Pneumatic Tires Vs Solid Tires (Electric Scooters)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 มิ.ย. 2024
- In this video I briefly compare pneumatic tires and solid tires for electric scooters. Air filled tires are more traditional and common, but solid tires are a viable alternative for electric scooters.
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Pneumatic tires are one of the greatest inventions in transport period.
Solid tires are ONLY better at not getting flat but air is a lot more then just comfort, they conform to the surface you ride on providing greater contact patch and grip which means safety. Go ahead and ride your solid tired scooter in the rain and take a corner, or try stopping.
This is the reason that nearly every vehicle with wheels uses air filled tires, the performance vastly outweighs the inconvenience ofr a flat. Air tires are also adjustable, lower the air for more grip or increase for better rolling on smooth tarmac. Oh, thats another plus for air, rolling resistance is far better with air as its does not fight with the surface it consorms to it.
If you are worried about flats add some sealant.
You forgot to mention that there are puncture-resistant tires. So thats the right choice for the ones worried about getting their tires flat.
you can literally just get suspension to solve the comfort issue. As someone who bikes alot, I've been stranded too many times to the point where I now hate air tires.
@@painexotic3757 Well. Slime is your best friend then. I have been using slime on my tires and problem solved. The issue with suspension is the added a lot of weight to the scooter so if you want to carry on your scooter to many places that extra weight is something.
Have had over a dozen flats with air filled tires on my Apollo City in the first year I got it in 2021. Half a dozen last year before I took it off the road last spring because the battery gave out. A couple times I had flats within a week apart. My scooter was off the road waiting for replacement tubes and tires more than it was on the road. No fun getting a flat on your way to work or home, miles from your destination. Tried the sealant, didn't work. Doesn't matter how cautious I have tried to be in riding, That scooter is a flat magnet. Even though I had become fairly proficient in changing tires (thanks to the number of flats), it was still a time consuming chore.
Meanwhile my now 7 year old Glion Dolly with solid wheels is still running on it's original wheels (and battery) and I use it often with no problems. It had become my backup scooter when the Apollo was down, and now it is back to being my main scooter. It is not as fast or smooth as the Apollo, but it gets me where I need to go with confidence, and without the anxiety and dread I get every time I see the smallest piece of glass or debris on the road.
The next scooter I purchase will have dual motors and solid tires.
As long as I’m making money with DoorDash on my scooter with solid tires, I don’t mind slowing down when I see big bumps coming. My feet ain’t made out of glass and neither is the rest of my body. The ride isn’t so much less comfortable that I can’t ride and make money. Hardly rains out here in Arizona so don’t have to worry about that.
The problem with air filled tires isn’t getting a flat, fixing it is the pain the ass.
F*king facts my dude! 💯
Sucks all day long.
Had to cut my tire off it was that hard to get off
@@aeneasferguson8394 your comment is 17 mins old. This means you're still emotionally wrecked over the nightmare that is your life right now. 😆
This!! Lmao you gotta take out the nuts, the screws, the brake discs, more screws then the motor then the wheel then the tube, to do it all over again every week spending time and money like 20$ a week or so
imagine bringing these on vacation when you're 400 miles from home and the first day you get a flat. Vacay ruined.
Have had over a dozen flats with air filled tires on my Apollo City in the first year I got it in 2021. Half a dozen last year before I took it off the road last spring because the battery gave out. A couple times had flats within a week apart. My scooter was off the road waiting for replacement tubes and tires more than it was on the road. No fun getting a flat on your way to work or home, miles from your destination. Tried the sealant, didn't work. Doesn't matter how cautious I have tried to be in riding, That scooter is a flat magnet. Even though I had become fairly proficient in changing tires (thanks to the number of flats), it was still a time consuming chore.
Meanwhile my now 7 year old Glion Dolly with solid wheels is still running on it's original wheels (and battery) and I use it often with no problems. It had become my backup scooter when the Apollo was down, and now it is back to being my main scooter. It is not as fast or smooth as the Apollo, but it gets me where I need to go with confidence, and without the anxiety and dread I get every time I see the smallest piece of glass or debris on the road.
The next scooter I purchase will have dual motors and solid tires.
What have you found for dual motor and solid tire so far? Any good ones that you like? I'm looking for the same thing
@@billybibbit9146 Hiley Tiger Pro T8. Bought it last year. It has been great so far.
