Boosted Board Electric Skateboard Could Change the Way You Commute

Sanjay Dastoor, co-founder of Boosted Boards, claims that 50 percent of all trips people take in cars are under 5 miles, and that's 20 percent of all commutes. Considering the average automobile weighs several thousands pounds, it seems like overkill for all those short trips, doesn't it? Hence the reason Dastoor and others created Boosted Boards, purportedly "the world's lightest electric vehicle."


Calling it a "vehicle" is being a little liberal with the definition. Boosted Boards are actually elongated electric skateboards that weigh 12 pounds. Lithium batteries provide 2,000 watts of power -- enough to go up to 6 miles before needing a recharge -- and twin brushless motors push the plank up to a top speed of around 20 mph. If you run out of juice in the middle of a trip, kick it old school by going manual.


Boosted Boards' developers aren't proposing that people ditch their vehicles entirely. For short trips, you can certainly leave the gas guzzler at home and hop on a Boosted Board, but for longer trips on the subway or bus, they propose taking it with you and using it as "the perfect last-mile vehicle," one in which you don't have to worry about parking, traffic, gas stations, pedaling, hills, and so forth.


It's not quite the hoverboard Robert Zemeckis dreamed up for Marty McFly in Back to the Future, but it's an interesting project, one that has more than doubled its funding goal on Kickstarter with 23 days remaining. Over 680 backers have pledged more than $250,000 so far, well above the $100,000 the project's developers were initial seeking.