We know techies love electric cars, but have you ever considered electric longboards? What if you found out you could hit 30 miles per hour?
Westin Smith, the founder of Lux Longboards, is making all your kid dreams a reality.
Many entrepreneurs’ ideas stem from a problem to solve. In Smith’s case, he was an engineering student at GCU in 2017 when he wanted an easy way to get around. He bought his first electric longboard and brought it to campus.
“As I went around campus, it was amazing to see how many students asked if they could try it out, if they could demo it,” Smith told Fox 10 Phoenix.
Smith took this opportunity to think like an entrepreneur: he made his own boards and rented them to students and had soon built a business. After about six months, he ran into his first major challenge.
“We had a huge problem. The batteries inside the boards we were renting out had a 90% failure rate,” Smith said.
Using his experience as a mechanical engineering student, Smith worked to solve the problem. He ended up building an ultra flexible battery pack — the same battery technology as Tesla cars.
Smith has been making the boards for purchase for about two years. The Lux LT are the lightest and thinnest electric longboards in the industry, going up to 23 mpb with a 7 to 12-mile range. The company just released the Lux LX, which can reach 30 mph and go off-road.
Smith graduated in 2020, but he still works at GCU in the Canyon Ventures space. There, his company works on prototypes, repairs and, occasionally, complete assembly.
Smith’s passion for Lux Longboards stems from the joy he gets from riding.
“It gives you the joy of surfing on streets. It gives you the excitement and it’s actually so easy to do,” Smith said.
At the rate Smith’s going, maybe Elon Musk will create a Tesla-brand electric longboard to keep up.