SPEED: In this category, the gas scooter wins hands-down. In most cases, the average electric scooter will output top-end speeds between 10 to 25 miles per hour. You can find some electric scooters that go much faster. However, you will pay a premium price for these. On the other hand, comparably priced gas scooters will generally produce speeds ranging from 20 to 35 miles per hour. Once again, there are faster gas scooters available too; but usually at an extreme cost.
NOISE LEVELS: The electric scooter is clearly the winner here. Most gas scooters are considered to be quite loud, often sounding something like a lawnmower or chainsaw. On the other hand, electric scooters produce a low humming sound. If you are concerned with noise levels, you should probably decide on the electric motorized scooter. However, if you must have a gas scooter for any of the other reasons listed here, try one built with a California C.A.R.B. Tier 2 exhaust emission compliant motor. The gas scooter motors built to California C.A.R.B. specifications are a much quieter choice than the standard gas models.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT: There is absolutely no question as to the winner in this category - the electric scooter! If your overall goal is to reduce your carbon footprint by reducing harmful emissions, then the electric scooter is clearly the way to go. Gas scooters burn fossil fuels, which in-turn produce emissions that are found to be harmful to our environment.
Gas scooters do, however, produce far fewer harmful emissions than the standard automobile. If your goal is to reduce your emissions by driving a gas scooter as an alternative to driving your car, then at least you are looking in the correct direction. If this is the case, try to go with one of the gas scooters featuring the California C.A.R.B. Tier 2 exhaust previously mentioned in this article.
I recently had a reader comment to one of my blog postings arguing that electric scooters are no cleaner to drive than an automobile since the process of producing the required electricity to drive them resulted in the need to burn fossil fuels. Yes, I'll agree that in many cases fossil fuels are used to produce electricity. However, there are indeed other methods to produce electricity that are a cleaner alternative. Electricity can also be produced by solar, wind, or nuclear alternatives that do not require the burning of fossil fuels. This simply cannot be said about driving an automobile! Furthermore, to drive an automobile, the environment is effected twice; up front when the fuel is refined, and then again when the fuel is burned and emissions are given off as an exhaust. Even if your electric scooter is used with electricity that was produced by a fossil fuel burning plant, the act of using your scooter for transportation instead of an automobile, results in less emission being introduced into our environment.
Please see "Which Type of Motorized Scooter is Best -- Electric or Gas? - Part 2" for the continuation of this
article.
James Stockton is a Scooter enthusiast that likes to share information with other scooter drivers throughout the world. To learn more about buying an electric scooter, be sure to visit: http://www.ElectricScooterOutlet.com.
