Sarah Martin, Lansing freshman, was just looking to meet some new people at Unionfest in the Kansas Union this year.
She ended up leaving with one of the hottest commodities on the open
road: a scooter, a red and white 150 cc Vespa worth about $4000, that
she won after entering her name in a drawing.
"It's pretty nice to be given a scooter," Martin said. "I had heard they had been hard to get this summer."
Not only this summer, but also now.
In fact, scooter retail businesses have had a difficult time keeping up
with the trend seen nationwide to ditch gas-guzzling vehicles for a
more practical mode of transportation.
Regional sales manager for Piaggio scooters, Dave LaFond, said for the
past three years, its scooter sales have been growing steadily at about
10 to 20 percent each year and that this year, it has already seen more
than 20 percent of an increase so far.
He also said that the network he covers from Utah all across the
Midwest has been slowly adding more dealers. "They used to be a fun,
novelty thing, but now models go up to 500 cc. People are really using
them for more than just running around town," he said.
On average, scooters can get about 75 to 100 mpg, according to LaFond.
He also said that despite what some might think about scooters, they
have great storage and good protection from rain and wind.
According to the Motorcycle Industry Council, 131,000 scooters were
sold in 2007. Sales have increased in the first quarter of this year by
24 percent.
Stores in Lawrence selling scooters are running out of stock. High gas prices are affecting the demand.
His two distributors, Kymco USA and Genuine Scooters, had trouble sending him bikes over the summer and have been trying to catch up ever since. Degraw said that because all of the scooters come from overseas in Taiwan, the turn around rate is about 60 to 90 days.
"The first of May, I had about 60 scooters in stock that lasted only two or three weeks. Sales would have been better if we would have been able to keep up," he said.
Degraw preordered the scooters last winter, expecting only a 5 or 6 percent increase. He usually likes to keep about 20 or 30 scooters in stock, but only has 10 or 12 currently.
Jae Landerth, owner of Fineline Vespa, has not had as big of a problem with selling out of scooters. He had ordered more scooters for the grand opening of his store at its new location.
To meet demand, Landerth said the biggest change he made to his business was to hire more people.
Over the summer, he hired someone to come in during the night to assemble scooters being shipped in daily.
Helmets have been especially hard to keep in stock.
High gas mileage isn't the only reason customers are attracted to scooters, Degraw and Landerth said.
Drivers are not required to buy insurance. A license for a 49 cc model cost about $17 a year. They're also less expensive to service and maintain than a car.
KU students like them to buzz around campus, where a scooter parking permit costs $25.
"I fill up my tank and drive for a week and it costs me $3, and I can pull straight up to class, so it's just nice," he said.
Donna Hultine, director of Parking and Transit, said that so far this year, 158 permits have been sold in comparison to the 122 sold for the entire last year.
Students with mopeds can also park either in motorcycle or bicycle areas, Hultine said.
"We're monitoring the motorcycle areas to see how full they are and we've already expanded a few," Hultine said.
LaFond said he has observed more parking lots across the United States designated for motorcycles and scooters.
He also said that with the expanse and growth of the scooter industry, companies are already looking onto the next ideas in design.
"We'll probably unveil a new three-wheeled hybrid scooter in a few weeks," he said. "This is not a toy or a hobby. It's now a way of life."
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