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CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

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Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#271

Post by slt2021 »

skellera wrote: post #221
slt2021 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FutureMotion must equip all onewheels with safety wheels on both sides. Also known as Fangs bumper wheels. This must come standard from factory, just as safety belts come with car. physics is no excuse for lousy engineering from FutureMotion and complete disregard of life threatening diving condition!

No way on the tail. That’s the best way to emergency stop. I can’t argue that fangs on the front could be safer but most riders I see would probably not recover a nose dive with them.

1. firmware can be upgraded to account for presence of fangs, for example replace pushback mechanism with gradual diving (soft landing on fangs) instead of abrupt nosedive

2. re emergency stop - agree with you, I am okay if fangs are placed only on the front

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#272

Post by latchkey »

Supermancho wrote: post #256
Zak wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These search results do not appear to describe a flaw in the product. I watched a bit from one of the crash compilations and would describe every crash I saw as rider error. Many of them were attempting stunts, holding cameras while riding, or both. It may be easy to make such errors, but the same could be said of a unicycle, skateboard, BMX bike, or any of many other vehicles generally seen as safe enough for sale t…

Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing. It's dangerous to some degree, but enough for a recall seems over the top. Just the statement itself seems unusually targeted. First they came for the magnets, now the uniboards?

I think at least part of the difference is that this is a single company that is building, selling and supporting this product. They go out of their way to hold their dominance and not allow for competition and thus improvement of products. The CEO says as much so in his video and in a lot of ways is using safety and control as an excuse for this. Since that is the case, they should own it and provide a product that doesn't randomly lock up as well as have a whole bunch of well documented electrical / construction / design problems.

Imagine that there was only one company that made skis.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#273

Post by Zak »

fn-mote wrote: post #264
Supermancho wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing. It's dangerous to some degree, but enough for a recall seems over the top. Just the statement itself seems unusually targeted. First they came for the magnets, now the uniboards?

> Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing. The only meaningful comparison would be a _rate_, not total number of injuries. Google says there are 40 skiing deaths per year in the US. It would be very easy to believe there are 100x more people skiing than uniboarding. This passes my back of the envelope test for "dangerous". If you've got better numbers, I'll list…

My take on it is that if it's no more dangerous than the term "20+ MPH electrically-driven skateboard/unicycle hybrid" sounds, then it's perfectly fine to market it to adults.

That sounds kind of dangerous to me. If I was going to ride one, I'd be sure I was wearing a helmet, knee pads, and elbow pads. I'd ride it in a very controlled space free of obstacles, uneven surfaces, and unpredictable road users until I mastered controlling it. I'd step up that safety gear a notch if I was attempting stunts.

Some people aren't that careful, but as long as they're injuring themselves rather than others, it does not strike me as grounds for a recall.

Edit: the wheel locking randomly or unpredictably certainly would be grounds for a recall, but the linked Youtube search doesn't show that, at least not without watching a couple hours of video.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#274

Post by ars »

mint2 wrote: post #258
ars wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using an e-bike on a road with some ripples (I guess they messed up during paving). I was thrown off of the bike, and my helmet prevented any serious injury. I wasn't even going very fast. The only solution to that (and the potholes) is larger wheels.

Did you bike much before? My impression of road biking and really any biking is that one eye has to be constantly glued to the road surface while the other eye watches for non-surface obstacles

The ripples are invisible - even knowing they are there I can't see them at night. I just know from memory to avoid that spot.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#275

Post by ars »

jeffbee wrote: post #200
kube-system wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smaller tires and rotating assemblies with less mass are more susceptible to uneven pavement. For example, a vehicle like a motorcycle or even a motor scooter will be able to handle imperfections on city streets more easily. If you got a bigger gyroscope under your butt, you're harder to knock over. Bicycles tend to go with smaller and less massive wheels, because it decreases rider effort required to spin them up, a…

Just to make sure we're on the same page: the answer to my question is "nothing", right?

I suspect a regular bike would also have a hard time (my car shakes like crazy going over that spot), but the e-bike has much smaller wheels (about half the size of a bike), and that made it much much worse.

