Electric scooters are immensely popular for traveling from A to B in the big cities across the globe. With the trend expanding rapidly and more advanced technology reaching the market, we are seeing constant improvements in both speed, range, and reliability. But how much range does an electric scooter have?
Like with most things, electric scooters come in a variety of sizes and price ranges. While some will only be good for taking you around the block, others can travel up to a fourth of a Tesla Model 3 (that’s around 70 miles per charge).
That said, the most common electric scooters you see in the city usually have a range between 12-30 miles per charge, but there are a lot of variables at play here which we will explain now.
It’s all about the battery
Okay, so it’s not only about the battery, but the battery is the number most important part of an electric scooter’s range. The batteries seen in electric scooters are commonly of the Lithium-ion type. It’s a very popular technology that creates long-lasting batteries with plenty of charge cycles in a compact and fairly lightweight size.
Calculating Battery Capacity
Some electric scooters have small batteries and others have large batteries. For our convenience, there are normally specified both voltage (V) and ampere-hour (Ah) values by most manufacturers when buying them. If we multiply these two numbers, we get what is called watt-hour (Wh) which simply describes the battery capacity. The math behind looks like this:
Voltage * ampere-hours = watt-hours
Here’s a real-life example. The highly popular Xiaomi M365 Pro uses 37V, 12.8Ah battery.
That means the electric scooter has a 473.6Wh battery capacity.
While there isn’t any way to directly translate Wh into a specific range, it’s the most reliable way to compare electric scooter batteries with one another.
Many factors determine the range
While battery capacity is the most important factor for determining range, there are more than a handful of other variables that directly affect your mileage. Let’s touch on the most important ones.
How fast you ride
Most electric scooters today feature several speed modes. With these, you can limit the top speed. It’s a great feature to have when first learning to ride but it’s also a solid way for getting the most mileage possible.
If you ride full throttle at the highest speed setting you can go in, the battery will drain a lot faster than if you went slow. If you’re pushing the motor, more power is needed to keep up and this will exponentially decrease your range as your motor is working overtime.
For the best range possible, use speed setting 1 – but if you don’t have the patience, going in the middle-speed mode is usually fine too.
How much you weigh
The heavier the load is on your electric scooter, the more power is needed to move it forward. This especially holds true on inclines while it doesn’t affect the range as much while going downhill. Heavier riders may experience notably shorter ranges than what is advertised by retailers and that boils down to simple physics.
If you’re on the heavy side and you’re about to get an electric scooter, you should probably take the estimated range with a grain of salt.
Low tire pressure
Some electric scooters have solid tires while others have pneumatic tires. This only really affects scooters with air-filled (pneumatic) tires but it’s incredibly important to keep in mind. Just like your bike will need to be pumped occasionally, you should also maintain the tire pressure on your electric scooter if they’re pneumatic.
Pneumatic tires have the excellent benefit of giving a smoother ride. The air acts like a cushion, effectively absorbing some of the shocks and road vibrations that a solid-tire e-scooter can’t. The main drawback is the maintenance involved though…
Make sure your electric scooter is always the correct PSI before riding as this will give you the best tire longevity, best range, and smoothest riding experience. Do not over-inflate it either as it can be prone to punctures and the suspension effect will diminish.
E-Scooter Range: It All Depends
The mileage of your e-scooter depends heavily on various factors around you. There’s rarely a sure-fire way to determine the exact range you can get as it boils down to stuff like weight, terrain, tire inflation levels and overall scooter maintenance.
Most entry-level scooters range from 10-15 miles per charge while mid-tier models usually have about 15-30 miles of mileage. If you go for some of the high-end scooters that’ll set you back quite a lot of cash, you can get incredible machines capable of traveling up to 70 miles per charge.
Always take the estimated range by the manufacturer with a grain of salt. Their tests are always conducted in perfect settings. They use light riders, the perfect level test surface, no stopping/braking and ride it at a boringly slow speed just to push it as far as it can go. The reality is real-word range usually differs a lot from what is specified (as much as 40% less).
The best way to compare electric scooters in terms of battery from one to another is by calculating the battery capacity (Watthours) as specified above.
Happy riding and stay safe out there!
