Good old United Airlines. What would travelers have to talk about without them? Just about everyone I know (including myself) who travels has an "Oh for goodness sake," or worse, story to tell about United.
Formerly you were allowed to travel with a lithium-ion battery of less than 300Wh. The standard lithium battery for the current "normal" Travelscoot model is 274WH. However, on at least some airlines, now I see a 160Wh restriction. In that case the low-capacity 158WH battery that Travelscoot sell should be accepted by most or all airlines. Some may require pre-trip approval and/or require you to remove the battery and carry it with you in the cabin. So you may run into problems with airlines accepting lithium batteries >= 160WH, period. There may be exceptions for mobility devices, but good luck if the counter person you're talking to doesn't know about them. My guess is that the protagonist of this story ran into this problem. I sure hope he was able to get the battery back after he returned home. That's a pretty darn expensive item to have some authoritarian jerk confiscate and junk. Older Travelscoots used a lead-gel battery. That should still be OK for travel anywhere, if you have one or can still get one from TS. I don't see lead battery spares listed on their website any more, but if you can find an old lead battery frame and canvas bag (or fabricate one yourself), you can probably just change the batteries inside it when they depreciate and keep using it. Unfortunately with a lead battery, the TS range is significantly lower. It weighs a lot more, too. :-( One nice thing about older lead-battery-era TSes vs new ones is that they had a higher top speed. :-) The current model is limited to walking speed and has a lower power motor. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
