Taotao ATE-501 electric moped

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vintagegarage
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Taotao ATE-501 electric moped

Post by vintagegarage »

Florida has an electric moped law that in essence says that if your electric scooter or bicycle has functioning pedals, power less than 750 watts, and a top speed on the level ground of 20 mph or less, then you can drive it on the public roads with no registration, no taxes, and no driver's license. The older sister of one of my friends lost her drivers license 20 years ago for too many DUI's, and while she has been sober for 20 years, getting her license restored involves so many steps that she can't get it done.

I had an opportunity yesterday to buy a Taotao ATE-501 yesterday nearby and cheap on craigslist. I bought it pretty much just to get some first hand experience with it, and to understand the technology. See:

http://www.taotao.us/index.cfm/scooters/ate-5011/

I spent the day today going though it, cleaning it up, changing the burnt out headlight bulb, tightening various loose bolts, and fixing some assembly mistakes made by the PO or the dealer. In summary, it works ok, and the pedals are pretty useless. If you were to run out of battery power, it would be easier to walk it home instead of trying to pedal it. You can get it to go about a mile an hour or so with about 60 rpms on the pedals.. hahahaha.. I spent much of the afternoon driving it around, and took it for a long ride tonight. The advertised range of about 20 miles seems reasonable. I had one 12 mile trip with no noticeable loss of power throughout the trip. The pedals really get in the way though, as if you want to corner quickly, you had better have your feet on the pedals to keep them horizontal so they don't drag in the corner. It really isn't very fun to ride, as the 20 mph speed gets pretty boring, pretty quickly. It does have a very nice factory security alarm built in.

In any event, I am going to pass the scooter on to the lady tomorrow. She lives about a mile and a half from the local store and can get there using neighborhood back roads. My thinking is that the range will be just fine for her needs. A long trip for her would be about five miles, and she would then have all night to recharge it for the next trip. There is no way yet to know if she will use it, or pass it on. It may be too much for her to handle. This is what it looks like:

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benji
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Re: Taotao ATE-501 electric moped

Post by benji »

I've seen some of these before- electric scoots with pedals so they can be mopeds. The last guy I saw with one carried a wrench and both pedals under the seat along with a copy of Florida's moped law in case he got stopped. He also added an extra battery and made it faster.
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