Single or dual motor

ThomasKlitch

Hey guys wanted to bounce couple ideas off fellow rider heads before buying my next scooter. Background… currently have qingor q1. 350 watt motor almost 20 mi range. Ride daily between 3-15 miles. Commute to work, groceries, etc. In florida almost as flat as u can get. And I love riding it but suffer from range anxiety. Also ride just to get out on a nice day or whatever. Knowing if I have more range I’ll probably ride more too. 98% road or sidewalk riding. I may do very light off road but I pretty much like to just carve up the roads and sidewalks. So here’s where I’m at. Would it be better to buy a single motor like the emove cruiser or apollo explorer. Or dual motor like the apollo ghost. And if I go dual motor. I can play in dual motor mode from time to time but mostly single motor. With one motor off, wouldn’t that motor drag a little or is it effectively in neutral? If you have a cruiser, explorer or ghost I’d love to hear what u think and mileage ranges you have scene.

Thank u

justin

ThomasKlitch

I think the main reason to go with a dual motor scooter is if you want something more powerful or need to really strong hill climbing. The biggest drain on your battery is going to be how fast your ride, how quickly you accelerate and # of stops/starts. Taking it easy in dual motor mode on a dual motor scooter shouldn’t be too much less efficient than riding the same way on a single motor scooter.

Regarding operating a dual motor scooter in single motor mode for to conserve battery:

The unpowered motor, of course, is going to add mechanical resistance just from the friction which should be pretty small.

However, spinning the unpowered motor is also going to cause it to act like a generator and it will send a current out toward the controller. Depending on how the wiring is setup in single motor mode, you might get a back electromotive force that creates additional resistance and this could be pretty significant.

We haven’t tested to see how dual motor scooters behave in single motor mode with respect to resistance on the unpowered motor, but make be worth it to look into it. We’ve gotten some questions like this before.

manac

I just got a Ghost, 35 miles on it. It’s a beast! Apollo clams 39 mile range, you’d probably get it on the flat, in eco mode and one motor. ESG rated it at 24 miles. I don’t see any drag from the motor that’s off. The Ghost is a great scooter. The only negatives are the front end dives on breaking and the electric breaking is not modulated, it’s either 0% or 100%. If you turn it on it tends to pitch you off the scooter when you apply the brakes.

I think you can do what you want. Look at the battery capacity of the scooters. Two scooters driven at the same speed the one with the higher capacity will go farther. (Generally true)

If range is your biggest concern get a scooter that can use multiple battery packs.

manac

My Ghost’s wheels don’t cog (jump step to step like a stepper motor) when turning. It also coasts downhill really well. I don’t think there’s any drag associated with not driving a wheel.

DrScootLittle

Here’s a comparison plot of every dual motor and every single motor scooter we have ever tested. What I’m showing is range vs Watt-hours. Scooters in red are single motor, scooters in blue are dual motor. Of course, all of the dual motor scooters were tested in dual motor mode, so it’s not really showing how they would do if running in single motor for range.

Just picking up the front end of a EMOVE Cruiser, and spinning it there is definitely less drag on a wheel with out a motor, than there is on a wheel with an unused motor. The amount of drag from an unused motor stays the same whether the motor is plugged in or not (at least on the Apollo Phantom that I took apart just now). There was also no difference in drag when the scooter is turned on vs not.

realscooterguy

DrScootLittle Hi Dr Scoot Little 🙂

For example: Cruiser is on the single motor and it is above 50 miles range while the OXO is a dual-motor and it is around 37 miles. Granted, based on the chart, Cruiser has a bigger battery size than OXO.

If a test on OXO based on a single motor setting, would it be able to reach up (or close to) the distance range that Cruiser is?

Thanks and I am getting very interested to buy a scooter and doing all kind of research now.