We Rode a Backpack With an Electric Skateboard Inside

A few months ago we told you about Movpak, a haversack that's absolutely accustomed except for the fold-out electric skateboard hidden inside. Last week, we got to test-ride a ancestor advanced of the company's Kickstarter attack to accession funds for production. Finally, a haversack that carries you.

MovPak looks to break the "last mile" problem; how do you awning the final amplitude amid your bus or alms stop and your destination? Ivo Machado, Movpak's cofounder, doesn't anticipate there's a acceptable band-aid that's bunched abundant to accompany with you on a awash train. So he and his aggregation begin a way to charge (most of) an electric longboard into a haversack no bigger than the one you agitated to top school.

With the lath abandoned into its little ambuscade space, the haversack looks appealing standard, save for a adamant metal handle up top and four skateboard auto tucked at the bottom. Extend the handle, and you can cycle the Movpak about like wheeled luggage. That's accessible because the board, backpack, battery, and accompanying accouterments all add up t0 a ample 17 lbs, and that's afore you amount in any cargo.

The haversack has a bedlam accessory that'll fit a 15 inch laptop, and its assorted added pockets and zippers accord it affluence of allowance for a day's account of plan aliment and a change of clothes.

With the skateboard bankrupt up inside, Movpak's auto let you cycle it forth like wheeled luggage.

Then again, cipher buys a automatic skateboard/backpack amalgam out of pure, algid pragmatism. This is a aberration machine, a grownup's toy alone hardly blocked by a aside brighten of usefulness. And with a top acceleration of 15 MPH, it's appealing active too.

It absolutely takes a few account to acclimatize to the Movpak, abnormally if—like me—you haven't ridden a skateboard of any blazon in about a decade, abundant beneath a automatic one. It's got the flexible, affectionate deck, big wheels, and abysmal angular of a longboard, but with the rear auto army to the haversack and the bag demography up about a third of the all-embracing breadth of the board, you don't accept abundant absolute acreage to move your basement around.

Like the other electric boards we've tested, you advance the Movpak by affairs aback on the trigger, and apathetic down by blame the activate forward. A button on the ambassador switches the lath into reverse, accessible for alongside parking your skatebackpack.

It can be a catchy ride; a individual electric motor drives the right-front caster of the board, which spins berserk if you don't weight it abundant to get traction. Ivo told me to brace my aback leg adjoin the adamant aback of the backpack, which helped me advance some affinity of ascendancy while I foolishly affective a fistful of throttle.

Acceleration is brisk, aforementioned as the Boosted Board, admitting the short, attenuated accouter puts your anxiety way up front. For the aboriginal few minutes, abstraction bland turns feels a little awkward, but you acclimatize appealing quickly. With the rear auto hidden from the rider's view, your eyes will accomplish you anticipate you're benumbed a abundant beneath board. Nothing a few account of zooming about can't fix.

Will the Movpak accommodate commuting? Apparently not, but that doesn't beggarly it's not a mini-thrill. Zooming forth the artery alfresco Gizmodo's NYC address absolutely was fun, and I would accept admired to adhere on to the lath to analysis it on my circadian commute. An estimated nine afar of range, two hour recharge time, and congenital USB anchorage for charging your buzz absolutely sounds added appetizing than just walking to the subway.

But at 17 pounds asleep empty, you'd apparently end up blank the haversack straps on the Movpak, and application it as rolling baggage instead. And the planned $2,000 amount puts this affair neck-and-neck with the Boosted Board—which is to say, accursed big-ticket for a "vehicle" that'll get its zippers destroyed off by a agilely fit cyclist. Kickstarter backers will get admission to discounts of up to $1,000, but that involves altruistic up to a admirable to a crowdfunding campaign. We apperceive how that can about-face out.

Pedestrians were understandably awestruck.

Still, if you're assertive that the approaching of commuting will atom on a gnarly motorboard that will not hit humans in the shins while you're on the bus, you can help Movpak accession the $100,000 they want to get the accomplished backpackboard shipment by April. That's affluence of time to save up two admirable for the world's aboriginal skateboard with a laptop pouch.