Yes Electric Scooter review

REVIEW – If you’ve been in any medium to large city lately, you’ve likely seen rental electric scooters littering the sidewalks and zipping by you as you walk the streets. Perhaps you’ve even used one. While they are rather annoying for pedestrians, they are an efficient way to get around cities, and quite a bit of fun. I was really hoping for that same experience with the Yes Electric Scooter. That experience is possible, but under some really limiting conditions, unfortunately.

The Yes Electric Scooter is an Irish-designed, beautifully built, rechargeable electric scooter for adults, designed largely for urban mobility. It's built by Yvolution, and company mostly known for making kid's scooters and balance bikes.

The Yes scooter comes almost completely assembled. All you have to do is raise the handlebar, lock it in place, and attach the hand grips. These are clearly marked for right and left, which is important because the right one is counter-threaded to prevent you from unscrewing it while riding.

For safety, the hand grips are secured with TINY screws that are very easy to lose. They are shipped in an envelope, and if you’re not careful opening the envelope, they can easily go flying (ask me how I know). A sticker or some other notification on that envelope (WARNING! Small parts inside – open carefully) would help.

Once the grips are attached, you just plug in the battery and charge it up, and away you go!

The design and features of the Yes scooter are really where it excels. Simply put, it's beautiful. It looks nothing like the utilitarian designs of commercial rental scooters littering street corners in cities. The Yes Electric Scooter has beautiful colors, solid cream-colored 8.5 inch tires (no flats!), and a very well-crafted maple deck with non-slip tape that you stand on.

The lighting is well thought out and attractive, although it's better for being seen than for seeing.

The handle bar folds easily creating a compact package that easily fits in a car trunk or that you can take on a train or bus. The cork grips feel really nice and isolate vibration from the road. The dashboard and controls are easily laid out and nicely designed. The thumb control on the right (the black one) is the throttle, the red one on the left is the electric brake, and there is a bell!

There are two braking systems on the Yes Electric Scooter. The first (and best) is a simple friction brake, activated by stepping on the rear fender. This operates just like the brake on my kids’ scooters. The second brake is operated by the left thumb switch, and is electric, but is not quite as effective as the rear friction brake. Both brakes activate a bright rear brake light.

The maple deck is isolated from the tubular steel frame by rubber mounts, and the system does a very nice job of eliminating vibration. The street I live on is paved with brick, and heading down it at 15 mph was not the filling-loosening experience I thought it would be.

The claimed 350W (500W max) motor is powered by a 36 V 7.5 Ah battery and can power you along at three selectable speeds – 4, 11, and 16 mph respectively. The scooter has an easy-to-use kickstand, and two hooks for hanging items like shopping bags, umbrella, or a lock.

It's a well-designed and feature-rich electric scooter that I was really excited to use.

Once I got the scooter unpacked and put together, I charged it up and was excited to tool around my neighborhood. I strapped on my helmet and took off. I live on a very modest hill, with a 6-7% slope. I went out my driveway, down the road a bit, and then turned to come back up the smoothly-paved alley, which has the same 6-7% slope. The scooter started to come up the hill just fine, slowed down, and then stopped. It did not have enough power to take me up the alley, despite the alley being less than the 14% slope limit, and me being less than the 220 lb weight limit (I’m 190 lb). This was pretty frustrating. On the flats and on downhills, the scooter is fine, and lots of fun! But put any sort of slope or grade in front of it, and it stops. My wife who weighs considerably less than me experienced much the same thing. She made it further up the alley before the scooter stopped, but it still could not carry her. It could get my 13 year old daughter up the 7% slope alley, slowly, which I hoped it could since the alley is half the slope limit, and my daughter is half the weight limit.

I have no way to measure the direct "to the ground" wattage of the scooter, but it's nowhere near the stated 350 watts. I ride and race bicycles, and my bikes all have watt meters installed. I know what 350 watts feels like and what it's capable of. A true 350 W motor should have no problem getting me up a 7% alley. (This is completely ignoring the fact that the max wattage is supposed to be 500 W.)

On flats, it's great. The ride is smooth and very controlled, and the braking is adequate when you use both the rear friction brake and the front electric brake. The cork grips feel really nice, and do a good job of keeping your hands from going numb from any vibration. The battery range seems very good – my wife rode the scooter to and from work (about half a mile each way) for a week and used up about half the battery. Charging it is pretty quick – 4 to 5 hours from dead. It's just too underpowered to really use.

I was really excited about the Yes Electric Scooter. It's a beautiful scooter that could be a great way to get around town without using a car. Unfortunately, unless you live where it's completely flat or you’re exceptionally light, it's just not usable without kicking along to help it up even the most modest of hills. And at $600, who wants to do that?

Price: $599.00Where to buy: Yvolution or AmazonSource: The sample for this review was provided by Yvolution.