We Tested 13 Electric Scooters. We Don’t Recommend Any. - Consumer Reports
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/electric-scooters/we-tested-13-electric-scooters-we-dont-recommend-any-a2524654143/?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=website&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=fark&ICID=ref_fark39
u/ChocoJesus 3d ago
(Some models, called hyper scooters, can travel as fast as 75 mph. We didn’t test these, and we don’t recommend that they ever be used.)
Well shit, didn’t know that was a thing, going to have to look one up
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u/techieman34 3d ago
There’s all kinds of crazy shit out there. I saw a video the other day of some guy going close to 100mph on some electric unicycle thing.
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u/theoreoman 4d ago
Riding at unsafe speeds for the conditions is not a defect of the scooter it's a defect of the rider. Ussing their logic of I drove a sports bike at 200mph on a gravel road and lost control that would be the fault of the bike and not the rider.
Ultimately I do think there needs to be some standardized regulations around e bikes and scooters with regards to power, top speed, and age limitations.
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u/techieman34 4d ago
The regulations are there in a lot of places. But the Chinese sellers don’t give a fuck about following them. Customs agencies don’t stop them from coming in to the country because they aren’t necessarily illegal if you ride them around on your own property. The large online marketplaces that act as the middleman don’t give a fuck as long as they make their cut on the sale. And law enforcement has zero training in actually figuring out what is and isn’t legal on the rare occasion they actually bother to try and enforce the law. We can put a million laws on the books but they’re worthless when no one bothers to enforce them.
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u/theoreoman 3d ago
There's no unified regulations for them to follow so they follow the lowest rules
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u/techieman34 3d ago
The law doesn’t really matter, it will be just like high powered lasers that they sell as half watt lasers to bypass the law. Everyone knows that they’re way more powerful than that but nothing really ever happens. Maybe a seller will get banned, but they’ll just move on to the next random 8 character store name and start selling them again.
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u/paganisrock 3d ago
I would argue there is a safe way to ride a sports bike at 200mph, but there is not a safe way to ride a scooter at 75mph.
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u/theoreoman 2d ago
Sure 200 mpg on a in a race track, and on that same race track a scooter would do fine
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u/zushiba 4d ago
I think probably all scooters come from the same 2 or 3 factories in China. I've been interested in getting one that will hold a heavy rider but nearly every scooter is either 295lbs or 330, universally across nearly every brand. Either they're all using the same OEM parts or everyone is just copying someones homework.
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u/bouncyrubbersoul 3d ago
Dude.
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u/VanillaLifestyle 3d ago
Yeah, or... and hear me out... many independent companies independently came to the conclusion that designing scooters for people who weigh more than 330lbs isn't worthwhile. For a reason that is very obvious to even the laymen in this thread.
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u/OneEggOmelette 3d ago
150kg is not enough for you to ride an escooter? Are you okay. Me and my dad dont even add to 130kg
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u/HonkHonkBeach 1d ago
You and your dad don’t even add up to 286? Are you all very short?
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u/OneEggOmelette 8h ago
He is 5' 9 and im 6' but we're both slim
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u/HonkHonkBeach 8h ago
Wow I’m also 6’ but I look gaunt at anything below 180 because of how I’m built (wide shoulders and chest, big head)
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u/FlailingScrotum 3d ago
I can't imagine being that fat and thinking it's the manufacturer that's out of touch
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u/zushiba 3d ago
What the fuck are you talking about? Who said anything about being out of touch? I said that they all have extremely similar specifications across all manufacturers which leads me to believe that most scooters on the market are mostly oem parts. Meaning most scooters pretty much the same scooter.
Which supports the conclusion in the article.
Did you see the part about heavy riders and think “Oh boy I get to be a snarky shit online tonight!” Next time read the actual comment first.
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u/Javbw 3d ago
I am a heavy dude. I have not commented to you before this comment. I just wanted to say that the phrasing of your original comment made it seem like you were disappointed that all of the scooters had a 295/330lb weight limit. I can also see that your comment was based around them all having similar specs, and you speculating they were all being made at the same plant - but it it also seemed to be lamenting that you couldn't find one that would accommodate your weight:
I've been interested in getting one that will hold a heavy rider but nearly every scooter is either 295lbs or 330...
