Boston Transit is Banning Hoverboards

personally, i’d love to see them all go up in flames. Just not on a bus full of people.

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@longhairedboy I really don’t like the way that riders use these devices! They are treated like “feet replacement” and used in crowded areas like sidewalks and train stations. In Boston some university campuses have banned their use because riders slam into walkers and generally can’t control themselves.

It’s a shame, because this draws negative attention to the electric vehicle movement that I so dearly love!

It would be terrible if this translated to ban on eskates. I use my eskate to get to the train station from the suburbs, and then I take the train into the city.

Not sure what all the hating on one thing to feel good about another thing is all about but I rock the “hoverboard” inside the office because its fun, the OneWheel in the parking lot because it’s less dangerous, the eboard for commuting across town and non electric longboard/skateboard/bike for everything else. Celebrating the banning of the hoverboard seems kind of pretentious when it could ultimately lead to stricter personal e-vehicle regulations across the board. What’s next? The government forcing phone companies to build backdoor entryways into our personal communications? Oh wait…

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agreed! the average person would categorize a mini segway, eboard, onewheel , etc all in the same category. This should not be a celebration.

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Because this is what you look like riding a hoverboard, onewheel or segway:

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Because this looks cooler. Nice to see that superficiality is not lost in this forum.

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Definitely not lost haha

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@RunPlayBack the ban is based on concern that the devices could ignite on a subway, I think it’s a legit concern, but agree with you that stricter e-vehicle regulations would be a bummer and I hope it doesn’t come to that.

I definitely don’t celebrate the banning! It’s bad for our e-vehicle community when poor quality devices saturate the market and either a)ignite spontaneously or b) are used in ways that pose a threat to others.

It begs a new question: how much electricity\power should the masses be allowed to operate in a public space? Does it matter if it’s on a sidewalk or on a road? Should there be a regulation at all?

Let’s take a lesson from our fellow drone pilots (myself included), that a few bad seeds have made it a lot tougher for casual flying and transportation.

It’s a good question, how much is too much? If it was up to regulators, particularly in air travel, anything is too much. Public outcry and media frenzy forced their hand to ban hoverboards.

I think eboards at this point are somewhat protected by price point and a somewhat steep learning curve for DIY. Not many of us are willing to abuse something we dropped over a grand on.

But how long will that last? If the price drops low enough, will the reputable companies have enough juice to deflect the incoming fire hazard clones? Check out some of the OneWheel and Boosted forums, lots of consumers who have had mixed experiences trying to bring their product on the plane.

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the problem here is deep, much deeper than we care to think… and it’s VERY worrying as it could ruin it for everyone… so please people think before you buy the cheap THING on amazon.

because what happened with the hover-board can also happen with the electric skateboard too… in fact, any great idea is at risk… because when the china manufacturing behemoth gets its hands on something it will stop at nothing until it gets the price at rock bottom…

competition is so fierce in china and each factory tries to out-do the other one with the lower price so they can get a bigger bite of the delicious profit pie. reseller fuel the fire also, they demand the lowest price too.

in most cases the factories don’t give a fuck if the product works well, they just want money… and they will fuck anyone in their way to get it with very little repercussions

so what can we do about this?

We all need to build our own high-quality eboards… We must not get lured into the False economy trap of buying the cheapest piece of shit we can find… remember you get what you pay for.

If we all demand premium quality there will be no house fires, there will bo no crying kids when their plastic fantastic melts…

We must demand quality! trying to make everything cheap is what caused this.

I could make every single enertion product cheaper and make more profit, but I do give a fuck about the end user and the emerging industry…

let’s just hope the electric skateboard doesn’t get caught in the net of over-powering government regulations.

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It’s fascinating to me that when I have my eboard and hoverboard side by side at the office, how many people are more willing try the hoverboard simply because of brand awareness. In my opinion the beginner’s learning curve and risk of injury is way greater on the hoverboard. But because of market saturation and reseller’s branding it as a “toy”, the general public is willing to risk injury. The faulty batteries just added to that mess.

With that said, I’m responsible with my hoverboard. I don’t take the thing outside and it’s a quick and easy way to blow off some steam indoors without having to suit up on an eboard.

I will say that the classic image of a skateboard is still inherently counter culture and not 100% toy like. I think there’s many consumers who bought into the hoverboard craze that can’t ride a skateboard, have no desire to ride a skateboard and would be hesitant to get lured in the same way.

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@RunPlayBack I hate them because they are manufactured as cheaply as possible and they have caused numerous high-profile fires that have literally changed the laws surrounding lithium chemistry batteries much to the detriment of everyone here on this forum. They are the reason Jason has to send me all of your space cells before they can get to you. They are the reason esk8s above 99wh can’t go on a plane. They are the reason I can’t build a custom, high powered board for a guy in Germany or a girl in Canada. I literally have to turn down international sales of completes. I think i have turned down maybe 8 now. They are indirectly costing me sales in addition to just being cheap, dangerous pieces of shit that are annoyingly flooding my instagrams. I seriously wish they would all just go away if they can’t build them of higher quality.

