EcoDrift's 2018 service statistics (failure rate by brand and model)

[trya]

Here is the translation of @EcoDrift's post on the Russian forum (https://electrotransport.ru/ussr/index.php?topic=56996.msg1513153#msg1513153)
I took a liberty of translating and re-posting here, as this might be a very valuable resource for forum users.

Summary:

 1. Failure rate. Only electrical and electronic issues are counted (flat tires and mechanical damages are ignored). Side notes are from Ecodrift. Gotway is not represented because Ecodrift didn’t sell it in 2018

Inmotion:

V3 - 25%

V5 - 16%

V5F - 10,84%

V8 - 8,74% very decent result for the most popular wheel, especially considering that failure rate for batteries and controllers was only 5%

V10 - 45% total disaster

V10F - 8,5% same as for V8

 

KingSong:

14b - 7,79% small amount of sales in 2018

14M - 5,04% very good result for a budget wheel

14D, DS - 6,77%

16S - 8,11%

18a - 19,44% mostly from 2017, there were almost no sales in 2018

18S - 21,15% mostly from 2017, there were almost no sales in 2018

18L, XL - 6,41% might be a misleading result: in some cases controllers were exchanged when it was not required. Many units sold, but still the wheel could have been more polished.

 

Ninebot:

Z6 - 33,35% they used to say “smart BMS”.... oh, well

Z10 - 19,15% they used to say “hall sensors are doubled”... oh, well

 

2. Falure rate for controllers and hall sensors

Inmotion:

V3 - 7,5%

V5 - 10%

V5F - 7,88%

V8 - 5,12%

V10 - 25% disaster...

V10F - 5,88%

 

KingSong:

14b - 5,19%

14M - 3,6% the best result

14D, DS - 3,701%

16S - 5,04%

18a - 8,33%

18S - 17,31% disaster

18L, XL - 5,34%

 

Ninebot:

Z6 - 9,52%

Z10 - 12,77%

 

3. Batteries and BMS

Inmotion:

V3 - 12,5%

V5 - 3%

V5F - 0,99%

V8 - 0,64%

V10 - 10% don’t use Chinese cells in the high-end wheels

V10F - 1,96%

 

KingSong:

14b - 1,36%

14M - 1,08%

14D, DS - 2,26%

16S - 1,97%

18a - 5,56%

18S - 3,85%

18L, XL - 0,71%

 

Ninebot:

Z6 - 23,81%

Z10 - 6,38%

 

Final conclusions.

1. Inmotion is in a good shape for leading wheels with 8-11% failure rate, especially considering that with controllers and hall sensors it is only 5-8%. Quite good.

As to the batteries – Inmotion is OK except the disaster with V10 Chinese cells. Bad choice.

V5F, V8, V10F remain to be hits.

2. Kingsong. All is well. Failure rate for leading models is 5-9%. 14М  is a winner for reliability. For controllers and hall sensors failures are down to 3-6%. This is slightly less than Inmotion.

Kudos to 14В, 14М, 14D,DS, 16S, 18L,XL.

Separate notes about 18L, XL. Sorry tha all first buyers were essentially beta-testers and deficiencies were being removed on-the-fly. Now these wheels seem to be reliable, but it is not guaranteed.

3. Ninebot. See for yourself. I expect the worst in spring and summer when those who bought them late 2018 will actually start using them.

[meepmeepmayer]

These numbers all aren't pretty. Even 5% is one in twenty. I'm wondering if the Chinese somehow sell lower quality wheels to the Russian market vs. the Western market? "Chinese cells" for example.

4 hours ago, trya said:

Gotway is not represented because Ecodrift didn’t sell it in 2018

Just when the Gotway models with the best electronics of all wheels were released. But I can see where they were coming from. Hopefully they can start selling GW again.

[trya]

1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

These numbers all aren't pretty. Even 5% is one in twenty. I'm wondering if the Chinese somehow sell lower quality wheels to the Russian market vs. the Western market? "Chinese cells" for example.

I don't think so. In fact, Ecodrift has quite strong relationships with the manufacturers, as far as I know. 

As to the numbers, it'd be interesting to hear @Jason McNeil's comments and notes about his own experience.

1 hour ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Hopefully they can start selling GW again.

Judging by the fact that they are testing Nikola - it is possible, I think.

[Afeez Kay]

7 hours ago, trya said:

I don't think so. In fact, Ecodrift has quite strong relationships with the manufacturers, as far as I know. 

As to the numbers, it'd be interesting to hear @Jason McNeil's comments and notes about his own experience.

Judging by the fact that they are testing Nikola - it is possible, I think.

NineBot One Z really are not doing good at all. Those failure rate May even go higher. @Marty Backe @houseofjob @Jason McNeil @RoberAce 

[Jason McNeil]

14 hours ago, trya said:

As to the numbers, it'd be interesting to hear @Jason McNeil's comments and notes about his own experience.

With the new-improved board architecture introduced in the later part of 2018, EcoDrift will be offering Gotway again, it will be interesting to see how these holdup in their statistical view; for us, the MSX, MCM5, MTen3, Tesla have been superb. 