- Dual 8" Solid Tires.
- Dual Motors 600w each. 1200w total
- Swing arm suspension.
- 28mph top speed (Definitely faster than the Apollo City)
- More than 25 miles range from my experience.
- Far superior acceleration than the Apollo when in dual motor mode. Possibly even in single motor mode as well.
- Not much heavier than the Apollo and folds down pretty tight. Certainly fits in the trunk.
Best part, it was at least $100 cheaper than the Apollo City.
While I am still a little early in the game, this is what I have come up with:
Air in the front, airless in the back. My scooter came with tubeless "puncture resistant" tires and front and rear suspension. These tires are really thick, but are ultimately pneumatic tires. I have pulled out tonnes of debris from the front tire without it ever going down. Great, there is something to being a thick "puncture resistant" tire. Now the back tire, that always was going down. Tried tire sealants. Slime helped some, but ultimately just sprayed out of the tire and it didn't take long before the tire couldn't hold Slime anymore. Tried Stan's NoTubes Tire Sealant. That was working better, but being on the hot rear wheel with the hub motor riding around in triple digit temperatures, often with a strong headwind while on blistering hot asphalt, well that quickly clumped up in the tire. No problem, just dump more in, right? Well then while riding around a homeless person taking up the whole sidewalk with his stuff and spilling out into the street, I ended up with a rusty nail going through the bottom of the rear tire and out the sidewall. Even Stan's NoTubes Tire Sealant wasn't up to the task of plugging a huge hole in the sidewall. Instead, it just sprayed out.
So now I still have the pneumatic tire in the front and an airless honeycomb tire in the back. The honeycomb tire definitely rides different, especially as the tire gets hot, but it is working out so far. Especially with front and rear suspension, I end up riding the scooter just the same as before, but now I don't seem to be getting any flats. I think the honeycomb shape is particularly interesting for providing some shock absorption. I mean not all airless tires are the same and you certainly don't want a tire that is truly solid. The range of the scooter is still perfectly good and always was plenty.
As a side note on battery life, the typical Lithium-ion chemistry used does not like being fully charged. While I can't set a hard limit to charge on this scooter like you can with a Tesla car using the same battery chemistry, I try to limit the time the scooter battery is fully charged and I try to avoid excessive topping off of the battery. If you know the battery has adequate range left, let it run down some as opposed to plugging in every time you get somewhere. For example I ride in into work from mass transit, I ride around at lunch, and then I ride it back to mass transit. On most days, I don't plug in the scooter during the day. Maybe on Friday if I want to cruise around a nice bike path somewhere after work I will plug it in during the day, but that is it. Then it is slow charged overnight. Even though I can use two chargers and fast charge, my goal is to limit the time it is fully charged, so I don't do that. If I am not going to ride for a few days, then I try to leave the scooter at 50% charge. Granted, it has sat for days at a time at 100% charge when things haven't gone to plan, but another reason I have been modifying the scooter for improved overall reliability, so I am not killing the battery by leaving it 100% charged when my plan to ride didn't work out due to a problem with the scooter. I ended up doing a little experiment with a laptop with the same battery chemistry that both had an external slice battery and an internal battery using the same battery cells from the same company bought at the same time. The slice battery got the 100% to 0% treatment and was toast within a year. My usage patterns changed around the time the slice battery died and so for the whole useful life of the laptop more or less, I ended up using the internal battery from between 86% to often 50%, sometimes 40% and rarely ever below 30%. The battery was still like new several years later when the laptop finally became too obsolete and I had to get a new one. It is unfortunate that more scooters don't use LFP batteries as I have had these go over a decade now (I got this chemistry all the way back in 2009 when they were hard to get) and you can charge these to 100% and use them over and over for over a decade and they just keep going. Recent advancements have made them a competitor in density with the Lithium Manganese-Cobalt batteries we are used to seeing in scooters today and their density never was that bad.
