(funky music)
- Hey everybody.
This is Sean from the Verge.
I'm here at CES 2018,
and I'm, maybe obviously, on an electric scooter.
This is the Relync Electric Scooter,
and it's not the same kind of flashy
electric scooter we're used to here at CES.
It has a range of 30 kilometers which is nice,
but it has a pretty low top speed,
and that's on purpose.
It's because this is really aimed
at the mobility sector.
And by that I mean people who need help getting around.
Whether that's old people,
people who have maybe been injured,
or have a handicap,
and more importantly than all of that,
it's small, it's relatively light.
Only about 20 to 30 pounds,
and you can fold it up and store it
in really tight spaces.
Take a look.
All you have to do is lower the seat
then reach down into the floor of the scooter
grab a handle, pull it up, and snap.
It's all together.
And at that point it works basically
as like a luggage roller, and you can
even take the handle bar section
and fold that down so that it fits
better in the trunk of a car.
Now the Relync scooter is being built in China,
but they want to sell it especially in Europe,
but also in the US.
It's gonna cost around $3600,
and weighs somewhere in between the 20 to 30 pound range.
And it basically has all the things
you'd expect from an electric scooter.
A modern electric scooter.
There's a gauge on the dash that tells
you how fast you're going, how much range you have,
how much battery is left.
And it's powered by two batteries.
You can actually swap them out.
And just charge them at home.
You can charge this scooter right in a wall outlet too.
Even when it's folded up into that sort of compact position.
What's interesting about this scooter to me, especially,
is that this is more proof that this market is changing,
because of how cheap electric motors
and batteries have become.
We hear the word mobility thrown around
a lot at shows like CES, or even auto shows,
and it often sounds like a really empty word,
that these companies use because
it's never really tied to products
that are coming out now.
It's talking about self-driving cars
that are coming in the future,
or shuttles that might only be in big cities.
Whereas something like this actually
attaches some meaning to that word,
and I think what I really like about this idea
is that Relync is a company that
could actually sell this to someone
that you know who might need help
getting around in the short term.
Somebody who needs something in the next year or two.
And while this might not be the perfect kind of scooter,
there might be faster ones out there,
there might be ones that are better built,
this is something is at the very least
could be sold to that person who
needs help getting around,
or will inspire other people at
this low end of the market to
make something that's pretty similar.
And when you consider the fact that
mobility scooters that are already
out there on the market cost way more than this,
it makes that price tag sound a little bit more reasonable.
So for more weird electric scooters,
helpful electric scooters,
self-driving cars, cameras, phones,
everything else we're doing here this week at CES 2018,
go to YouTube.com/theverge click subscribe.
Go to TheVerge.com/CES for everything else.
And thanks for watching.