Why Throw Money on a 500-HP BMW M4 When an Electric Skateboard Is Just As Good in Traffic?

Forget cars and households white goods, even objects that weren’t designed to be electric now have a battery-operated augmentation version. Bicycles, scooters, skateboards, and shoes – everything used for transportation have succumbed to the tyranny of electricity.

Up to a point, it’s understandable why humanity wants to get wherever it needs to get at a higher speed – we’ve been doing it for millennia since we realized using ‘horse power’ was a more efficient means of moving around. (That’s when man domesticated the horse, not when a Scottish engineer used the equine metric to boast his steam engine’s performance).

Since we brought the U.K. into the matter, here’s something else from London: a race between electricity, muscles, and a BMW M4. Staged in real-life conditions, the contest’s ultimate purpose is to demonstrate the best way to get from point A to point B, 31 miles away (50 km).

The trick here is that the otherwise vastly unequal show-down takes place in the heart of London – and we can all relate to this scenario: heavy traffic, congestion, and all sorts of automobile-delaying obstacles. The joyous trio of YouTubing vloggers from Overdrive have set their minds on testing this modern-age conundrum of the first world.

An electric skateboard races a BMW M4 convertible, and both go against a racing driver (that is only allowed to use his own two legs and public transportation). Typically, the car – being the fastest – would render this event useless, but there’s a crippling drawback. An automobile is only as fast as the surrounding environment allows, and mega-city traffic is violently against automobile efficiency.

That’s why we can now see bikes, scooters, mopeds, and whatnot zig-zagging through the streets. They’re small, significantly faster than walking or running, and can get us closer to where we need to be than a car that needs to be parked who knows how far away from the actual destination.

Electric power mobility solutions are even better than muscle-propelled ones because the user doesn’t get to the finish line covered in sweat and panting heavily. Hence, the Hadean Carbon electric skateboard proposal for the race.

The motorized skateboard isn’t a regular toy but the equivalent of a Hennessey Mammoth for the plank-and-wheels universe. In short, it can take the rider 40 miles away and reach 31 mph (a 65-km range and a 50-kph top speed).

It has a pair of motors (3 kW each) and a battery pack of 43 Volts and 691.2 Wh, and it comes in two configurations: street and all-terrain. The latter is used in this video-documented experiment with 175-mm/7-inch pneumatic tires. The contraption weighs 3.5 kg (29.7 lbs) and can carry 120 kg / 265 lbs on its 100-cm (39.3-inch) forged carbon fiber deck.

Against this mighty RWD remote-controlled board runs a BMW M4 Competition Convertible, a 503-hp / 510-PS open-top with six cylinders arranged in a straight line and displacing three liters. All-wheel drive and 479 lb-ft / 650 Nm aren’t much use when the car can only do 10 mph (16 kph) through the center of London, so the £110,000 Bimmer isn’t much of a decisive advantage.

Lastly, the third variant is to walk and use standard commute options: bus, train, taxi, boat, underground, and shoe-power – everything is allowed. To be honest, this method appears to be the least carbon-intensive of the three (which is why it is also the slowest). On the other hand, it offers a broader range of choices and is the cheapest. By comparison, the quirky skateboard is a £1,700 gadget ($2,169 at the July 2023 exchange rate).

The BMW saves the day for the piston-allegiant society and wins the race – although the non-motorized participant could have put a little effort into it and beat the car. As for the skateboard – it’s only good if the rider knows the route and doesn’t get lost (twice).

All in all, this experiment only proves that cars weren’t built for getting stuck in their own-generated congestion. And removing the hydrocarbon burner from under their hoods and replacing it with batteries won’t change this overcrowded reality.

No matter how much horsepower a car may have, they’re absolutely useless if an 8-hp plank with wheelbarrow wheels can do the same job just as fast. I know there are meteorological second thoughts and counterarguments against this particular invention. But remember the old Scandinavian words of wisdom: “There’s no bad weather - only bad clothes.” There’s a subtle difference between being efficient and being lazy, and we’ve lost the ability to see that separating line.