Introducing the San Francisco Special
The ZBoard is the world’s first weight-sensing electric skateboard. To ride you simply lean forward to go and lean back to stop. It’s that easy!
Our latest and greatest ZBoard is the San Francisco Special. The SF Special is equipped with a super-sized battery, helping it ride longer and up steeper hills than previous models. It also includes improved regenerative brakes, headlights / tail lights, and custom printed grip tape.
Our Progress
Designing the SF Special required us to source a larger battery, adjust our electronics to improve heat dissipation efficiency, and redesign our battery box. We’ve recently finalized all of these R&D projects and are now shipping the final product to customers who pre-ordered back in March.
We have opted to go with a crowd funding campaign due to the long lead-time and high cost of our batteries. The SF Special has the largest battery ever offered in an electric skateboard. Our agreement with our battery manufacturer means that in order to be able to deliver new orders by Christmas, we need to make the battery purchase soon.
Specifications
Also includes:
- Oversized smooth wheels to power through poor pavement
- LED Headlights and Tail Lights. Headlights are controlled with a toggle switch. Tail lights are always on for safety and get brighter when you hit the ZBoard's brakes.
- Regenerative braking to descend hills safely
- Digitally printed grip tape
- Orange stained maple deck
- Padded carrying handle
Other Specs:
- Motor: 400 W
- Battery: 20 Ah LiFePO4
Above: LED Headlights. Turn the seven white LEDs on with a toggle switch.
Below: LED Tail Lights. Three red LEDs are always on for safety. When you press the brake, an additional four red LEDs turn on.
Where the SF Special is made
The San Francisco Special is built in our manufacturing facility in Northern California. This is the same facility where we have built and shipped hundreds of ZBoards to satisfied customers in over 40 countries. We’re proud of the fact that we do all of our assembly and testing here in the United States and it allows us to offer our customers the best service possible.
Our Story
We weren’t always making ZBoards in a committed facility. The ZBoard started as a USC Engineering Senior Project in 2009. After working for several years in the garage on multiple prototypes, we launched a Kickstarter campaign in February 2012 hoping to sell 20 ZBoards. The results were shocking. We sold nearly 400 boards and raised over $260,000. That allowed us to quit our jobs and commit to the ZBoard full time.
From the very beginning the opinions of our customers have had a major impact on our development choices. They urged us to add wheel wells and a kick tail to our deck, adjust the board’s footpad placements, and more. We also heard that our customers wanted a board with more power and speed. We’ve worked hard to implement all of this feedback into the SF Special.
Our Guarantee
We’re so confident that you’ll love your SF Special that if you don’t like it or it just wasn’t what you expected, you can return it within the first 14 days for a refund (minus shipping and a 5% crowd funding fee).
If you have any questions feel free to contact us at [email protected].
Regards,
Ben and the ZBoard Team