This month marks the end of my employment with a company I called home for the past seven years (sans 2 months). I started at GOVECS in March of 2011. I was hired through an online job listing, by an American dude who also happened to be the co-founder. Statistically speaking, what are the odds…
As part of ongoing testing prior to our scooter production launch this year, I have arranged for a team of our test engineers to spend a mandatory holiday in Spain. What a drag, I know. To spend a few weeks in a warm and sunny climate on the southern coast of Spain, while Poland is…
How much would you be willing to spend on a vintage scooter? €8.000? Maybe €20.000, because it’s a classic and will surely increase in value? Have a look below, and say out loud the price you think this scooter is worth: And now let me tell you that you’re wrong. Way off. Not even in…
While still pretty hot from our Intermot official showing of the Schwalbe, this week GOVECS presented Schwalbe at EICMA in Milan, Italy. Our booth took on a little different arrangement from just a month ago due to an EICMA regulation on open floor space percentage, and while just a little smaller than at Intermot, we…
I don’t really have too much commentary for this other that I hope you enjoy these photos. There’s quite a lot to take in at the show. One aspect very noticeably missing from the Intermot was the models. EICMA is definitely more model friendly than Intermot. I also noticed that the Queen made her presence pretty…
For some reason totally not explained in any way, shape, or form, there is a display of scooter posters in the middle of a shopping mall here in Wrocław. Naturally I had to investigate…and read all about every single scooter shown. I saw the display from afar, mostly because I saw my beloved Schwalbe in the…
Keeping up with more Schwalbe news, I spent the last weekend in the German city of Koln at the Intermot motorcycle trade show. Having been at the past 4 EICMA’s in Milan, I’ve never been to Intermot due to it’s biennial event status. I was told it would be smaller, less important, etc. But I…
I’m guilty of neglecting this blog a little. Well, neglecting it a lot actually. And I’m not one to make excuses, it’s just that I’ve been pretty busy in other areas of my life. One such area is the Schwalbe scooter seen below. My role in this scooter is that of a project manager. I…
It was supposed to be a different. The plan was to ride the 33 year old Vespa from the Cathedral, where the wedding ceremony took place, to the wedding hall some 6km away. Unfortunately the weather didn’t hold, and after a week of sunny 30°C days, it rained most of Saturday, and it kept raining…
A couple of weeks ago I got my hands on a Vespa PX125 by Piaggio. A model made sometime between 1983 and 1985 according to the VIN number. I did not buy this scooter, nor is it mine to keep. I was simply asked to evaluate its current state as it hasn’t been ridden in…
On February 3rd. 2000, I went to work to Montgomery Ward as scheduled. I was a 17 year old Sales Associate working part time while finishing high school. That day, however, was a little different. I found out that our Chicago head office had sent us a new furniture department floor layout and my manager…
So, what’s up? Haven’t been on here in a while. I’ve tried, time and again, to write that special ‘first 2016’ blog post…and sort of lost track of time. January is almost over and my last post was somewhere mid December. Crap. Is anyone out there still reading my stuff anyway? Well, to those that…
This post will soon be edited with photos and stuff, but here’s a quick Google automatic movie that I helped create just now. Overall, it’s fun out here in Milano!
Gorinchem is a small city of some 35 thousand people in the south of the Netherlands. It’s got great history dating back to year 1000 A.D., and has great architecture as you can see on some of the photos below. But most importantly it is home of our GOVECS Dutch importer. And that’s where I’ve…
I can’t find this Press Release anywhere online, so I’ll repost this e-mail to the world on my humble blog. This is official. GOVECS Takes Over Vectrix Plant Munich, July 13, 2015. The assembly line of the US maxiscooter manufacturer Vectrix in Wroclaw, Poland, was set to produce the “smart e-scooter” by Daimler AG. This…
I’m currently abroad working in San Francisco, but also riding a lot of Scoot scooters around the city. I wish I could say you should try Scoot next time you’re in town, but Scoot is really meant for San Francisco residents and that’s actually one of their rental requirements. So no tourists allowed, but after…
I’ve written about Galactico charging stations having some issues in my Tesla post, but today I had a chance to find out first hand the pain of not having anywhere to plug in with a dead battery. I went out for a Sunday ride around the city and got my battery down to two bars,…
This week GOVECS put together first pre-series test models for Scrooser. Owners of Scrooser were present as our engineers assembled, disassembled, tweaked, assembled again, repeat, etc… Scrooser scooters. The first are always the hardest, a learning experience in its own right when taking CAD modelled parts and assembling them together in real life. So hickups were…
Demise of a company is never easy. Having worked for startups over the years I know well how quickly unstable times may approach and how fast a company goes from conquering the world to “we have cash for one more month”. Last year I visited Vectrix, and American electric scooter manufacturer, on the day the…
This serves as an update to my GOVECS Charging post from December. I stopped by another charge station in Wrocław located at the Scandic hotel parking lot. No problems charging, however the charge station itself is placed inside a private Scandic underground parking structure, which means while the charging itself is free you do have…
