Onewheel - The Most Innovative Electric Skateboard Idea Yet

Electric skateboards have been around for a while now. The first ones were big and heavy, with under-powered batteries limiting their range. Not to mention expensive! You could have bought a car for what the first generations of electric skateboards cost. Over the years, they have slowly been getting sleeker, lighter, more efficient, and more affordable, but the basic design has not changed much. Most companies take a longboard, somehow attach a motor to it, and then give the rider a controller. Future Motion, a startup from Mountain View, California, is not like most companies.

Onewheel, the debut product from Future Motion, is a self balancing, one wheeled electric skateboard type of vehicle unlike any other. If a Segway knocked up an electric skateboard, the baby would probably be something like the Onewheel. And as awesome as it looks, the Onewheel is definitely still in the baby stages of product development. Future Motion is currently running a successful kickstarter campaign for the first run of Onewheels. As of right now, they have over $200,000 dollars pledged of a $100,000 goal and eleven days remaining on the campaign. It seems like people have been responding well to this strange new form of electric transportation. And with good reason. Check out the video below to see this thing in action.

How many one wheeled vehicles that aren't unicycles have you seen? It's such an odd idea that most people wouldn't consider, yet the Onewheel looks to have a few advantages over traditional electric skateboard. Unlike the controls of most electric skateboards, there are no hands required. It uses an intuitive leaning mechanism for accelerating, stopping, and steering. And because the wheel is much larger than what you can fit on a skateboard, Onewheel looks like it can handle much rougher terrain. However, like all innovative technologies, there are some kinks that need to be addressed before this becomes a viable form of transportation.

For one, it's expensive. Hopefully Future Motion will be able to get the price down for future production runs, but right now you will need to pledge $1,299 to get the most basic version. Ouch. The controls look a bit rough too. This video shows just how wonky it can be when riding it for the very first time. Other problems include a limited range of about 4-6 miles, inability to climb hills due to the design, and a lack of basic features you would expect like a wheel cover and battery gauge. Definitely a bit rough around the edges for the price, but still an incredibly cool concept. I'm excited to see where technology like this goes in the future.