By Jasmine Casey Lee （李可心）
Global warming has become an increasingly serious issue, and environmental protection awareness has been rising to fight dramatic climate changes.
Amidst the global trend of eco-awareness, in the automobile industry, not only have automakers gone green, but more consumers are now also tended to purchase eco-friendly cars and motorcycles.
Most of the electric scooters are now as well-equipped as the petrol scooters, and offering equal or better performances, according to Tsai Chieh-huan（蔡婕歡）, who has recently bought a electric scooter. “My electric scooter has a better pick-up speed than the petrol one,” Tsai said in surprise .
However, after deducting the governmental subsidies, the electric scooters are generally still much more expensive than petrol scooters. As a result, the high price tag has been the main reason that stops people from buying them.
In addition, the weight of the batteries makes the scooter much heavier, especially in the rear area where the batteries are installed. For Tsai Chieh-huan, sometimes it causes problems when lifting her scooter up straight while parking.
Another consumer who has bought an electric scooter, Chen Wei-han（陳韋涵）, mentioned that, one big difference between electric ones and petrol ones is the smoothness while traveling. Whenever you are making turns or riding over potholes, an electric scooter always offers smoother ride than a petrol one.
Two of the main concerns of purchasing electrical scooter are: the distance range that it can run after a single charge, and the availability of the charging stations in less populated areas.
Some electric scooter companies have increased the number of their charging stations, but for those who have need to travel long distances, they still won’t consider buying electric scooters today.Furthermore, electric scooters may not have enough power for any unexpected additional travel if so needed.
And now, New Taipei City Government is promoting public rental electric scooters, allowing people to rent and return them just like the way we use u-bikes. But for most people, whether or not they will use the rental service depends heavily on the convenience of rental stations’ availability and locations.
No matter what people may think about the electric scooter, one thing we can be sure of is, eco-friendly products will be the future of the automobile industry, and we will definitely see more eco-friendly inventions in the near future.
