I live in Sacramento, the capitol of California and located in Northern California, some people don’t really know this but California is really like two different places, divided into the north and south, it’s not that we are different, it’s just we are so far away we develop two different cultures and it’s rad.
The bay area and San Fransico is like a bubble and an entirely different world inside, they have a ton of electric skaters, also a long history and heritage of skateboarding in general considering many of the finer skaters in history came from here and southern California. We sort of are the birthplace for modern skateboarding as we know it and it’s not a surprise we have a lot of electric skaters too considering the tech industry here and the number of “makers” we have.
I do see people I do not know riding electrics in town while commuting, there’s so many people here just trying to herd them into a FB group or find the ones who eskate is very difficult. We have a local Sacramento group on FB with about 50 people in it, the nearby town of Davis (a college town) has another small group as well and we get together sometimes. the bay area has a giant fb group and events all the time and tons of people riding.
Based on how rad this activity is and how little I see people picking it up, coupled with the existing skateboard hatred toward electrics (which we have a lot of) it actually is sort of slow to take off here. We have an image problem and California should be an indication of where the market needs to go. There’s untold numbers of skateboarders here and yet a very small acceptance of electric power ones, that could change with some marketing and culture shift and it’s possibly poised for a giant hype market explosion.
But like anything in California if it’s not “cool” it typically isn’t accepted, and that’s what’s going on here. I roll around and get tons of compliments from laymen on the street, but nothing but hatred from existing skaters and bikers on the trails…I aim to change that by using everything I can from the existing skate industry that is cool and combining it with brushless power systems. If you roll up to the skaters with something that looks exactly like what they ride or want, only better, they might accept you and eskating more. If they change their opinions and all go out and buy one, then we are screwed because they already know how to skate better than any of the consumers buying commuter boards at Frys. It’s like a entire market just sitting there untouched and shelter itself through fear of change and the hatred is just it’s expression.
While I would say it’s more popular here than other places and we constantly see people riding them, it has a long way to go and tons of room for growth. We also have a lot more people here in general so you cannot really compare it fairly to other places other than NYC, LA and FL. Just in my city alone, we have at least 5 major skateparks with giant bowls and pools and even a full pipe, that’s not even counting the 20 other smaller neighborhood skateparks all over the place. When I say we have a lot of skaters I mean tons, skateboarding is a mainstream accepted sport here, I believe there’s about 5 skate shops in town carrying longboard and shortboards, and none of which bother to carry electrics due to the culture problems…if we can get that to change, and get skaters to think electric skateboards are cool, the market is poised here to literally explode overnight…but these are smart and savvy consumers, they can already skateboard and know what goes into a good skateboard and they look at the eskate market and laugh, with very good reason…make them a skateboard and market it to them directly instead of dumb commuters who have never ridden a skateboard before and you open the doors to the perfect demographic that could set this all on fire and make a few of you very rich…electrics in existing skateshops with some basic standards for parts and plug-n-play electric components, will go a long way to show that we want their acceptance…
I have also noted a lot of hatred going back the other way as well, people complaining on FB and other places about being hated on by skaters and it’s perpetuating a cycle, everyone need to rise above it, it’s silly and only hurting the growth of the market…not to mention we are all skaters, electric or not, we have more in common than we think and the electric market can learn how to be cool from them, and maybe they will try these things out and be open minded instead of rejecting the idea…
) but the bigger problem is gravel and salt on sidewalks and bike paths during winter 
insane
Are those all 10s2p hover board batteries?
Or am I seeing that wrong?
Wow 