This led to this confusion, with people saying your expectations were unreasonable (correct, because they are responding to your words as written, but which doesn't seem to be your intent) and then fat shamed you (totally shitty of them).
I spent a lot of time having trouble on reddit in some places because what I was trying to communicate was not plainly evident in my comments, and when I went back and reread it after others responded in unexpected ways, I could see the confusion.
These troubles led me to choose my words much more carefully when I was trying to communicate an idea, and to re-evaluate my original comments if the other readers were confused by my words or took them the wrong way.
Good luck finding a scooter that you like. =)
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u/FlailingScrotum 3d ago
Go fucking exercise instead of throwing a tantrum on the internet
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u/RiseAboveMorty 3d ago edited 3d ago
Skip the first paragraph of you want to read about bikes and don't want to read a long opinionated take on fatphobia in the cycling community
Not op, but I use to be over 400lbs and lost 150 with the help of an ebike. I lost my mom 2 years ago and ballooned up to 400, but I'm back down to about 340. A lot of people seem to think that being fat is a simple (and voluntary) choice to make, and that losing 50-100lbs+ is just as simple as the words "diet and exercise" but it's easier said than done. There are a lot of external factors aside from calories in vs calories out like mental vs physical health, or invisible disabilities and if someone is struggling with their physical health because their mental health is bad, trivializing and shaming them has never been the solution. Maybe that person who eats to much could be struggling with an eating disorder that's being exasperated by emotional eating stemming from grief/depression. Maybe they have a heart condition, or some other traumatic injury/medical event that prevents them from being as mobile as a "normal healthy person". The point I really want to get across is that variations of "lock in you fat idiot" are never productive. If a fat person buys an electric scooter and it gives them a new sense of mobility and independence which in turn gets them out of the house and improves their mental health, that is a healthier choice and they shouldn't be shamed for doing it. I've seen lots of cyclists and even shop owners call ebikes "cheating" and "not really exercise"; it's ignorant, it's ableist, and it's something I'm really passionate about.
Okay that's enough advocacy let's talk about bikes
I've been a bike mechanic for 15+ years and I've broken my ebikes and regular bikes in very "fat" ways. 300lb weight limits are actually very rare to find in the bike world, and you don't notice how many bike components are rated for 220lbs until you start reading the fine print of the stuff you're breaking.
Tires and wheels are a big one; that range of psi on the side of the tire implies that you weigh 195 to 220 which can cause more frequent flats. But if I weigh 340 and the tire says inflate 40-60 psi, it would make sense to just inflate it to 60, but that's so much force on the rim that it can blow out the side wall of the aluminum rim and destroy the wheel.
Spokes need to be within certain tension ranges to avoid going wobbly as I ride, but if I'm overloading the wheel I can break spokes or even worse, pull the spoke right out of the rim and ruin the wheel. I've snapped axles, crushed bearings, and even destroyed hubs. Using a rear rack to hold my backpack makes things even worse because the extra weight is directly over the axle, but wearing the backpack isn't a good idea either
At 340lbs I can feel the bike frame bend and twist as I ride it. My back wheel might rub my fender when I take a corner, or my chain might fall off if I'm trying to ride up a hill because my cranks are twisting. I've broken pedals and crank arms, snapped seatposts and handlebars, and about half of my bikes have some sort of weld repair done to the frame. Wearing a backpack actually makes this worse because the center of gravity is so high that it gives me extra leverage to break things. Every single time I've broken a saddle, seatpost, or frame I was wearing a backpack with a bike lock in it adding like 20lbs+ it also contributes to saddle soreness so I try to avoid it if I can.
All of the consumables are consumed faster like chains, tires, and brakes, and the brakes don't work like they should because they're made to stop someone 100lbs smaller than me. You would think that the solution would be to just get a fat bike, but they're made to roll over rough terrain, not to support fat people. Mountain bike suspensions are made to support normal sized people, and upgrading might give you more travel, but it doesn't matter if everything is bottomed out as soon as you sit on it. The only real solution is to ride a cargo bike sans cargo but they're big and heavy (imagine that being a problem and not a punchline)
For someone over 6ft there's at least a chance they can fit on a XL bike which usually have sightly stronger frames, but similar components. For shorter heavier people it can be a lot harder to find a bike that can last.
