How we research this

What we do not do

We do not ride, bench-test or lab-test electric scooters. Kick & Volt has no test program, no test rig and no fleet of purchased scooters. We have never measured a range figure, a top speed or a stopping distance, and you will not find a sentence anywhere on this site claiming otherwise.

That is unusual to say out loud in this category. Nearly every competitor leads with a testing claim — miles ridden, models purchased, years in the saddle. Some of those claims are entirely genuine. Some are attached to pages that read like desk research. Either way, a reader has no way to verify them.

We also never present a manufacturer’s claim as a verified measurement. Every figure on this site is labeled as one or the other, and the label is generated from our source registry rather than typed by hand, so it cannot be forgotten on an individual page.

What we do instead

1. Collect the manufacturer’s published specification. Range, speed, weight, payload, motor, brakes, IP rating.
2. Find whatever a named third party actually measured for that model, from publications that buy and ride the scooters they write about.
3. Put the two side by side, labeled, in the same table.
4. Cite and link every source, with the date we read it. Specs and prices decay; an undated number is a number you cannot check.
5. Write “Not published” where no figure exists. Never estimate, never interpolate, never round a manufacturer number and present it as real-world.

This is a librarian’s job rather than a tester’s, and we think it is a genuinely useful one. Nobody else in this category has consolidated the claimed-versus-measured picture into one scannable place — which is what our flagship page does.

Why this is worth reading

Because the gap between the claim and the measurement is large, systematic and in one direction. Across twelve scooters ridden until they shut down, real range averaged 71% of the advertised figure — best 90%, worst 53%, and not one exceeded its claim.

A reader who knows that can plan. A reader who does not buys a 40-mile scooter for a 35-mile round trip and gets stranded on day one. Telling you which number is which is the entire product.

The scoring rubric, in full

Scores on this site are not impressions — we have no impressions, because we have not ridden anything. They are computed from the published specifications by the formulas below. An axis with no data is dropped from the average rather than filled in with a guess, and the remaining weights are renormalized.

You can check any score on the site by applying these formulas to the figures in that model’s table. If the arithmetic does not come out, tell us — that is a bug, and we will fix it and say so.

How a product gets on a list

Three conditions, all of them required:

• It is currently sold. A discontinued model on a round-up wastes a reader’s time, and it is the fastest way to lose trust in this category.
• It has at least one independently measured figure. No measurement, no listing. That is why some well-known scooters are absent — not because they are bad, but because we have nothing to show you.
• It genuinely fits the page. We do not pad a round-up to hit a number. A five-model list where all five belong beats a ten-model list with five filler entries.

Commission plays no part in ordering. In several cases on this site the product we rank first is the cheapest one on the page.

How we handle missing data

Badly, from a certain point of view: our tables are full of holes. Brake type is unpublished for about a third of the models in our registry, and IP rating for nearly half.

We leave those holes visible, marked “Not published”. The alternative — quietly substituting the manufacturer’s figure, or an estimate, or nothing at all — would make the tables look tidier and would make them lies. An absence is information: it tells you what to ask a seller before you buy.

Where we do estimate, we say so in the same sentence. Applying the category’s measured 71% average to a model’s claimed range produces an estimate derived from other scooters’ test results, and every page that does it labels it that way.

Who we rely on

Independent testers — publications that buy the scooters and measure them. These are the figures we label “Measured”:

• eRideHero — Runs its own range, speed and braking tests on scooters it buys, and publishes the measured numbers next to the advertised ones. Read September 27, 2026.
• eRideHero — eRideHero's payload-segmented test results, 265 lb through 500 lb. Read September 27, 2026.
• eRideHero — eRideHero's reference guide to scooter brake hardware. Read September 27, 2026.
• Rider Guide — Long-running electric-ride publication that rides the scooters it ranks and prints street prices alongside its figures. Read September 27, 2026.
• Rider Guide — Rider Guide's seated and moped-style round-up, with listed prices. Read September 27, 2026.
• Rider Guide — A twelve-model claimed-versus-tested range study — the single most useful public dataset in this category. Read September 27, 2026.
• ScooterGearLab — Aggregates other testers' range measurements and leads with the gap between claimed and real. Read September 26, 2026.
• Electric Scooter Guide — Independent reference guide to IP ratings as applied to scooters. Read September 27, 2026.
• Electric Scooter Insider — Independent publication that buys and performance-tests the scooters it reviews. Read September 26, 2026.

Manufacturers — useful for specifications and engineering guidance, and always labeled “Claim” because every one of them also has a scooter to sell:

• Levy Electric — Scooter maker's reference page on gradeability. Treated as a vendor claim. Read September 27, 2026.
• Hiboy — Scooter maker's hill-gradient explainer. Treated as a vendor claim. Read September 27, 2026.
• Hiboy — Unusually candid manufacturer page listing the lab conditions behind advertised range figures. Read September 27, 2026.
• NAVEE — Scooter maker's uphill-performance explainer. Treated as a vendor claim. Read September 27, 2026.
• NAVEE — Scooter maker's heavy-rider guide, recommending its own models. Read September 27, 2026.
• Zwheel — Scooter maker's gradient guide. Treated as a vendor claim. Read September 27, 2026.
• Unagi — Scooter maker's IP-rating explainer, notable for saying plainly that no scooter is truly waterproof. Read September 26, 2026.

Links to these publications are ordinary followed links. Nofollowing the people whose measurements we depend on would undercut the whole proposition.

Prices

We do not publish live prices. Our price layer exists and is wired up, but it currently has no data feed, so every buy button reads “Check price on Amazon” rather than showing a number that might be weeks stale.

Where we mention a price in prose — “a listed $699” — it is what a dated source showed when we read that page, labeled as such, and it is never presented as the current price. Check the retailer before you buy.

When pages change

Product picks are re-checked quarterly and sourced figures twice a year. The modified date on a page changes only when the content actually changed — bumping it to look fresh is a way of lying about freshness, and we do not do it. The full cadence and correction policy is on our editorial policy page.

Who writes this

Every page is written by Ryder M., who runs the research process described above. Magoo Media Group publishes the site. There is no editorial board, no panel of experts and no contributor network — one person, doing the reading, and saying so.

More on that in about Kick & Volt.

If we get something wrong

Tell us. A figure that does not match its source, a discontinued product still on a list, a broken link, a score that does not follow the rubric — all of it is worth reporting, and we would rather hear it from you than not. Send us a correction and we will fix it and log what changed.