Attention personal shoppers

Posted on September 30, 2005 by Gene

Hmm. Advice, please:
I’m going tomorrow morning to take a look at an electric scooter — an EVT168 to be precise. This is a scooter of the same type as a Vespa, a kind of retro Italian thing, but instead of running on gas, it’s completely electric. It plugs in to charge, runs at about 30mph for up to 30 miles.
Right now, all my driving consists of short trips to the store, to the post office, and to the mall; and a Prius is incredibly inefficient on short trips. A scooter would be ideal for my every day errands, and should I move to a more urban environment as is my current plan, it would be even better.
But here’s the thing: it costs $1900.
If you crunch the numbers logically, it’s clear that it would take a very, very long time to recoup that investment just from the savings in gas from not driving the car. And since my car is a partial-zero emission vehicle anyway, I don’t think the environmental impact of driving the scooter would be that improved, either.
What do you guys think?