Some observations: 

• 14M, this is really a low-end product, 16 cells, <20kph, the low failure rate with this Wheel is probably owing to the fact that it's not stressed nearly so much with lighter less aggressive Riders. 
• V10, maybe they got hit with an early bad batch. Our experience is not nearly so bad for this model, though we ordered just 30x of these. There has not been any further information about what, if any, improvements there has been to the V10/V10F. Holding off on future orders until these are addressed. 
• At a functional level, King Song & Gotway are much more responsive & adaptable to making improvements. Our experience with the Z10 is not nearly as severe as EcoDrift's, its clear that Ninebot have a significant degree of organizational dysfunction. 

[Nic]

We don't know the sample size for those failure rates, so they may not be representative. Failure rates should go down as improvements are made to later batches based to defect reports. Really, I would hope that 1% or less failure  would be the norm, but not so. Must be eating into profits. This is what happens when market is small and it is difficult to justify extended development and testing before committing to production. At least all these manufacturers are implementing fixes pretty quickly across the board.

[RockyTop]

Keep in mind that the crazy fast wheels have more crazy riders on them doing more crazy things resulting in more fried components. ..... Crazy, I Know, ...Right? 

[Smoother]

When one thinks of all the times we throw our wheels down the road after dismounting (especially while learning), it's a wonder they work at all.  Take your average transistor radio and throw it down the road 5 or 6 times and see if the circuit board has survived.  Probably not.  Our circuit board are hard mounted to the wheel shell by necessity, so every shock is transmitted directly to the board. 

Actually, come to think of it, is it really necessary to mount the board so rigidly to the shell?  Surely a semi rigid mount (that still accurately follows the movement of the shell) would still function normally and reduce the severity of shocks felt by the board. 

I'm thinking something like double sided foam tape. A little cushion but nothing that allows the orientation of the board to differ from that of the shell.  Think of it like this.  rap a knuckle on a hard surface, now place an unfolded towel on the surface and do it again.  feel, or imagine the difference of the severity of the shock?

[Marty Backe]

1 hour ago, Smoother said:

When one thinks of all the times we throw our wheels down the road after dismounting (especially while learning), it's a wonder they work at all.  Take your average transistor radio and throw it down the road 5 or 6 times and see if the circuit board has survived.  Probably not.  Our circuit board are hard mounted to the wheel shell by necessity, so every shock is transmitted directly to the board. 

Actually, come to think of it, is it really necessary to mount the board so rigidly to the shell?  Surely a semi rigid mount (that still accurately follows the movement of the shell) would still function normally and reduce the severity of shocks felt by the board. 

I'm thinking something like double sided foam tape. A little cushion but nothing that allows the orientation of the board to differ from that of the shell.  Think of it like this.  rap a knuckle on a hard surface, now place an unfolded towel on the surface and do it again.  feel, or imagine the difference of the severity of the shock?

I have my doubts that this would work. When one or more control board mounting screws become just a little bit lose, the wheel will start vibrating a little when riding it. This low-level vibration is actually a good indicator that the control board is getting loose within the wheel.

Therefore, I think the boards need to be tightly secured to the shell in order that the wheels can give us the finely tuned responses to our body inputs.

Properly designed electronics can operate under severe vibration. I work in the Aerospace industry. Satellites survive the rocket launch to orbit all of the time and they don't incorporate cushioning for the electronics. Granted, our EUC boards are not exactly designed to Aerospace standards, so it is a wonder that they work through all the abuse that they get.

[Smoother]

3 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I have my doubts that this would work. When one or more control board mounting screws become just a little bit lose, the wheel will start vibrating a little when riding it. This low-level vibration is actually a good indicator that the control board is getting loose within the wheel.

Therefore, I think the boards need to be tightly secured to the shell in order that the wheels can give us the finely tuned responses to our body inputs.

Properly designed electronics can operate under severe vibration. I work in the Aerospace industry. Satellites survive the rocket launch to orbit all of the time and they don't incorporate cushioning for the electronics. Granted, our EUC boards are not exactly designed to Aerospace standards, so it is a wonder that they work through all the abuse that they get.

Yes but a loose screw in a system designed around tight screws, is a fault.  A full perimeter of foam double sided tape would not be a fault, it would BEthe system.  If you use foam tape to stick a rectangular plate to a flat surface, all around the edge, it wont vibrate, or be loose.  It will follow the surface faithfully.  I have ridden over many a rough surface (as have you) that shakes the crap out of the wheel and by default, the board.  The shaking isn't the problem, its the disentanglement of the shaking, that of the board and the wheel.  If the tape stays in place, there is no disentanglement.  Hey, its just a theory.  I just so happen to need to re-install a board in my wheel when it gets back here from Poland.  Maybe I'll take the opportunity to test my theory.  It would also make a reassuring seal over the hole that allows for cooling, in the wheel well.

EDIT "Properly designed electronics can operate under severe vibration".  Whose version of "properly" is used when designing and building EUC control boards?   After all, this isn't the hairospace industry.

[Joker10]

Are these statistics for failures on wheels that were new and non functional on arrival or failures in general regardless of age/use.

[trya]

3 hours ago, Joker10 said:

Are these statistics for failures on wheels that were new and non functional on arrival or failures in general regardless of age/use.

I believe these are all for wheels sold in 2018, in other words these are all warranty cases, both DOA and after-sales.