[Talk-GB] Electric kick scooters- Was: External data on bike rental locations

[Chris Hodges]

They're pretty rubbish at being kick scooters, by all accounts, but they 
are intended to be used as such, for example if they (think that they)  
go out of their defined area the motor cuts out and you're supposed to 
use them as unpowered kick-scooters until back in area or GPS is regained.

But "electric kick scooter" is a long term, suited to a wiki, while 
e-scooter (with/without hyphen) is probably the sweet spot for being 
specific, short, and common.  Both the kick-scooters we had in the 80s 
and motor-bike-like things are traditional scooters; that's just an 
ambiguous term.  The existence of things like the Vespa Elettrica serves 
mainly to illustrate how tricky product naming can be; luckily they're 
not rented in the same way.  I think you're right that for marketing 
reasons the electric aspect is emphasised; they're all about saving 
effort after all


Stand-up scooter is very clear (though a few privately-owned and 
therefore illegal ones have a sort of stool) but not widely used IME.

Chris


On 13/09/2021 14:15, David Woolley wrote:
> On 13/09/2021 13:12, David Groom wrote:
>> electric kick scooter
>
> I'm not sure that I like the term "kick" here.  The problem with 
> "kick" is that most of these are not really suitable to be used in 
> kick mode, as the platform is too high and motors are often not 
> designed to be turned unpowered.  Whilst it is possible that the term 
> will become common use, at the moment things don't seem to be going 
> that way, with e-scooter, stressing the electric aspect, seeming to be 
> the preferred marketing term.
>
> I think I have also seen the term "stand up scooter" used to 
> distinguish them from traditional motor scooters, which are sit on ones.
>
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