Tynee Mini 3 review: Is it the next new leader in affordable electric skateboards?
The Tynee Mini 3 doesn’t try to be overly fancy, offering just what most of us need in an electric skateboard: something that’s fast, fun, and most importantly – affordable.
The price for a brand new Tynee Mini 3 electric skateboard starts at just $559, putting this squarely in the budget category.
You can choose between several options, such as larger battery versions of the board, which will increase the price to as high as $729, but it’s still darn affordable when you look at what you get.
Tynee Mini 3 electric skateboard video review
What does it offer?
At just 16.3 lb or 7.4 kg, the Tynee Mini 3 is a lightweight electric shortboard that still packs in impressive power.
A pair of 850W motors offer a belt drive rear powertrain, though you can also opt for a pair of 700W hub motors if you prefer a quieter ride.
The belt drive allows more traditional rear wheels, and there, too you get a choice between 90mm or 105mm. I went with the larger diameter wheels for a slightly smoother ride.
The deck comes with 3mm padded grip tape up top for a bit of vibration dampening, plus a small kicktail in the deck for maneuvering. Down below the deck, you’ll find a chunky battery mount. Your choices for battery are either the 281 Wh or 393 Wh pack, with an estimated range of either 20 miles (32 km) or 26 miles (42 km), respectively.
The difference in the battery size results in a price gap of between $70-100, depending on which motors and wheels you go with, so I’d recommend upgrading to the larger battery if you’re at all concerned about range. It only adds barely over one pound, so the weight isn’t much different, but you get extra peace of mind knowing you can ride faster for longer without eating up so much battery charge.
With a top speed of 32 mph (52 km/h), if you’re pushing it fast most of the time, then you’ll be happy to have that extra battery capacity to increase your range.
For me personally, I generally tended to keep it under 25 mph (40 km/h) as my personal favorite sweet spot. It has the power to go higher, and you can use the different speed modes to limit your max speed, but I just don’t find the risk worth it, especially when riding on roads that I’m not familiar with.
While the board doesn’t come with many fancy features to ensure the price stays reasonable, it still has a few nice additions included in the design.
A rear tail light helps give you better visibility from behind as cars approach from the rear, though I always recommend a lighted helmet to give you higher-mounted lights as well. There’s a front bumper to keep you from cracking the nose of your board if you accidentally drive it into something (easier to do than you think when you put the remote in your pocket while forgetting to turn off the board), and there’s even an auto-on feature so the board turns on from the remote with you having to bend over and press the board’s “On” button.
There’s a brake pad under the kicktail, though I stick to using the motor braking from the remote. Even though I don’t brake with the tail, I do find that it makes a very nice handle for carrying the board around (and that’s one more advantage compared to a longboard, in that you can carry it without lifting the board higher to not drag on the ground).
The board doesn’t have the highest quality thousand-layer Canadian maple laminate board or the rarest and most expensive wheels, but it still rides great as a budget board. And considering most people who gravitate towards electric skateboards don’t already have a garage full of cars, keeping these prices reasonable is critical.
I love seeing more affordable entrants like these in the market as a way of opening up good performance and range to more riders without it costing an arm and a leg.
To me, the Tynee Mini 3 is a great board I’d recommend to friends and family who want a budget option that doesn’t break the bank. It carries enough features to be a comfortable and capable board yet remains accessible to students and anyone on a tight budget. That’s enough to get two thumbs up from me!
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GreenPower Motor Company says it’s received three orders for 11 of its BEAST electric Type D school buses for western state school districts in Arizona, California, and Oregon.
GreenPower hasn’t made the sort of headline-grabbing promises or big-money commitments that companies like Nikola and Lion Electric have, but while those companies are floundering GPM seems to be plugging away, taking orders where it can and actually delivering buses to schools. Late last year, the company scored 11 more orders for its flagship BEAST electric school bus.
As far as these latest orders go, the breakdown is:
- seven to Los Banos Unified School District in Los Banos, California
- two for the Hood River County School District in Hood River, Oregon
- two for the Casa Grande Elementary School District in Casa Grande, Arizona
Those two BEAST electric school buses for Arizona will join another 90-passenger BEAST that was delivered to Phoenix Elementary School District #1, which operates 15 schools in the center of Phoenix, late last year.
