Urban commuting doesn’t have to be a dirty, fuel guzzling endeavor. Austin, Texas-based electric bike and scooter maker, R Martin, has just introduced its new lithium model EVD, with ‘the latest commercially available,’ lithium-iron-phosphate battery. The plug-in electric scooter features a clean and quiet 55 mph top end and 60 mile driving range at 30 mph. Fully charged in 6 to 10 hours. No gas, oil, gears or noise.
info on specs, dealers and pricing @ rmartinbikes.com
via: prweb.com
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Be advised, these chinese scooters have a 80% rate of breakdown
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).
I’ve been quite pleased with the R Martin EVD. Great scooter for the money. I’ve gotten mine to go about 53 mph on a flat surface and can get about 40 miles per charge and I live in a fairly hilly area. I wish the scooter would handle bumps a little better, but overall it’s a smooth ride and handles nicely. Overall rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars. Value rating: 5 out of 5 stars.