As I combine the scooter with mass transit, I come across other scooter riders on the mass transit systems all the time and share tips with them. Flat tires on just the rear is a common theme. So yeah, at least need an airless tire on the back if this is going to be a commuter scooter and needs to be reliable. I have heard other stories of people going solid tire and no suspension and then their scooter breaks in half on the rough roads around where I work and this leads to substantial injuries as there is just no way to go down without getting hurt when this just happens out of the blue as you speed along over rough roads trying to get somewhere. So I consider the extra space and weight of suspension worth while. While I don't have to do much in the way of hill climbing to go to work, where I live, there are hills all around. My single motor scooter just doesn't climb hills well even though that was supposed to be a selling point of the scooter. While I am within the weight limit of the scooter, I am a big rider and while I don't doubt the numbers they give for the standard case test rider who is half my size, this is supposed to be a big person specific scooter and well it doesn't work that way for the target audience. Really, there needs to be more dual motor scooters, especially if the target audience is big and tall. More height and mass needs more power to move around effectively. And part of more power is more cooling surface area. This scooter will have power decrease as I ride along, especially up hills, probably because that one motor trying to move all of this draggy tall mass around is just getting too dang hot and has to be throttled back to prevent damage. Two motors would be twice the cooling surface area and half the work per motor and so would work out a lot better. Especially if you want a faster scooter, that takes a lot more power to do and so cooling is a major issue that needs to be addressed with the scooter design.
I THINK TUBELESSS ARE THE WAY TO GO.
I THINK THEY ARE A BETTER RIDE BUT MIGHT BE A BETTER CHOICE FOR SOME
PEOPLE.
TUBELESS TIRES WORK BETTER IN WET
CONDITIONS.
Since I flew over the handlebar after my air tire popped, I've been looking forward to replacing it with an airless one.
i nearly did this at 30km/h yesterday and now i dont want air tires
Who has time in their day to write comments as long as some of these about scooter tires
🗿
None of these comments are super long
Some have companies and are passionate
Thanks for the vid 👍
I have two scooters that are both down with flats. Tons of issues switching out and finding the right size tubes with the correct valve stems. Currently waiting on solid tires to arrive to get them back up and running.
Good info
The only con for air filled tires are they can leak and go flat. Solid tires have multiple cons such as, less grip, way rougher ride, hard as hell to install and are more expensive then just buying a tube or patch kit for $5
I use a Pneumatic on front and a solid at the rear as the back is the one always puncturating...
Money and maintenance every week. Think about that vs bumps but anyways what’s the best medium?
Solid tires only for me…. On my commuting bicycle, I’m constantly dodging broken glass & flats are inevitable….. gonna happen
I agree. Funny how often you see reviewers reviewing these in well maintained sidewalks, and roads. Arizona is a different beast when it comes to using anything but a car for transportation. Solid tires were a game changer for me. Our state has spiky cacti 🌵 everywhere and they’re always shedding their spikes. Many streets don’t get cleaned up so there’s also lots of construction crew garbage on the streets like nails, bolts, screws, broken wood, etc. I’d rather deal with a bumpy ride than with constantly checking my tires air pressure and replacing them.
Any suggestions for replacement tires for mine or f40?
What's the difference for tire wear in miles on the 2 tire types like how many miles can you expect to get before just being worn out and needing to replace
Good suspension front or rear. Solid. Top end fast scooters, pneumatic.
👍
have the Varla Pegasus otw, will be my first experience with solid tires but the suspension seems decent
That'll be interesting, haven't tried the solid tire + suspension combo. If you're going fast with solid tires though you definitely need the suspension.
@@TheScooterSpot it goes 30mph 54kmh ish from what I’ve seen, 48v 15.6ah dual 500w 1600w peak, so it’s right in the middle of my scooters as far as speed… not too fast but wide solid 8 inch tires as opposed to the 10” pneumatic on my other 3. Strictly a street scooter due to the solids but it should be fun to rip around on betweeen scoots
well solid tyres transmit vibrations not only to you it will affect overtime electrical components from the scooter
Bull.. i passed 2000 miles on my solid tyres. No issues.
Source?
I’m 800 miles in on the varla Pegasus after 6 weeks. The key is suspension. The roughness of the tires doesn’t matter at all when you’re bouncing on a scooter that feels like a mini trampoline, the ride quality is insanely good and smooth but also bouncy
@@Gargantuan69 it's like none of these people have heard of suspension. Solid tires + suspension are the way to go.
@Stezika15 sounds like you have cheap chinese suspension lmao.
get solid tires + front or back suspension = problem solved. Barely any maintenance. I hate air filled tires as someone who bikes alot.. I've been stranded 2-3 times because of my bike tires popping and having to walk home or to the stores to replace my tires. It sucks so bad. So now i'm investing in a solid tire escooter!
