rmartin EVD scooter

Yes, it's the eFun D . R Martin is an authorized dealer and distributor for eFun in the US. I for one am excited that he's there. It makes it easier to get parts and help for this bike. Seems like a good guy.

-Rick

I had a chance to give the RMartin EVD a good run this afternoon. On relatively level roads and smaller hills, the EVD is a great scooter. The acceleration is pretty amazing on city streets - I easily kept up with cars from traffic light to traffic light. Cruising between 35 and 40mph seemed effortless for the EVD. It felt firm and stable. The rear shocks worked well to smooth out the occasional irregularities in the road.

The real test for me was going up and down serious hills. Early on in the road test is a hill that I would estimate at approximately 30-35 degrees with a fairly hard right turn leading to it so I couldn't really get a running start to begin the climb. Glancing down at the speedometer, I saw I was entering the hill at about 25 mph and by the time I was up about 3/4 of the hill, my speed was down to about 15 mph and held steady at that speed to the top. Climbing smaller hills in the range of 20-30 degrees, the EVD seemed to find a sweet spot of about 20mph. Going down the hills was fun and the EVD's disk brakes worked very well.

One small but thoughtful feature I really liked about the EVD is the turn signal beep when it's turned on. It reminded me turn off the signal after each turn. I can't count the number of times I've forgotten to turn the signal off on my current scooter. The seat is also very comfortable. The build quality is very good as far as I can tell.

As I indicated in my preliminary review, my most important criteria in selecting a scooter is its hill climbing ability. I would buy the EVD in a heartbeat if I didn't live in the hilly part of town. But I would feel much better (safer) if the scooter can give me about 5 more mph in ascending the hills in my neighborhood. Randy Martin, who has really been very helpful and accommodating in my testing has agreed to let me test the EVD+, which has a motor that has even more torque. If that does give me the extra push I'm looking for, I will be a happy camper. I'll report on that test ride hopefully within a week, weather permitting.

Disclaimer: I'm a rank amateur in the electric scooter field so everything in this review should be taken with that in mind. I've tried my best to be as accurate as I can in my estimate of speed (using only the EVD's speedometer) and steepness of hills. Other opinions I've expressed are strictly personal.

Tiebreaker

Thanks, DanCar for the suggestion of the li-ion version. The lighter weight probably would be a big help in hill climbing and Randy Martin suggested it also but the show stopper there is the extra $1K over the SLA batteries. My needs for a scooter just can't justify paying that much extra.

I did test the EVD+, the higher torque version yesterday. I rode it on the exact same route with very similar weather conditions. Unfortunately, I did not see any noticeable increase in performance on the hills. I'll have to wait until something else comes along.

I must complement Randy Martin again on his helpfulness and willingness to allow me to assess the scooters for myself. I would feel very confident in buying from him.

Tiebreaker

I love my EVD. It's pretty awesome to get an electric moped with 50 mph top speed and 30+ mile range for under $5k (lithium) or $4k (lead acid). It's lots of fun to ride and can even seat 2. I've had a couple problems with it, the big one being that my range dropped by about 60% after about a year and 4500 miles on the lead acid batteries, and had to replace them. Randall Martin (company owner) told me they're supposed to last 2-3 years. One problem may have been overcharging, because I always kept them plugged in when not in use. This time around I'm turning the charger off once the batteries have been fully charged.

At one point I also had an electronics problem where the scooter thought the batteries were constantly engaged, and the throttle won't work when the brakes are engaged. But a technician came out and apparently it was a pretty easy fix. Another minor issue is that sometimes the power output is low when the EVD is turned on, as though it were in an energy conserving range-extended mode. But turning it off and back on once or twice always solves that problem.

One nice aspect is that Randall Martin is easy to contact via email, and usually very quick to send out parts when they're ordered. I was able to replace the batteries myself too, which I was happy about. Replacement lead acid batteries cost $125 apiece, and the EVD has 5 altogether.

Overall I'm really happy with the scooter. Charging it is super cheap - about 0.1 kWh per mile, or about 1 cent per mile. Lots of fun to ride. People are always asking me about it too. More user review can be found here.

Heads up to anyone who may have found this view a search engine while

looking for a reliable electric vehicle - the R Martin EVD is NOT for

you.

I purchased the EVD from Randall Martin (via his website) last year

after reading the sparse reviews out there that seemed mostly positive.

From the minute it arrived things went poorly.

First, the company he uses (SAIA shipping) to deliver the bikes fails

utterly. They could not deliver the bike to our door because they only

use semi trucks and our residential street had wires too low. That

means they left the bike, wrapped in a box wrapped in a banged up,

rusted metal cage, 1 block from our house, in the middle of the street,

with only my husband (I was at work) to unpack and move the bike down to

the house (which I might mention is at the bottom of a large hill). Oh,

and it was mid summer in Florida, so 95+ degrees and humid. The driver

happily left him alone to do what is clearly (as stated in the manual,

conveniently located INSIDE the giant contraption) a two person job.

After several trips up and down the hill to get various tools, my

husband was finally able to free the bike from its packaging, but in the

process ended up with it falling on him once and almost another time

(and they are heavy - almost 400 lb).

We charged it that day and come evening tried it out - only to find out

it was not capable of even driving up our hill (it literally stopped

midway up, on a full battery, and made a dragging sound near the rear

brakes.

To make a long, aggravating story short, after contacting the dealer on

a near daily basis (and then him contracting the manufacturer, in

Japan), performing hours of labor ourselves on it (trying to replace the

brakes several times, etc. - he wouldn't pay for labor, would only

provide replacement parts based on our amateur description of what

seemed to be wrong and some videos we emailed) and even eventually

taking it to a shop for brake replacement, the thing still does not work

as intended (sometimes can make it up the hill, sometimes can not - even

on a full charge and on the same day) and Randall Martin eventually

ignored my emails until we were forced to contact a lawyer (never had a

reason to do that before).

He now states it is too far past the time frame for return, but it was

he who refused to return my email and never offered to return the bike.

Mind you, I was somewhat skeptical of making such a large purchase

online, but there were no dealers of fast, fully electric bikes like the

EVD in our area. Also, I emailed him twice before making the purchase

to ask questions and even specifically asked about shipping and whether

he would take the bike back should it have any problems. He assured us

that he would try to fix it via parts but if that didn't work, would

have it returned (and also stated he had never had a shipping problem).

Summary: I truly hope no one has to fall for this money trap like my

husband and I did. Find a local dealer if you want an electric

vehicle, test drive it well and know the return policy backwards and

forwards. And whatever you do, I implore you not to purchase from

Randall Martin (at least for his larger vehicles such as the EVD).

Well one bad experience compared to virtually 99% all positive reviews I have read previously is acceptable in my opinion. Sounds like this one was mostly due to the shipper. They obviously did not deliver with care and must have banged up that EVD pretty badly.

This story is a fantasy compared to some of the nightmares I have heard and experienced with Mountain Chen's products. Although it looks almost identical, it is not. You can be assured that the lowest quality parts are used. The customer service is 99% bad all the time. Especially since most of them come from the distributor API aka Xtreme Scooters.

Whome

1. the throttle won't work when the brakes are engaged

of course the throttle doesn't work when brake is engaged. Because if the throttle keep working when you are braking the scooter. Then big currency keep going into the motor but it can not be changed to physical rotate cos you are braking. Then it turn to heat, then motor blow.

You can find there is small touch point at the end of the lever of the brake. That is the switch turning on and off when you braking or stop brake.