In my city they rent out these scooters with tiny wheels and people are only allowed to use them on the road. Those ripples are at the bottom of a nice downhill, and if anyone were to hit them on the scooter they'd probably go flying. I just fell hard.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#276

Post by MivLives »

alden5 wrote: post #3

onewheels suffer from a problem known as nosediving in which the board shuts off when it can't supply enough power to support the rider, as the board is self balancing this is a problem intrinsic to the board's form factor. The board works in a similar fashion to balancing something like an umbrella on your hand, as the rider leans forward it creates an imbalance that requires the board to accelerate in order to keep…

Glad the newer ones are more aggressive. I've pushed an XR to 24 on flat and at that point you're just using your own balance and praying nothing is in the road. This whole nosedive thing where "Is this Future Motion Fault or someone idiot trying to ride faster then allowed" is the big thing preventing a recall I suspect.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#277

Post by MivLives »

skellera wrote: post #223
ksbrooksjr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently some users have attached smaller wheels to the front of the Onewheel that engage during a nosedive [1]. I wonder how effective these are at preventing injury. [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/onewheel/comments/903wnj/diy_antino...

It gives you another split second to recover. If you aren’t expecting it or just don’t have the body control for it, you’ll probably still go down.

That split second could be all I need to jump for grass instead of pavement. I've seen people intentionally ride the nose so it's likely something that they should just integrate into the thing.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#278

Post by sleepybrett »

fn-mote wrote: post #264
Supermancho wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing. It's dangerous to some degree, but enough for a recall seems over the top. Just the statement itself seems unusually targeted. First they came for the magnets, now the uniboards?

> Not even 4 deaths a year, I have to say this is still a magnitude safer than swimming or skiing. The only meaningful comparison would be a _rate_, not total number of injuries. Google says there are 40 skiing deaths per year in the US. It would be very easy to believe there are 100x more people skiing than uniboarding. This passes my back of the envelope test for "dangerous". If you've got better numbers, I'll list…

Yeah future motion cites bicycle deaths vs onewheel deaths. As if bicycles are not used to cover many many orders of magnitudes more miles traveled. Even with that we should be talking about bicycle deaths caused by a bicycle hardware fail, not being hit by a non-attentive driver.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#279

Post by MivLives »

js2 wrote: post #10
aksss wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good summary. I would just add that "can't supply enough power" is a state the board can enter into either in lower battery levels or (more often) when a rider has put their center of mass too far forward, causing the board to work harder to stay under them, while also moving at a higher rate of speed or accelerating - the board can't give enough power to maintain this. Pushback is to be respected, but the user can a…

When I was a teenager I rode my skateboard down a parking lot ramp when I realized I was going way too fast, was about to enter the street and the only way to bail was to jump off and run. It looked about like that video. I didn’t realize these one wheels have top speeds of 16-20 mph. That’s faster than most people can sprint. 16 mph is a 3:45 mile. 20 is a 3:00 mile. > we're lucky to enjoy them before the nannies st…

A lot of the older guys I've seen on these are generally wearing motorcycle pads under their jackets/other clothing.

Even doing it as a 27 year old I hit the ground going twenty, I was sore for a week plus afterwards. I hit the ground and just rolled out the energy. Had a friend break my helmet testing mine out so I consider myself lucky.

Re: CPSC calls for full recall of all Onewheel self-balancing electric skateboards

#280

Post by MivLives »

arglebargle123 wrote: post #68
1attice wrote: post #8

With thunderstorms, you count seconds 'twixt bolt and boom. With the current golden age of electrified last-mile transport, we're seeing the gap between innovation and regulation opening up wide -- now several years. Real-world impact: I routinely get up to speeds on my e-bike that are, quite simply, dangerous. It's not that I never hit 25 miles an hour on my old road bike, it's that I spend so much more time hanging…

Another commenter posted about this in a separate top level comment already but it's worth mentioning here as well since you mention speed. The people who routinely hit 25+mph on a regular road bike know how to handle one at those speeds, many ebike riders simply don't have the handling skills or the experience to ride safely (for themselves and others) at speed.

Honestly I think the cap most people can handle is 15. After that is when things start getting much harder to deal with.
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