Same here. Looking at a couple of those dual motor solid tire scooters.
Why would you walk just because the tire is flat? I've probably driven a flat tire for 30km before replacing it. It's not like anything will happen, apart from the battery draining faster. But personally I couldn't care any less. The escooter tires are thick enough to not damage the rim when driving on a flat tire, so it's just less cushioned.
@@StuermischeTage I'm talking about flat bike tires. It's nearly impossible to ride a bike when it's flat, esp if you don't want to damage the wheels and cause the metal to scrape up. Not sure about a scooter but my own experience with flat bike tires has made me weary of air tires so I only use solid tires for my scooter.
For offroading I would rather have solid tires as they are better for the enviornment around you because air tires could pop if u hit something in the trail and that would suck.
Solid tyres (honeycombed) are the way for me 💯🔥👍
Give you a bumpy ride?
@@TheMoises1213 if you get front or back suspension, no. Also if you ride somewhere with smooth sidewalks, no.
how long does it take for the solid tires to wear down?
@@zerobob8586 Depends on the quality of the rubber, how often you ride, and what you're riding on. Usually lasts between 2-4 years if you ride multiple times a week. But the tires are usually dirt cheap anyway for only $20-25 for a good set.
@@thelonercoder5816 I just purchased one will see, Good to no I wont have flats
Are there shops like for cars that specialize in fixing scooter flats?
I always hear about the ride quality as the main factor of a solid tire but never heard anything about speed/range changes. I just changed to solid tires on my turboant x7 pro since I was tired of flats. I can deal with the ride quality but the scooter is considerably slower at accelerating which also taxes the battery and range is half of what it was with air tires. Huge issue not sure why this is never mentioned
I don’t have that problem with mine. Just push off with your feet more and those effects aren’t so bad
That's strange, I heard just the opposite that when you switch to solid tires your battery range and speed get better, not worse. I just put solid on my Gotrax because I was tired of fixing flats. I am happy I did this.
Pneumatic Tire in front and solid in back
Do companies build scooters that way?
@@TheScooterSpot just to have smoother ride
I choose solid for my first scooter might be a bumper ride I don't have to worry about flat for my first e scooter maybe when I get a better one I will get air tires
Try the Unagi for a week. They have free 30day trial. I returned mine after 2 days of commuting to NYC. The solid tires completely knock you out. This is probably why those scooters are now 50% off everywhere.
Been riding my 'Glion Dolly' (solid tires) for 7 years now in NYC. Bumpy? Yes. A little Slow? Yes. Reliable? Definetly. Never had any major trouble with it. And enjoyed not having to watch the road for the tiniest piece of glass or debris. It is still running on the original battery.
Bought an 'Apollo City' (air tires) to be my new main scooter in late 2020. Had almost 2 dozen flats in 1.5 years before retiring it last spring because the battery was on the fritz and I didn't feel good about spending almost $400 on a replacement battery for a scooter that has given me so much trouble.
Used the Glion Dolly as backup when the Apollo was down waiting for tires and tubes. Which was more times off the road then on it.
Now the Glion is back to being my main scooter.
The next scooter I buy will be dual motors and solid tires.
@@daa82 man up!
Had the E-TWOW GT SE for about a year now. It has solid tires but it’s amazing because it also has dual suspension and weighs a little less than Unagi. You fly over all the potholes and bumps in NYC and barely feel anything. Have about 900 miles on the scooter now. Really happy with it.
@@kennethzagula926 haha
solid tires wear out too, the thread does and the ride is very jarring, it can also wear out the solder on the batteries and lead to even a battery fire
Solid tyres is okay 👌 but also have there minus.... it's will reduce a speed also will reduce a milage which you will able to ride it.... because solid tyres will not go so smoothly... so it's has some benefits and have some minuses
What I learned is that air filled tires offer a good smooth ride, only consider solid tires if there is also suspension on the scooter.
I'd disagree with that. For commuter scooters that usually go around 15-20 mph, solid tires are usually fine. You do have to slow down or get off altogether when you encounter a bump, but it's still not that bad. For smoothness of ride overall, though, air tires are definitely better.
@@TheScooterSpot Had the Unagi E500 with solid tires for about a week. Took it to the streets in NYC. Returned it after 3 days of commuting cause the road gaps and pebble roads were just unbearable. My commute is only 5 miles. Went back to a Xiaomi Mi with inflatable tires.
