Fuel economy driving scooter sales
Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:13 am
Fuel economy driving scooter sales
Friday, October 20, 2006 - By ART CAREY - The Philadelphia Inquirer - thestate.com/mld/thestate
PHILADELPHIA — Ask Alicia Karr why, at 56, she bought her first motor scooter, and her answer is: “Al Gore and Europe.”
On a trip to Italy last fall, Karr, an artist, fell in love with Scooter Culture: the men in suits, the women in long skirts. Gore’s movie on the perils of carbon emissions, “An Inconvenient Truth,” sealed the deal.
And so in August, Karr bought a Vespa LX 250 in “aurora blue” — metallic sky blue. “The artist in me fell in love with that.”
She intended to use the Vespa for short trips and errands, instead of driving her SUV, thereby saving gas and fossil fuel. (Ten days after she picked up her scooter, a tree fell on her Lexus SUV, totaling it.)
More and more Americans, tired of sharing paychecks with Exxon and dealing with ricocheting oil prices, are adopting scooters as economical “second cars” or as vehicles to tool around.
“It costs me, like, $4 to fill up with gas,” said Jennica Tucker, 21, who bought her Vespa LX 150 to commute to classes at Temple University. “And that lasts for two weeks.”
When William Nickle was commuting from Elkton, Md., to his job in Wilmington, Del., in his Dodge Ram pickup, he was spending at least $85 a week on gas, his wife said. Now that he’s making the 40-mile round trip on his Suzuki Burgman scooter, which gets about 60 mpg, he’s spending only $15 to $20.
“It’s made a big difference in the family budget,” said Barbara Nickle.
Scooter makers have not been shy about pointing this out. One Vespa ad proclaims: “Gas Price Is the One High You Won’t Experience.”
The message must be registering. Sales of scooters made by Piaggio, which includes the Vespa and Aprilia brands, have been growing at a 15 to 20 percent annual clip for five years, said Kevin Andrews, brand manager for Piaggio and Vespa scooters for Piaggio Group Americas. This year, they’ll likely surge 30 percent more.
“Scooters are the fastest-growing segment in the two-wheel industry,” said Mike Mount, a spokesman for the Motorcycle Industry Council. In 2005, 113,000 scooters were sold in the United States, nearly a tenth of total motorcycle sales.
Friday, October 20, 2006 - By ART CAREY - The Philadelphia Inquirer - thestate.com/mld/thestate
PHILADELPHIA — Ask Alicia Karr why, at 56, she bought her first motor scooter, and her answer is: “Al Gore and Europe.”
On a trip to Italy last fall, Karr, an artist, fell in love with Scooter Culture: the men in suits, the women in long skirts. Gore’s movie on the perils of carbon emissions, “An Inconvenient Truth,” sealed the deal.
And so in August, Karr bought a Vespa LX 250 in “aurora blue” — metallic sky blue. “The artist in me fell in love with that.”
She intended to use the Vespa for short trips and errands, instead of driving her SUV, thereby saving gas and fossil fuel. (Ten days after she picked up her scooter, a tree fell on her Lexus SUV, totaling it.)
More and more Americans, tired of sharing paychecks with Exxon and dealing with ricocheting oil prices, are adopting scooters as economical “second cars” or as vehicles to tool around.
“It costs me, like, $4 to fill up with gas,” said Jennica Tucker, 21, who bought her Vespa LX 150 to commute to classes at Temple University. “And that lasts for two weeks.”
When William Nickle was commuting from Elkton, Md., to his job in Wilmington, Del., in his Dodge Ram pickup, he was spending at least $85 a week on gas, his wife said. Now that he’s making the 40-mile round trip on his Suzuki Burgman scooter, which gets about 60 mpg, he’s spending only $15 to $20.
“It’s made a big difference in the family budget,” said Barbara Nickle.
Scooter makers have not been shy about pointing this out. One Vespa ad proclaims: “Gas Price Is the One High You Won’t Experience.”
The message must be registering. Sales of scooters made by Piaggio, which includes the Vespa and Aprilia brands, have been growing at a 15 to 20 percent annual clip for five years, said Kevin Andrews, brand manager for Piaggio and Vespa scooters for Piaggio Group Americas. This year, they’ll likely surge 30 percent more.
“Scooters are the fastest-growing segment in the two-wheel industry,” said Mike Mount, a spokesman for the Motorcycle Industry Council. In 2005, 113,000 scooters were sold in the United States, nearly a tenth of total motorcycle sales.