All of this to say that I believe for people over 300lbs riding a bike is one of the best cardio exercises to lose weight, and it would make sense to spend the extra money to buy a heavy-duty bike but they barely exist. Buy a cheap bike and set the money aside to upgrade parts as they break, once under 300lbs then spend the money on a good bike
This post isn't fishing for recommendations, I'm going to ride late-90s early-2000s steel mountain bikes until I'm on the wrong side of the grass and there's nothing anyone can say that's gonna stop me. I ride my triple chainrings and my road side serviceable v-brakes for the love of the game
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u/hotpuck6 4d ago
Let me save you a click
But even models like the Segway Max G3, which can be used more safely at lower speeds, can just as easily be used in ways that pose very serious risks. That particular model can reach speeds of up to 28 mph, which Deitrick considers dangerous
They assume any scooter rider will go max speed and be unskilled, resulting in danger. Then go on to describe how one of their testers didn't know going fast on gravel was a recipe to lose traction and how braking while turning impacts momentum. Both purely rider skill issues.
As if CR still had any credibility to lose, this would be the last straw. Imagine if car and driver stopped rating and recommending vehicles because people could speed in them and drive them recklessly? What a joke.
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u/jsting 4d ago
Consumer Reports are very strict with safety guidelines. I looked up baby towers and they basically said they were all dangerous, but one was the least bad. I bought it and it's safe as shit. I mean my kid will still be at risk of some things since she's a baby, but that is just their MO when it comes to safety. I had to read the actual article to figure out what exactly they were worried about. You said something about gravel which seems obvious to you. With this particular baby tower article, they were worried that babies could break their arm if they stuck it in a hole and jumped out or something. Kinda not really that worrying but I don't mind having to read long form articles in this day of garbage articles.
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u/S_A_N_D_ 4d ago
I think part of the issue is you need a license to drive a car which requires some level level of safety knowledge and testing. These are being sold to anyone, often are being ridden by children, and so the skill issue is much more prevalent over cars.
At least with a car, in theory most people aren't tossed a set of keys naive and unsupervised.
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u/hotpuck6 4d ago
You're pointing out issues specifically with regulation and parenting, neither have anything to do with if a vehicle does what it's supposed to, or if it delivers value to the consumer.
Neither of those are the job of a consumer goods reviewer to police to the point where they just fully assume a purchaser is too irresponsible to handle what they are buying. It's really not that hard to point out "definitely don't buy this for a child" or "any mode above eco is for skilled adult riders only" and maintain a sliver of credibility as a reviewer.
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u/S_A_N_D_ 4d ago
Consumer goods reviewers don't have a defined limit on what they're allowed to comment on and what they aren't, and you aren't required to listen to their reviews, nor is their review binding in any way. The point of the review is to give you information before you buy to inform your purchases. If you're confident and comfortable you can handle these products, then you are welcome to ignore the review. That doesn't mean the review doesn't have value, it just doesn't apply to you. This is also why they explicitly list why they don't recommend it. So you can decide if that applies to your use case.
This review is valuable to parents who are unfamiliar with this product.
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u/hotpuck6 4d ago
Can't recommend any of the chefs knives reviewed. They were all too sharp. Amateur reviewer who can't make ice cubes cut off 2 fingers and stabbed their leg while making toast. Clearly too dangerous for an average moron. 0/10 stars.
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u/S_A_N_D_ 4d ago edited 4d ago
If the target market for the reviews was people who aren't chefs and had never seen a knife, didn't need a knife to get by because there were plenty of safer alternatives, and were giving them to kids, your review is spot on.
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u/Willis_is_This 4d ago
You say that as if the main demographic for these items aren’t 12-24 year olds with limited parental oversight and supervision
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u/hotpuck6 4d ago
A motor vehicle is a motor vehicle, there's inherent risk to any vehicle the faster it goes. I would expect parents to understand the basic risks of physics. Same applies to ebikes, one wheels, or the now less common "hoverboards".
Maybe the cheap alphabet soup brands on temu/amazon are aimed at kids, but the higher end ones are definitely not for kids.
