It has been a while since I've provided an update as, for the most part, my Emax Sport electric scooter has been performing just fine. I've been riding it regularly for about 14 months now to and from work pretty much every work day (a round trip of just over 10 kms). It had been operating fine until about a month ago when the trouble started.

Emax battery charger failure

One night as usual after a couple of days riding (25.1 kms by my log below), I put the scooter on charge when I got home at about 7:30pm. I did not think anything of it until the next morning when I awoke to a pungent sulfer smell wafting through the bedroom window from outside. Rushing outside I discovered that the source of the smell was my electric scooter! Panic!!

At this point I noticed that the fan and red light on the charger were still on - for whatever reason it had not switched itself off (i.e. green light/no fan). Further investigation revealed that the source of the acrid odor was indeed the batteries inside the scooter, which made an audible bubbling noise and were enormously hot, even when the charger was disconnected. I could only imagine what permanent damage this charger failure has caused to the batteries!

Battery destruction causes massively reduced range

Following the boiling battery incident, the bike seemed to work ok, however I noticed that the range had been massively reduced. One particular route I was previously able to do involved a journey from my work place in Bentley (5 kms), then a lunchtime ride to South Perth (18 kms return), back home again (5 kms), and another return trip to work the next day (10 kms - for a total of about 38 kms between charges).

I attempted to make this journey again after the boiled battery incident, only to have the scooter die suddenly on the way back from South Perth, whereby I had to limp home at 30 kph and take a taxi back to work! Since then I've not been able to use the turbo function at all, as this kills the range more than anything (which has made it hazardous to ride in traffic) and I've had to charge much more often just to maintain a usable speed.

Furthermore, the charger failed again two more times, after which I decided I could no longer trust the charger, and am now manually turning off the charger before I go to bed (after about 3-4 hours charging) to prevent another recurrence and further battery destruction.

Batteries replaced under warranty

After the third battery boil incident I have been barely able to make a single return trip to work (about 10 kms) between charges. With this limited range the scooter is now barely usable for me, so I decided to take it back to EMC to get it fixed.

Fortunately, the Emax Sport is sold with a 2 year/20,000 km warranty so this is fully covered. The EMC guys were aware of the problem and are sorting out some replacement batteries which should get me back on the road again soon. It is disturbing however that such a failure should occur after only 3,600 kms and one years of use. They have also taken the charger back under warranty so I am hoping that when I get it back there are no more problems like this.