Anybody who's visited a bustling American city or set foot on a college campus in the last few years can attest to the booming popularity of electric scooters — and a Chinese company may have changed the game with a solar-powered version: the S80 Solar Scooter.
At the Eurobike 2023 trade show, the Jiangsu Snail Zhixing Technology company unveiled a revolutionary new scooter that has a massive solar panel stretching from the handlebars to the front wheel and another panel that covers the entire base that riders stand on between the two wheels, according to Inside EVs. These panels provide all the charge that the scooter needs to move riders from place to place.
Since existing electric scooters all require charging via plug-in chargers, the S80 sets itself apart from its rivals by sourcing all of its energy from solar power — which means riders will theoretically never have to plug the scooter into a traditional charger.
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Electrek claimed that the scooter has a range of 22 miles (35 kilometers) and requires between 35 and 70 watts to fully recharge. This means a total recharge will take between seven and 14 hours of exposure to sunlight. While that sounds like a long time, consider that simply parking your scooter outside your home or workplace will cover a lot of the charging period.
"Sure, the front panel's nearly vertical orientation isn't exactly a model for peak solar efficiency. And yes, standing on the deck solar panel probably cuts into its effectiveness," wrote Electrek writer Micah Toll. "But stop raining on my parade, folks. I'm already in love!"
By using electric vehicles (EVs) instead of gas-powered transportation, you can greatly reduce the amount of harmful pollution that you create on a daily basis. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, EVs consistently create substantially less carbon pollution than gasoline-powered vehicles.
The scooter can reach a top speed of 15.5 miles per hour, or 25 kilometers per hour, according to Elektrek, which also reported that the company has set the retail price in the United States at $1,400.
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