Rad Power RadWagon 4 Review: I Ended My Friendship With My Car
Rad Power RadWagon 4 Review: I Ended My Friendship With My Car
The e-bike that wants to be a minivan.
I came here just to say that I love your username. I’m even going to read this article after I post this.
Edit: here is the problem with electric scooters and e-bikes and stuff. I am an American in the south. The only thing going for us down here is our incredibly delicious and unhealthy food. I am 6’2” and 250 lbs. that means if I want a battery powered something I have to spend big bucks.
Now we’ve never bought a really expensive electric scooter, but my partner uses one every day to get to work. I think the one they have now cost is almost $600, and we’ve been running this legal scam.
See, we buy a scooter and get the assurion insurance. My partner rides it about 4 or 5 miles everyday round trip. It breaks after about 6 months of use. Contact insurance, they send us a check, wash, rinse, repeat.
But I can’t imagine spending $1000 plus dollars on an e-anything as fast as these things wear out with daily use.
i sold my car so that i could buy an ebike back in february, i now have 400 something miles on it and haven't had to spend a dime on any maintenance (although i probably should have...) but when it comes to PEV's they're definitely one of those things where if you spend more money to get a better quality product you'll have a much better experience. also since bikes are more standardized its easier to find replacement parts and if you're willing to put the time into learning how to mess with it you wouldn't even need to rely on a repair shop.
Oh yeah. I’ve seen some scooters and bikes that are bad ass. If I had the money I’d get one in a heartbeat. I’m not saying all of them suck. Also, I love to tinker with stuff. Also, I think that the good ones aren’t as bad of a price as a lot of people would think.
But to extend on my issues. I live in the foothills in a main city. Like the city literally sits atop a mountain with steep hills all around it. So, not only do I have to take into account my ummm girth, but also the inclines add another level of difficulty.
So, in closing. I know that there are some that can carry me, but even a starter in my range would be a sizable investment.
I think the one that my partner has is a 500w motor, and they have one hill in their commute that they have to walk up, but they have to go the long way around to avoid as many hills as possible.
They love theirs though and look at riding it as the best part of their day. Which doesn’t say much for me hehe
Definitely look into an ebike: Even when the motor dies, you still have a bike!
Sounds like you bought a crappy scooter, honestly. Which one did you get? Most of the generic Chinese brands are basically disposable.
Sorry I just realized I didn’t answer your question. It was an iScooter. Which is fine for my partner as they are smaller than I am. And with our little grift. Every time it tears up we get the check add to it and buy a slightly better one. But we started at around 300 and for real maybe this one was 500. Maybe it wasn’t 600. But there really hasn’t been much improvement and definitely not 200 dollars worth.
What kind of maintenance do electric scooters need?
So, you need new tires every once in a while. Other than that maybe new batteries? But there’s no where around here that does that kind of work.
Also, just to clarify. New tires you can do yourself. On scooters usually the tire and rim are one thing. So you just order a replacement from the factory. The problem is that one of them has the motor built into the rim so it’s a little more expensive. But still totally doable. Some come with inflatable tires which are cheaper to replace but have the obvious disadvantage of going flat if a hole is poked in them.
The batteries are the thing specially that no one messes with in my area, and by my area I mean my state.
IDK, I bought my ENGWE EP2 Pro for $700 a few months ago, have put about 500-600 miles on it, and so far so good.
I ride a regular bike too and have probably put about as much money into buying and upgrading it over the last 10 years or so. Love them both.
I rarely drive anymore, saves a lot of money on gas and I can avoid traffic. I am lucky to live in a bike friendly area though.
Btw, the EP2 Pro can support 330 lbs and is pretty height adjustable, there's better ebikes out there though.
For anything less than 10miles in one go, do you really need electric assistance? 4-5miles that's like 20min of fairly low intensity biking on a regular roadbike, hardly worth spending money on an electric bike/scooter for that.
So where I live it’s SUPER hilly, and I mean steep hills. You mix that with no bike lanes, and super heavy traffic. Like, my apartment parking lot dumps you straight out on to a 4 lane road right in the city.
So, all of that mixed with the fact that we aren’t trying to do this to lose weight. We don’t cycle cause it’s fun to us. It’s literally because I have the only drivers license, and the only car. But they need their own local transportation.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the weather! Down here starting in may the weather goes into death mode. The summers here stay in the 90’s, and very often break 100. With an average humidity of around 80%
So, we don’t cycle as a hobby. I mean riding 10 miles maybe nothing to you, but the hills alone. I’d rather take a severe beating than ride 10 miles. In the summer it gets deadly hot. They are riding this thing to work to be less than 2 feet from clients. So, don’t need to be sweaty. There are just sooooo many reasons that this thing really needs to get them there and really not be pedaled at all preferably.
Which that is one advantage of the cheap scooter. Scooters aren’t allowed on the road. So they can ride it on the sidewalk avoiding crazy drivers.