Any skateboard, even your favourite bashed-up old school deck, can now become an electric skateboard thanks to an easily mountable electric drive system called Mellow. Developed by a couple of diehard boardriders from Germany, Mellow has been in development for years already and now it’s just about ready to be unleashed. While electric skateboards are not exactly a new thing, what makes this electric drive system different is its versatility and clever design. Things like interchangeable batteries, the intuitive thumb-controlled speed remote and ease of mounting from one skateboard to another are just a few of the things that make Mellow stand out. Take a closer look in this video teaser…
The story of Mellow starts back in 2013, when a couple of guys met on a surf trip in Morocco. One of these guys was Johannes, who had been dreaming of a mountable electric drive system for skateboards ever since he heard of an electric skateboard. The other guy was Killian, an electric car engineer at BMW. These two decided the idea was worth a real shot and went for it, designing prototypes and testing out many different incarnations of what would become Mellow. After a couple of years they knew they were onto something, so the Mellow Boards Company was born and they launched a Kickstarter campaign. They raised a whopping €300,000 and it was time to go into production by the end of 2015…
When it comes to the technical specifications of Mellow, let’s start with top speed. A very impressive 40km per hour can be achieved, but perhaps you want to keep it a bit slower when rolling along your local boardwalk. It also has a dual breaking system so slowing down is fast and safe too. One of the best things has to be that you can swap the battery pack, so if you have a few batteries in your backpack you can keep rolling all day long. There is also an app that connects to the drive system, telling you things like how far you’ve ridden and how much battery life is left.
Mellow really is a world first, there is no other interchangeable electric drive system for skateboards out there, but if you’re thinking right now about how you’re going to get your hands on one of these, here’s the bad news. Even if you order one right now you’ll have to wait until the beginning of 2017 to get one delivered. The fact is that Mellow can’t make enough of these things to keep up with demand. The first batch manufactured have all been reserved through pre-orders. The best thing you can do is head straight over to the Mellow website and put your order in now, so at least you’re in the queue. Then just be patient, and browse the DriftingThru shop to see which decks you are going to use with your new Mellow when it finally arrives.
