ecohipster transport
A hybrid vespa? Hmm. Seems sort of pointless to me: why not just ditch the gas engine entirely? Sure, I get that energy density is a problem, but surely a scooter has a weight and expected-range advantage over electric cars, which are at least on the edge of plausibility. Besides, those tiny scooter motors are dirty and inefficient — surely you could pack a day's worth of use into a vespa's-worth of batteries if you ditched the pollution-spewing lawnmower pieces.
Anyway, I've been thinking about this since the last issue of Make's feature on homebrew EVs. It's cool to see that people are spending some time on building electric vehicles for applications where they could shine — namely urban transport — rather than just waiting for them to become all things to all people.
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"those tiny scooter motors are dirty and inefficient"
The old 2-stroke oil mix engines were dirty, although they were quite powerful for their size. Nearly all new scooters use modern 4-stroke engines that burn much more cleanly. You are right, though, that energy density is the problem with pure electric scoots; the current crop has trouble with hills and can't keep up with traffic.
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