@@daa82 For New York that's probably a good call haha. I live in Charlotte and the roads and trails here are all pretty smooth. So I can get away with Solid Tires.
Depend what you want to filter. Suspension is for big holes, big jumps or to absorb big hard hits.
If it is for example about cobblestones, then no suspension, no matter how good filter the strong vibrations. Just Air or tubeless (not solid) tires do.
If you put solid tires with the suspension, it will rattle on the cobblestones the same, just with some extra noise if you do not know how to modify the monorim a bit to be silent on vibrations.
Suspension works mainly in higher speeds and hitting bigger obstacles or uneven surfece.
In the end went with E-TWOW GT SE with solid tires and dual suspension. Rides unbelievably smooth over all the gaps and potholes of NYC. Have 900 miles on the scooter now - would highly recommend it! Solid tires with suspension is the way to go!
what about if its raining are solid tires likely to make you slip when you turn?
Yeah… less traction.
Then you take it easy. Be aware of your environment and road conditions.
If it is anything more than a light drizzle, I am not riding my scooter.
I’d be more concerned with damaging your electric scooters electrical components. Water and electronics don’t mix very well with each other. Sure some may be highly water resistant but they’re not waterproof.
Thankfully I live in a mostly hot and dry state to not have to worry about that very often.
There are also honeycomb tires available for them which gives you some advantages from both.
The tire you are claiming is a solid, actually isn't.
Fair point, It is both solid and a honeycomb tire. With that being said, though, I don't think the honeycombs really impact ride quality all that much.
@@TheScooterSpot They make a huge difference. A rubber honeycomb structure has massive amounts more flex and give than a solid.
They aid both traction and ride quality while not being susceptible to puncture.
@@bremCZ The honeycombs also have air pockets within the tire which provides more cushion than the typical solid tire.
These scooters are a pain in the ass to change tires , so i just changed them to solids so i never have to use em
Solid tires are better for me since I used mine to work most everyday
I have a similar scooter, bought with air tires. Punctured after 3 days. :(
🫂
I feel you. Bought an Apollo City scooter in late 2020. Had nearly 2 dozen flats in 1.5 years. A couple times I had flats within a week of each other. No fun when your on your way to work and you get stranded miles from your destination.
You didn’t talk about air pneumatic tires? Just saying 😊
Air tires are way better. Way more grip way more comfortable. I sent my solid tires back they suckkkkkkkk not a fun ride at all
Won't solid tires damage the scooters' internals/electronics? People say they really mess up with the scooter.
They definitely can. You effectively have no suspension so every bump you hit will be a direct blow to the scooter.
Solids tires only if you scooter have suspension and you road in nice streets
Viable? :) Thousands of Km without puncture (8 tires, then 10 tires) just checking pressure and checking the road.
Uhuh uhuh now drive over some gravel or a potty road
@@BichaelStevens Daily riding, no punctures :)
th-cam.com/video/e_cLlymFFvw/w-d-xo.html
PMT tires with tubes (60Kg@38Psi)
@@Hanzales077 I bought a scooter recently, turns out its a knockoff xiaomi m187, the tires blew after 10km and barely touched any sand or gravel. I got a refund and im now very very skeptical. I dont have the money for a proper ninebot max that e-scooter companies use (ive had great experience renting them)
@@BichaelStevens Did you checked the pressure before first ride?
@@Hanzales077 it's (was) pretty f-ing rock solid...
Just use tyre slime.
Doesn’t really work too well
Solid tires are AWFUL to ride on.... As long as you're careful pneumatic are better
There's a third type of tyre not so? New tech.
He forgot to mention that solid tires on scooters without suspension make your brain hit the skull with each and every bump on the road. If riding on that "mosaic" pavements (consisting of bricks), it will shatter your teeth. It's not just hopping on and off a little more than with air tires - it's just unbearable and far worse than you might expect.
It's a miracle why there's no slightly softer solid tires today - the stuff still is stiff like steel.
All depends on which environment you plant to ride in. I'm in the burbs of NYC, nothing but flat smooth surfaces. Solid tires are perfect.
@@kennethzagula926 - Yep, that's the only exception: absolutely smoothly tarmaced streets, the one and only home of solid tires on scooters without suspension. Everywhere else you won't bei riding a scooter but a jackhammer.
fake news. unless you literally offroading, this is just false LOL