I had a meeting a few months back with a guy from UL. One of those cheap shit companies are under investigation for illegally using ULs mark, which makes them seem safer than they are.

I don’t make a habit of hating on other things that i don’t have in order to feel good about myself and the things i do have. I think you’re confusing me with people in the conservative right. I actually have valid reasons when i hate something.

I don’t assume anything especially anyone’s political leanings which is none of my business. I based my reply on context in this thread “personally, i’d love to see them all go up in flames.” Without the context it was hating on a thing without talking about the bigger problem at hand, which is where the thread course corrected into. Either a hoverboard or the new Onewheel clones, or an electric rollerskate it was inevitable something was going to be mass produced and pushed into the mainstream without regulation. Case in point, OneWheel getting security to raid the Chinese OneWheel clone booth at CES yet admitting later that they didn’t actually have patents to allow them to do that. It was all for posturing against the evil Chinese. Another case in point, I almost got kicked out of the Shape Booth at NAB last year. I was minding my own business taking video for my blog like the rest of the other bloggers but security escorted me out because I looked like a “Chinese” spy. Ethnocentrism is ugly. Hate is a slippery slope and actually getting to the root of how to prevent it from happening again feels more productive. Jason brought up a good point - let’s demand better parts. Okay so how do we do that? The Chinese don’t take weekends off, so how do we outwork them?

Me and my buddy BamBam are makin calls. We’ll get this all straightened out.

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I’m thinking that an eSk8 board with a modular, easily removable “e-box” containing all of the batteries/electronics which could quickly be removed and stashed in a backpack, or put in a lipo bag for added “security”, might be a way to be more incognito in public. Or at least demonstrate a way to more safely transport our electrified fire bricks to set eSk8’s further apart from so called “hoverboards”. Hub motor setups seem like they might work best in this scenario, since people wouldn’t still see the motor/belt setup on your otherwise normal looking longboard.

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I came across this today and thought it might work for the modular quick release e-box idea. If it has to come to that.

That’s so fucking wrong man!.. I really hate racism…Australia is very multicultural which is great, but we still have plenty of fucking racist fucks…

Let it be clear to all readers on this forum, When I talk about Chinese factories doing dodgy shit, it has nothing to do with race, I also hate when Australian business sell dodgy shit products, so whether they be in china or any other country I just hate when people try to scam others with cheap shit that they know is likely to fail… In Australia & EU it is consumer law that a certain warranty period must be provided with any consumer electrical goods sold.

China doesn’t have to offer this guarantee!

In many cases the problem we are discussing is actually a double-edged sword, The factories will happily sell cheaper stuff because they are constantly asked to sell cheaper stuff. The problems would not exist if people were better educated about what makes something good quality & what makes something bad quality (one of the reasons I created this forum)

Often I see people ask a question like this below. A: Yeah you could probably do it but it would be a piece of shit:

So the problems stem from western civilizations constantly demanding lower prices. If the consumers of the world demand to buy only the most expensive merchandise on offer, innovation would be flying sky high… quality would be paramount, things would be made to last forever, Currently most things we consumers have are designed with planned obsolescence as a primary focus. We are living in a very wasteful world that is so very obsessed with the NOW and rarely do we think about how a product will be processed when it’s no longer wanted or when the FAD dies off… I certainly hope all the confiscated hover boards that were sitting in warehouses ready to blow up some kids house get recycled & reused in an appropriate manner…

when you look deeply at it…this all boils down to our monetary & financial system… our imaginary way of valuing goods based on a piece of paper with some dickheads face printed on it. People are always going to want cheap stuff because earning a dollar is so fucking hard & companies will always want o sell more stuff so they really don’t care if it doesn’t last long. The only real solution that is gaining a bit of traction in some European countries is a guaranteed basic income for all people.

this probably explains it better than i can:

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Jesus, this is fascinating. Planned obsolescence is exactly what this feels like - in regards to the video industry, this is something I’ve been dealing with for quite some time. As a western consumer, I’m always conscious of price but I’ll gladly pay top dollar if that thing inspires me to create.

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I worry about this same issue with hoberboard band leading to me not being able to use my board to get to my university. They banned hoberboard and similar devices this semester. I’m not sure what defines similar devices but I’m afraid that could include electric skateboards. Either way, I know my board is not going to blow up because I have opted to spend extra money for fail safe components. Vesc’s instead of fvt, space cell instead of cheap lipos. It may not matter to non tech savvy safety officers who could give me massive tickets.

There’s probably not enough of these to cause a ban where I’m at, we ride all the time around University of Michigan campus without any problems. But the stealth on FOC and the hubs definitely keep us from giving security/police a reason to get annoyed.