driving experience

[-marios]

Hi Jim,
What is the driving experience of the vectrix? How does regenerative
breaking feel?
-marios

[Jim Robinson]

The driving is mostly similar to a maxi scooter in the 250 - 400 cc
range. It will accelerate to its top speed of 62 MPH quicker but I've
been beaten off the line (with my throttle pegged) by smaller gas
scooters. I do not feel in any way underpowered to commit scooter
hooliganism on the streets of San Francisco.

The regen throttle takes a lot of getting used to. For one thing,
there is no engine braking when you simply roll off (this is
reminiscent of the behavior of the old 2 stroke scooters.) You must
roll into the regen area to get any noticeable drag, and then it comes
on a bit hard. I'm finding myself blipping the throttle back and forth
across the detent in tricky traffic.

What I would love is to swap the front and back brake levers. Right
now it has the front brake on the right and the back brake on the
left, which is more or less 'standard' for twist and go scooters with
no clutch. Motorcycles with a clutch have the front brake on the right
and the clutch on the left. Now, if I had the front brake on the left
I could cover that lever with my left hand in case I need to stop hard
and fast and use my right hand to manipulate the fancy regen throttle
exclusively and leave the back brake more or less unused. As it is, my
right hand is pretty busy, and the grip on the throttle with two
fingers on the brake is dicey.

-- Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

I've got around 400 miles on now and I have yet to take it on the
highway (how can I be that busy?) I was on my way to switching my
commute back to pedal power when two things happened: Heather started
a baking internship and I rolled my Trice. The baking, it happens very
early in the morning so I'm taking Heath to school. The crash, minor
battering but no serious breakage, just feeling a bit too sore to
pedal. So, the Vectrix is my daily commute for the next couple weeks.

I've gotten more used to the regen and the transitions between go and
coast and slow. I like it a lot, but I still want the front brake on
the left. For all the talk about the weight being low, I still find
this scooter awkward at walking speed. The seat is high and wide and
makes for tricky foot to ground contact. I say this as a person who
rode the gihugic BMW GS 1150 Adventure for years. As with the BMW,
handling at speed is great. As my comfort level with size and handling
increase I'm taking more advantage of lane-splitting opportunities,
but sport bike riders are still doing more than I am (though to be
fair, I've always been much more conservative lane splitting in town
than on the highway.) I need to clock some highway miles before I can
say much more about that. Heath's only complaint about riding on the
scoot is that it is chillier than riding in the car.