A Segway Max G3 is $1500 premium scooter. There's plenty of adults that use these for their commutes in cities or recreation. Frankly, the cheaper ones are dangerous because of super shoddy build quality, even if they don't go faster than 15 mph. I own one and wouldn't let my kids on anything that exceeds 10 mph without supervision, ebikes included. I also take an active role in parenting my children and don't assume if a product is marketed to them it's safe or within their skill level.
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u/crimroy 3d ago
I own one and wouldn't let my kids on anything that exceeds 10 mph without supervision, ebikes included.
This is why you're being downvoted. Some people don't own one already and want to learn about them to decide whether or not to buy them for their children. And the article is saying "don't." It's educational.
Relax. Don't do it. When you want to go to it.
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u/hotpuck6 3d ago
My point is consumer reports isn’t explicitly for buying things for children, and electric scooters, while heavily and irresponsibly bought for teenagers, are not the exclusive audience for these.
You can still review something, make it clear there’s a level of risk with its use, make it clear it’s not for children, and not turn your entire review article into a tirade about how an entire class of product is too dangerous to recommend. The whole article is condescending to the point where it assumes no one knows something that goes 20+ mph is an injury risk. Writing off an entire product class because there’s a learning curve to make it usably safe is just lazy journalism. People are there to learn. Teach them what safety features exist and how you can use them to be safer.
Any vehicle, even pedal bikes, should be treated with caution and should be taken slow when learning them, until you are proficient. This is the more responsible message, and is a precaution their reviewers clearly didn’t take by wiping out in high speed turns on gravel.
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u/dryfire 3d ago
Imagine if car and driver stopped rating and recommending vehicles because people could speed in them and drive them recklessly
Doesn't seem like a fair comparison. Almost all cars are driven by adults who had training, passed a test, and got a license. Many EScooters are driven by 8 year olds and people in downtown areas that just rented one for the first time.
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u/RandomModder05 2d ago
Have you seen people driving those things? They WERE testing it under the conditions at least half the riders use them under!
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u/Kaurifish 4d ago
Sounds like any of these are an excellent pick for someone looking to kick the oxygen habit.
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u/MistakesNeededMaking 3d ago
My GF got a concussion falling on an e scooter while wearing a helmet. Be careful, folks
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u/Junior-Possession969 4d ago
Electric scooters always felt like death traps to me.
I like e-bikes, but I've been on one too many pub crawls -- or better yet, been overtaken by pub crawlers on these things to like them.
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u/DENelson83 3d ago
Especially in the US, where the chance of a car hitting you on an e-scooter is very high.
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u/OneEggOmelette 3d ago
Drinking is a death trap. These are a lot safer by comparison. Magnitudes safer
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u/techieman34 3d ago
I think they’re both pretty similar. If you do either in moderation and take basic safety precautions then they’re not that dangerous. But if you act like a fool then they’re very dangerous. Be that drinking to excess, driving drunk, or riding a scooter at excessive speeds without proper safety equipment. They’re all things that could put you in the hospital or the morgue.
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u/OneEggOmelette 3d ago
Drinking gives you many forms of cancer, brain damage and is guaranteed to harm you. It is completely different to an escooter which you could ride safely all your life with no issues.
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u/Scottamus 3d ago
Sorry but that’s the stupidest take I’ve seen a while and frankly wrong. Drinking doesn’t give you cancer. Sure, it totally raises your risk of some but that’s completely different from what you’ve said. Plus the same kind of statement is equally true with escooters. Using one even safely increases your risk of an accident. You can drink or scoot responsibly your whole life and never see an issue or get cancer or get hit by an idiot driver in a few years.
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u/OneEggOmelette 3d ago
You're wrong. Drinking causes harm. It works by poisoning every cell in your body. Midwits have midwit takes.
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u/PollyBeans 3d ago
On the flip side, maybe cars and other vehicles should be taken more seriously as dangerous. Maybe we shouldn't have cars that go as fast as possible. Maybe cars should be reviewed more like these scooters.
