Sometimes I loose it with customers; I know I shouldn’t and fortunately they don’t always notice.
The electric scooters and bicycles we sell in our little shop in Buxton make a tiny contribution towards reducing global carbon output. We’ve sold many hundreds and saved thousands of car journeys and regularly meet our customers looking healthy and happy. But impatient dictatorial me wants everyone to embrace our products, not just the enlightened few.
So when a group of cynical, middle aged men take a loud and picky interest in aspects of electric transport, on a busy Saturday, my ears prick up from behind the counter, and prickly Bob rises from the green mist that gently permeates throughout our lovely eco shop. I see red.
Electric transport is clean, amazingly efficient, quiet, convenient and available. I like to think that the electric bikes and scooters we sell look good too. They fit beautifully into our calm and gentle lifestyle shop, Eco Republic. Generally we attract calm and gentle customers but occasionally we get those groups of cynics that just don’t get it.
You see, there are limitations with electric vehicles. It cannot be denied that the group of three beery gents from Manchester were spotting them with predictable timing, loudly with piercing nasal and scornful enthusiasm.
I just had to help them along…
Not only can our beautiful and stylish scooter turn the heads of passer-by’s, including these three chaps, but they are also speed restricted to 30 mph. I politely (but equally loudly) helped point out to the three that the range of these lovely scooters was also limited; another charge would be needed after 40 miles. I had a bit of an audience with other store browsers listening in.
And I was happy to hear the three point back to me, and everyone else listening, that 4 out of every 5 car journeys are for less than 5 miles. They read this from the POS materials attached to the scooter.
Whilst this vehicle wouldn’t tow a caravan to Brighton and back I happily told them the latest versions could use the metal in road surfaces to reproduce the maglev effect: using the large magnets within its electric motor to actually lift the whole scooter from the ground – floating a few millimetres above the road, just like the advanced trains seen in the Far East.
That silenced them a little as they pondered the limitations. Enough to practically hear the grins of the eavesdroppers as I explained that because caravans contained a large amount of plastic and fibreglass it hadn’t yet been possible to get them to float, towed behind what was, in effect, a hover scooter.
But soon, I confidently informed, battery technology would improve enough to increase the height to more than 6 inches. Imagine that… more than 6 inches, incredible, the credulous fools agreed. They seemed genuinely impressed, and chatted about converting their four by fours, leaving the shop to our regular green minded, happy browsers.
I behaved badly I know.
The electric scooters and bicycles we sell in our little shop in Buxton make a tiny contribution towards reducing global carbon output. We’ve sold many hundreds and saved thousands of car journeys and regularly meet our customers looking healthy and happy. But impatient dictatorial me wants everyone to embrace our products, not just the enlightened few.
So when a group of cynical, middle aged men take a loud and picky interest in aspects of electric transport, on a busy Saturday, my ears prick up from behind the counter, and prickly Bob rises from the green mist that gently permeates throughout our lovely eco shop. I see red.
Electric transport is clean, amazingly efficient, quiet, convenient and available. I like to think that the electric bikes and scooters we sell look good too. They fit beautifully into our calm and gentle lifestyle shop, Eco Republic. Generally we attract calm and gentle customers but occasionally we get those groups of cynics that just don’t get it.
You see, there are limitations with electric vehicles. It cannot be denied that the group of three beery gents from Manchester were spotting them with predictable timing, loudly with piercing nasal and scornful enthusiasm.
I just had to help them along…
Not only can our beautiful and stylish scooter turn the heads of passer-by’s, including these three chaps, but they are also speed restricted to 30 mph. I politely (but equally loudly) helped point out to the three that the range of these lovely scooters was also limited; another charge would be needed after 40 miles. I had a bit of an audience with other store browsers listening in.
And I was happy to hear the three point back to me, and everyone else listening, that 4 out of every 5 car journeys are for less than 5 miles. They read this from the POS materials attached to the scooter.
Whilst this vehicle wouldn’t tow a caravan to Brighton and back I happily told them the latest versions could use the metal in road surfaces to reproduce the maglev effect: using the large magnets within its electric motor to actually lift the whole scooter from the ground – floating a few millimetres above the road, just like the advanced trains seen in the Far East.
That silenced them a little as they pondered the limitations. Enough to practically hear the grins of the eavesdroppers as I explained that because caravans contained a large amount of plastic and fibreglass it hadn’t yet been possible to get them to float, towed behind what was, in effect, a hover scooter.
But soon, I confidently informed, battery technology would improve enough to increase the height to more than 6 inches. Imagine that… more than 6 inches, incredible, the credulous fools agreed. They seemed genuinely impressed, and chatted about converting their four by fours, leaving the shop to our regular green minded, happy browsers.
I behaved badly I know.
