US 7,882,918 B2Granted

Folding motor scooter

AssigneeMassachusetts Institute of Technology

InventorsRyan C. Chin, Raul-David Poblano, Michael Chia Liang Lin, Arthur Joseph Petron

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Abstract

An improved electric motor scooter includes: a front frame; a front wheel assembly coupled to the front frame and residing on a surface; a back frame; a back wheel assembly coupled to the back frame and residing on the surface; and a center pivot mechanism coupled to the front frame and the back frame. The center pivot mechanism includes a pivot and a folding axis around which the pivot rotates. The folding axis is not perpendicular to a longitudinal axis of the scooter and is tilted from the longitudinal axis at an angle. A rotation of the pivot in a direction folds the scooter vertically from the surface and moves the back wheel assembly toward the front wheel assembly according to the angle. During the folding, the front wheel assembly and the back wheel assembly each remains on the surface as the pivot rotates.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A two-wheeled electric motor scooter comprising:

a front frame;
a front wheel assembly coupled to the front frame;
a back frame;
a back wheel assembly coupled to the back frame;
and
a center pivot mechanism coupled to the front frame and the back frame, the center pivot mechanism having a pivot axis which intersects but is not perpendicular to a vertical plane which includes the longitudinal center line of the motor scooter and bisects the motor scooter,
the center pivot mechanism permitting folding of the electric motor scooter and the pivot axis having an angle relative to the vertical plane such that when the motor scooter is folded, the center pivot mechanism moves upwards relative to a surface upon which the scooter is standing and the front wheel assembly and the back wheel assembly move relative to each other on the surface until the wheel assembles are standing side by side on the surface.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.