alt Hacker News>>E.g. a good insulated ICE has a pleasant noise
You know this is a thread about scooters, right? If you live somewhere like Rome or even London all you hear is just very loud revving all day long, not least because teenagers who ride them tend to just rev them for no reason. But even a vespa is very loud compared to a petrol car. And again, electric scooters usually don't have any kind of artificial synthetic noise to make themselves known like cars do. So it you magically replaced all petrol scooters with electric ones the streets would get about 50x quieter.
>>would not it be a good idea to have them continuously under some solar power connection?
Maybe. Scooters have tiny electric batteries, usually no more than 1-2kWh. That much can be easily recharged in a day from even a small solar panel. But I suspect a scooter with a canopy wouldn't be accepted purely because it looks weird. But you can get foldable panels that fit in your backpack, leave it on the scooter when you park it and it will recharge to full while you work.
> You know this is a thread about scooters
Fair point about mediating between generics and specifics, but I am not sure I have yet heard an electric scooter's noise - I was more focused on electric engines in general, and I suspected that there can be similarities with the cars.
Relevant: I only returned to the thread today as yesterday I had to leave just after my post, and I walked thinking "I really cannot remember a loud Vespa". Destiny served: minutes later one passed by - admittedly much too loud. But I am not fully convinced somebody did not do something to it (the noise may have not been the out-of-the-factory one).
But you wrote «it's just common sense» and I am fully skeptical and wary about what could happen with the tech implementations. 'Cause also in real time, as I am typing, a Lexus (I think) passed by and even if the noise is low, its texture was sufficient to have me break the typing and go look at the perpetrator. Would common sense be something granted, electric vehicles would be planned as a nice solution - instead of torture with drawbacks, as we see it.
And: ok, urban context, but still: how do you charge them - suppose you live in a flat? What if solar is not sufficient?
And what if, still speaking of horrific implementation, with the current craze, they build "smartphones with two wheels"? Would we still be able to find "proper" (electric-based) ones, lean - say, without microphone GPS and tracking libraries?
You mention Rome: I had to notice that telephone conversations with people on public transport there are broken continuously by the bababababa of the doors alarms. Another perspective on urban noise and on common sense. The transformation of the landscape into the merge between mechanical factory and construction site is ongoing.
> leave it on the scooter when you park it
Well, that is part of the «that is also not always satisfiable» and «if you remain nearby» in my post. Your proposal (parking and leaving equipment there) could work in the Draconian Saudi Arabia, but not generically.