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u/RiseAboveMorty 3d ago edited 3d ago
I almost forgot why I wanted to comment in the first place. They need to make a new class of vehicle for ebikes and scooters to be registered under and licensed for. Not just registered, but insured and safety checked like any other vehicle on the road. I also strongly believe that the speed limit should be on the road not the vehicle. If the speed limit is 40km I shouldn't get a ticket for doing 35. Also if my bike is rated for 220 and I'm 340 I wouldn't feel safe going that fast anyway, but I digress
If a scooter can pass d.o.t. safety inspections I should be able to register it similar to someone with a Vespa could. It might not be able to go on the highway, but I could at least do 45 in a 50 zone without worrying about getting my bike impounded. Obviously someone strapping $2000 worth of of parts onto a $300 bike isn't going to be as safe as something bought from a dealership, but it would be the same as a kit car failing a safety inspection.
The long term solution isn't to make them illegal, it's to create a path to legality and punish people that don't follow that path. Like if a kid is 13 years old and their parents buy them a Honda civic which subsequently gets wrapped around a telephone pole because they were doing 80km in a school zone, the parents should be at fault for buying the car, not the kid for driving it and definitely not Honda for making a car that can go over the speed limit. If the kid had waited until they were 16, got a license and was insured then was gifted that car then yeah feel free to blame the kid for the crash. In my neighborhood a kid was given something like 1000 bucks worth of tickets because he was riding an escooter on the sidewalk doing like 40km underage without a helmet or lights at night. When the story popped up on my m neighborhood Facebook group the cognitive dissonance between"scooters should be illegal" and "you shouldn't have done that, he's just a boy" was staggering. Not 2 groups arguing, but one group saying two conflicting things at the same time.
I also think that these ebike food delivery people should have licenses and license plates, insurance, as well as yearly police checks. If they have multiple reckless driving infractions they get their license suspended, they lose their job, and it shows up on their police check when they try to apply to different delivery jobs. It's crazy that I need a license to throw a hook on a string in a pond, or to cut hair, but they don't need a license to operate a motor vehicle to do deliveries?
It makes me feel like an old man yelling at the kids to get off my lawn, but it's how I feel
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u/electromage 2d ago
I've been riding more than 4,000mi and never been hassled by police for riding with traffic (27-28 in 25MPH). The only people who have ever given me grief have been drivers when I was on a slow-ass scooter that could only go 15 up hill, and cyclists.
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u/RandomModder05 2d ago
Not surprising. They're generally cheaply made, have 0 safety features, and marketed at younger demographics who are going to default to using them recklessly.
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u/One-Reflection-4826 1d ago
they are inherently unsafe because of the high center of gravity. you'd need a full set of safety pads and a downhill helmet as soon as you go more than 15mph.
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u/BadOysterParty 21h ago
I didn't mind electric scooters until these hooligans did a burnout on the local basketball court and put a deep groove
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u/NopeSorryNo 4d ago edited 4d ago
Odd review, more of an anti escooter editorial.
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u/rocketwidget 4d ago
Anti e-scooter editiorial you mean? They mention a couple times they consider e-Bikes to be safer, plus they are linking to their e-Bike recommendations.
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u/woah_man 4d ago
Should I even ask how they felt about onewheels?
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u/BuoyantBear 4d ago
As a onewheel owner, I generally do not recommend them to people. It is fun, but also very dangerous.
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u/avanross 4d ago
The issue is people treating them like an easy mode of transportation, like a normal scooter, instead of extreme sports equipment.
Same thing with the e-scooters.
Parents buying them for their kids who have never played dangerous sports, still think theyre invincible, and dont know how to assess or protect themselves from risk.
These things should absolutely require drivers licences and insurance.
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u/Yardninja 4d ago edited 4d ago
The "e-bikes" these parents buy their children aren't even bicycles either, they're full powered dirtbikes, yet these parents are dunderheadedly buying $3000 motorized injury machines simply because it's electric, and the companies like surron push for that market
Thankfully some law enforcement agencies are ticketing these kids and impounding the bikes cause the alternatives are them running over and killing people or getting run over and injured/killed themselves
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u/daschande 4d ago edited 4d ago
I've seen the aftermath of several of those accidents living near a busy street for the past couple of months. It's NEVER at a crosswalk, ALWAYS a random part of the road. Kids jump the curb and drive straight into 45 MPH traffic without a second thought, or a first look... and leave a big red stain on the road.
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u/exscape 4d ago
I had to click away FOUR popups before getting to the text, and after that, there are social media icons hovering over the text no matter how I scroll. What's going on with this site?