My scooter appears dead and I have some thoughts
One of the great things about reviewing things is occasionally getting something that worms its way into use. Some examples include the projectors which have opened up a new viewing area in our house, a game system, and what this is about – a couple of electric scooters.
I’ve been teaching my oldest to scoot, and to a limited degree my 7yo. It’s something the oldest looks forward to, joining me and forming a badass electric scooter gang. Yesterday, on a pretty perfect day, popped the scooters out of the car an the latest one I reviewed was dead. I suspect the battery has gone as there’s no power to the handle/display, when when you plug a charger into the unit the charger pulls no power and the charging light on the power brick does not power on. Basically all indicators that the battery is dead or disconnected. Nobody builds their own batteries as a note. I’m not pointing fingers. Also not shaming them, it happens.
I’m actually surprised how useful these things have been and how much of a silly bonding thing as well between me and my oldest. She’s been zipping around on the Shell scooter and basically smoking me (I’m quite a bit larger, this will happen on any scooter.) Yesterday I wheezed after her as she scooted around and my youngest topped out at about 4mph on a bike.
This has lead me to thinking that once again these non-replaceable batteries are one of the worst ideas ever. Especially in scooter design. I mean I’ve always been on team swappable battery on phones, but dang. Why would you build scooters in such a way that their power banks can’t be swapped out easily? Just from a range standpoint you could advertise “Go further with an additional battery!” and when something like this pops up you can just send out a pack.
The ability to charge a battery at your work and swap it out so you can get home? Seems they’re leaving money on the table. Closed design may look cool but practicality seems a larger accessible pack is better if you’re not using these as mere toys.
Seems with how late into the party electronic scooting is that this would be a thing.
Another thing I would also expect would be a standard charger. Like seriously. Standardization leads to adoption/integration.
Well I gotta wrap this up some chickenshit killed three children in Nashville and I have to go.