“As school districts continue to make the change from NOx emitting diesel school buses to a cleaner, healthier means of transporting students, school district transportation departments are pursuing the gold standard of the industry – the GreenPower all-electric, purpose-built (BEAST) school buses,” said Paul Start, GreenPower’s Vice President of Sales, School Bus Group. “(The) GreenPower school bus order pipeline and production schedule are both at record levels with sales projections for (2025) set to eclipse the 2024 calendar year.”
GreenPower moved into an 80,000-square-foot production facility in South Charleston, West Virigina in August 2022, and delivered its first buses to that state the following year.
Electrek’s Take
Since the first horseless carriage companies started operating 100 years ago (give or take), at least 1,900 different companies have been formed in the US, producing over 3,000 brands of American automobiles. By the mid 1980s, that had distilled down to “the big 3.”
All of which is to say: don’t let the recent round of bankruptcies fool you – startups in the car and truck industry is business as usual, but some of these companies will stick around. If you’re wondering which ones, look to the ones that are making units, not promises.
SOURCE | IMAGES: GreenPower Motors.
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While some recent high-profile bankruptcies have cast doubt on the EV startup space recently, medium-duty electric truck maker Harbinger got a shot of credibility this week with a massive $100 million Series B funding round co-led by Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks for fledgling EV brands like Lion Electric and Canoo, but box van builder Harbinger is bucking the trend, fueling its latest funding round with an order book of 4,690 vehicles that’s valued at nearly $500 million. Some of the company’s more notable customers including Bimbo Bakeries (which owns brands like Sara Lee, Thomas’, and Entenmann’s) and THOR Industries (Airstream, Jayco, Thor), which is also one of the investors in the Series B.
Other prominent investors include Tiger Global, the Coca-Cola System Sustainability Fund, and ArcTern Ventures.
As for what makes Harbinger such an attractive investment prospect, Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn Investment Group’s Technology Impact Fund explains that, “Harbinger has demonstrated a remarkable ability to reach significant milestones far quicker than other EV companies … the market has been impressed by their ability to develop large portions of the vehicle in-house to drive down unit costs, while remaining capital efficient.”
The company plans to use the funds to ramp up to higher-volume production capacity and deliver on existing orders, as well as build-out of the company’s sales, customer support, and service operations.
“Harbinger is entering a rapid growth phase where we are focused on scaling production of our customer-ready platform,” said John Harris, co-founder and CEO. “These funds catalyze significant revenue generation. We’ve developed a vehicle for a segment that is ripe for electrification, and there is a strong product/market fit that will help fuel our upward trajectory through 2025 and beyond.”
The company has raised $200 million since its inception in 2021.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Harbinger.
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There is no state more associated with cars and car culture than Michigan – and the state that’s home to the Motor City has just taken a huge step into the future with the deployment of its first-ever all electric police vehicle.
The 2024 Ford Mustang Mach-E patrol vehicle is assigned to the Michigan State Police State Security Operations Section, and will be to be used by armed, uniformed members of the MSP specializing in general law enforcement and security services at state-owned facilities in the Lansing, MI area.
“This is an exciting opportunity for us to research, in real time, how a battery electric vehicle performs on patrol,” says Col. James F. Grady II, director of the MSP. “Our state properties security officers patrol a substantially smaller number of miles per day than our troopers and motor carrier officers, within city limits and at lower speeds, coupled with the availability of charging infrastructure in downtown Lansing, making this the ideal environment to test the capabilities of a police-package battery electric vehicle.”
The MSP’s Precision Driving Unit is nationally renowned for its annual Police Vehicle Evaluation, which our own Scooter Doll participated in last year, driving the then-new Chevy Blazer EV Police Pursuit Vehicles in a game of “cops and robbers.”
In those tests, the EVs have impressed – but the MSP has been hesitant to commit to a BEV until now. “We began testing battery electric vehicles in 2022, but up until now hybrids were the only alternative fuel vehicle in our fleet,” said Lt. Nicholas Darlington, commander of the Precision Driving Unit. “Adding this battery electric vehicle to our patrol fleet will allow us to study the vehicle’s performance long-term to determine if there is a potential for cost savings and broader applicability within our fleet.”
Michigan joins other states like Wisconsin and California in deploying electric patrol cars and saving big money on fuel and maintenance, with many more out there and many more to come.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Michigan State Police.
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