Kick Scooter riders use a lot of energy overcoming inertia when kicking off.
This scooter has a spring under the deck which stores the energy usually lost in braking by loading the spring when you let out a rear wheel clutch. When you start up the spring helps drive the rear wheel to make your takeoff easier.
You could use the deck itself as the spring but you would have to have the gearing very high, or you would end up standing on a tall humped deck.
This could also be done with a compressor and an air tank, but the spring seems simpler.-- macrumpton, May 14 2004 Nice idea!-- hippo, May 15 2024 Somebody has to have thought of this no?
It's an amazing and incredibly simple idea. Just the fun of being able to squeeze a throttle to push forward.
This has to have been thought of but [+] regardless.-- doctorremulac3, May 15 2024 //Regen braking for *electric* scooters exists but is of dubious value.//
I read the article, it's broadly applicable to what's deployed currently. But it doesn't have to be like that. There are plenty of ESCs that can do regen quite well, take a Toyota Prius for example. On a smaller scale, I have a VESC that does a good job considering the unsophisticated motor and gearbox it's attached to. One of the major problems is the charging rate of Lithium cells, often 1C is cited as a max charge rate, i.e. a 7 Amp-hour battery shouldn't be charged at more than 7 Amps. Now, this isn't true for lots of, admittedly more expensive, cells. I have RC racing LiPo packs that will charge at 5c. It also isn't true for a lot of normal cells, at least transiently. It's mainly a thermal limit to stop them from overheating. Regen braking tends to be quite short-lived. So, properly managed, regen charging could go over 1c quite easily. Another easy win would be to include a relatively beefy capacitor.
''kick scooter winding a spring."
Easily doable, but spring energy storage is very heavy and bulky. Plus, if it stored any significant energy, it would be an absolute bomb to work on. See anyone who's ever sweated over the danger of car spring compressors.-- bs0u0155, May 24 2024 random, halfbakery