[rich_sasha]

Crikey, 250W motor... they are handy and certainly better than everyone driving a car everywhere, but somehow the combination of power and low barrier to entry invites a particular type of road (and pavement) assholery I could really do without. At least in my locale.

[stephen_g]

I’ve got a Xiaomi Mi Scooter Pro 2, which is not super beefy, but it does peak up to 600W. You actually do need it for hills, I still don’t make it up some without kicking. It is speed limited to 25 km/h generally but some of these bigger ones that are much less “consumer” you see going 50-60 which is crazy (and illegal here).

[masklinn]

250W continuous is not that much, and very much necessary (and possibly not sufficient) to handle even middling hills.

For reference, 1HP = 735.5W. The worst 50cc you'll find are around 3HP, or above 2100W. Child-class go-karts generally start around 5hp, and the most common engines are the 6.5HP GX200 (or harbor freight's copy).

[rich_sasha]

Go carts don’t go on pavements while talking on the mobile phone.

I don’t mind the power, clearly, only what stupid people do with it.

[masklinn]

> I don’t mind the power, clearly, only what stupid people do with it.

It is not clear at all, no. You pretty literally assert that 250W is a lot of power

> Crikey, 250W motor... [...] somehow the combination of power

[rich_sasha]

I’ll simplify it for you. 250W is too much for an obnoxious idiot on the pavement.

[bin_bash]

My Tesla has 270,000 watts including both motors. 250 watts is less than half of 1 horsepower. My lawnmower is more powerful than that.

Were you thinking 250kW maybe?

[michaelt]

A tour de france stage winning cyclist might only average 219 watts over a 5-hour stage [1] although with bursts where they use more power - 20 minutes at 330w, 15 seconds at 1025 watts.

250w is quite a bit of power for something on the sidewalk or bike lane :)

(Of course, who knows how trustworthy these numbers are? I suspect scooter manufacturers know bigger numbers mean bigger sales, and choose their testing methods accordingly)

[1] https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/racing/tour-de-france/rig...

[masklinn]

> 250 watts is less than half of 1 horsepower.

For a more precise fraction, it's almost exactly 1/3rd HP (33.9% compared to metric HP, 33.5% compared to imperial).

[sudosysgen]

250W is what a fit human can put out continuously, it's nothing.