Best Buy starts hawking electric bikes, scooters
July 9, 2009 by Tom GuayPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, News
The dream of jumping on an electric vehicle and tooling around town without supporting the oil industry is now a reality at Best Buy.
Instead of selling electronics that go inside a home or business, the retailer this summer tests a new product category: electric bicycles, motorcycles, scooters and personal transporters made by Segway.
No electric cars in the stores just yet, but the electric two-wheelers go on sale in 20 Best Buy stores in Washington, Oregon and California. The electric motorcycles will show up later in the summer.
Segways have been popping up in Best Buy stores for demonstrations over the past year. Fans of the machine now worry that Best Buy will replace the network of Segway dealers.
Best Buy’s also been reaching out to the new electric bike market by sponsoring Brammo’s electric motorcycle racing team in a contest between zero-emission motorbikes.
Click here for a photo of a Segway point of sale display in Best Buy. A pic of the Brammo Enertia electric motorcycle is here.
The company’s hoping green technology will help it weather the recession by attracting an affluent clientele. The Brammo goes for about $12,000. Segways range between $5,350 and $7,200.
Tags: Best Buy, Brammo, electric bicycles, electric vehicles, Segway
GreenandMore.com
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July 9th, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Not too many of us are affluent (or stupid) enough anymore to buy this crap. We’re saving everything until Nobama is gone and free enterprise can resume in this country again.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Yeah, let’s keep buying foreign oil and keep financing Al Quida, let’s let free enterprise once again, after Obama digs us out of this mess, put us in another depression, just like the Great Depression and like this one! Let’s keep sticking our heads in the sand and pretending capitolism and free enterprise is the answer to all our troubles. Or maybe, Leu, we can do a little thinking for a change instead of following the Lush Rimbaugh line all the time. But then again, asking you guys to think would probably be asking too much.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
I looked at one of the electric bikes on Best Buy. They can get up to speeds of 15 mph for about 15 miles, meaning an hour. I can go 18 mph on a regular bike on my own. So I’m better off doing the pedaling myself.
July 20th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Cal,
Why are we buying foreign oil??? We have a vast supply right here in this country, enough for 100″s of years. The Department of Energy was created to decrease our dependence on foreign oil but at the time the economy was so good here that it was cheaper to buy foreign oil. Now it’s not. Gee, I wonder if we could creat a few job’s in this country while we quit importing foreign oil. That’s what we get for letting the government get involved in free enterprize. Thank you very much Dept. of Energy.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:04 am
Its a good move for an electronics firm to move into electric bikes, it is still electronics but it is still a new realm, as the vehicle industry is huge. This new industry is going to be very big.
September 17th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
The problem I see with these tiny vehicles is they are operated either on the sidewalk making them illegal or they are operated on the street making them again illegal.