Firstly I would like to discorage anybody from buying an Emax. Below is the most serious of my problems but there have constantly been others right from new.
I have an Emax 110S nearly 3 years old, 7000 miles on the clock.
a year ago it developed a problem where it accelerates at full power without touching the twist control. it does it when the steering column is moved slightly side to side.
(E.g. I brake to slow down for traffic lights and it suddenly accelerates toward the stationary car in front!)
another problem at the same time is that travelling at 28mph on the limiter it periodically loses power and speeds up and slows down.
also the battery performance went down rapidly until a few weeks later my range was down to 13 miles.
The problem is worse in wet weather.
My dealer did 'something' which seemed to resolve the accelerating and slowing problem, but I think by that time the batteries were on their way out.
I have replaced the 62 AH batteries with 75AH ones. the originals gave me a range of at least 50 miles when new.
My new batteries only give me about 30 miles (<25 in wet weather) and the accelerating problem has started again worse than ever (i have sometimes had to hold it still on the brake against the motor on full power to avoid hitting the car in front).
Has anybody come across problems like this? If so what is the solution?
Dear Sir,
Vmoto (a company registered on the Australian stock exchange) took over the Emax brand, products and technology from Emax EVs Germany in 2010. We now sell to distributors around the world as well as to large fleet customers such as TNT and Correos.
The scooters manufactured in the early days of Emax EVs Germany did encounter some electrical problems.
We are very sorry to hear of the problems you have encountered with your old Emax. Please send full details of where you first purchased it, the name of the recent dealer who worked on it and what he fixed last time. Please send these details to info [at] vmoto.eu and our after sales team at our European head office in Barcelona will be able to advise you further. We do now have a new distributor in UK who should then be able to source any required parts for you:
ZEV Europe Ltd.
www.vmotoscooters.co.uk
In the case of the batteries only the standard 60AH batteries should be used in 110s and we only know one manufacturer in the world who can produce the required quality and standards.
Best Regards,
After Sales Team
Vmoto Emax International Ltd.
If you peruse this website, you'll see that it's full of people who are experiencing early failures of their electric scooters. It's not that they can't make a reliable electric scooter - it's that small manufacturers can't make a reliable electric scooter at a price that people are willing to pay. When you can buy an 85 mpg gasoline scooter for $2500, it makes it tough for a consumer to justify paying 2-3 times more than that for a reliable electric scooter. I owned 2 electric scooters before I got sick of the frequent breakdowns, and having no local shop to fix them. I now own a 125cc gasoline scooter, I get 85 to 90 MPG, and there are 2 local shops that can do maintenance on it.
David
I posted one reply to this the other day, and it never showed up. Short summary: if you want reliable EV scooters, then buy used Leptons (like mine) that weren't abused, or buy X-Treme XM series scooters and get the inevitable bugs fixed. The one thing you *don't* want to do is try to make them go faster and then complain about the smoking ruins... I'd like to see mods aimed at making these scooters more reliable instead of faster.
I agree that it's risky to modify a scooter for greater speed. My former EVT4000's 72 volt modification was, however, done professionally by an electric scooter shop (I won't mention the name). My eGO scooter was unmodified. Both vehicles had unsatisfactory reliability.
What year are your Lepton scooters? I thought they stopped making those 5-6 years back.
David
David