Staycation

[elizilla]

I just returned to work after six days of vacation. Gerald and Margaret visited from Scotland. We didn't do anything fancy, just showed them our favorite things around Dexter. Spending a week focusing on what I like best about my hometown, makes me feel very fortunate. And we played games. We did Scrabble in person with board and tiles, plus they had an online Scrabble game and I have joined. And I showed them how to play double solitaire, which is a fast paced game that tends to damage playing cards. :-)

We also took advantage of the vacation time, to go look at Mahindra GenZe's electric scooters and bicycles at their new factory in Ann Arbor. They let us in even without an appointment and we almost immediately got handed off to a guy we already know, Terry. He gave us the tour and the machines are awesome. I would love to have one of the scooters, but my leg won't bend enough to fit - not unexpected since I have that trouble with all such machines, lately. We went on from Mahindra, to a shop called Human Electric Hybrid in Ypsilanti, which I also recommend highly - it's amazing what choices there are for electric bikes nowadays!

Comments

[sendthewolf]

Very cool, I did not know there was a new GenZe factory in A2. A while back I got ad-targeted into checking out RadPower, which led to Pedego, and on and on. :)

I'm going to sell my DRZ and then see about a scooter for town...

[elizilla]

Well, as a big person these GenZe scooters might suit you better than the more common Vespa-ish things. They are legally mopeds, which means they are electronically governed to 30mph. But they are much taller and wider than others in the class. Low center of gravity, though, so no harder to manage. They have more leg room than a traditional gas moped, but still not enough for my stupid left leg.

They had several in there that were kitted out as delivery vehicles and the pizza boxes on the back didn't dwarf them. Terry told us they are selling fleets of them for takeout food delivery in larger cities. The batteries are in a briefcase size suitcase that fits under the seat, right behind the rider's heels. It lifts out to be carried inside for charging, so you don't have to have a parking spot with power. Terry says a pizza shop would have extra batteries ready to go in a charging station in the store.

The place in Ann Arbor is an assembly plant and Mahindra has invested in a lot of factory equipment. They are also assembling electric bicycles; they have a big contract with Costco for this year's Christmas season.

They are badging them as Peugots.

The store we visited in Ypsi, Human Electric Hybrids, is a GenZe dealer. They had one of the scooters on their sales floor. But their main business was electric bicycles, and they had many many choices.