Light motorcycle power put on a kick scooter? We try ZonDoo’s unreal ZO03
You want Sur Ron battery and power specs but on a $1,549 kick scooter with an optional seat that makes it look like a mobility scooter on steroids? We might just have the UL-certified vehicle for you…
The pitch went something like this:
ZonDoo: “Would you review our electric kick scooter?”
Me: “Don’t think so, there are hundreds out there. What makes yours unique?”
ZonDoo: “Ours is AWD, over 7.5 horsepower and goes highway speeds.”
Me: “[address/phone]”
Honestly, I’d never heard of ZonDoo before the inquiry, but it is a relatively established brand of Chinese scooters. Most of its products look like higher-end scooters you might have seen other brands selling as well.
But not the ZO03.
This foldable scooter with 11-inch pneumatic off-road tires is the scooter you’d design if you were immortal and safety wasn’t a concern.
Let’s start with the drivetrain:
You’ve got not one, but two (!!) 2.8kW motors, one on each wheel for a total of 5.6kW or 7.5 horsepower from 60V 45A controllers. That means we’re talking about 10x a typical scooter/legal e-bike power limit in Canada and a little more or less in Europe and the US. It almost doesn’t even compute.
This thing is off-road capable with those big knobby tires, significant front and rear suspension, and AWD. It also sits about a foot off the ground.
That battery runs at 60V and contains 38Ah of 21700 cells for a total of 2.28kWh. The side of the battery says a little more and the specs page on ZonDoos site says slightly less, so let’s just go with that. That’s 6Ah bigger than a 60V Sur Ron battery, and it just might beat one off the line. Charge time is about six hours from dead with two separate chargers via charging ports on the right side of the pack/deck. ZonDoo says you will get over 60 miles of range, and that’s not hard to believe if you are riding at a normal speed.
However, this thing is not normal. It goes nearly 55 mph and, frankly, depending on aerodynamics can go beyond 62 mph (99 km/h). How do I know? It wasn’t from riding it that fast. Lifting both wheels off the ground and hitting full throttle got the bike up to 99 km/h in an instant.
One thing I do know is that if you hit the throttle at 10 mph, you can chirp both wheels. ZonDoo says you can go up 50% grades, and I’d confirm that if the only hill graded like that near me wasn’t full of ice and loose dirt. The tires lost grip before the torque of the wheels gave out.
Speaking of riding this thing, I’m not immortal and I have a wife and kids to provide for so I only took this thing up to about 35 mph before chickening out. Even with a full face helmet, riding on a mobility scooter seat was harrowing. One thing that gave me a lot of confidence is the Zoom hydraulic brakes, which were fantastic at stopping this monster in its tracks.
ZonDoo says this thing is rated for 440 lb., which is about double my size so I guess I could invite another me to ride on the back. Too bad I don’t have a conjoined twin. The question begs to be asked: What do you do with all of this power and capacity? My son said I should rig it to pull a boat.
ZonDoo ZO03 Extras – Lights! Everywhere!
Not only does this thing have two bright front LED headlights that light up the ground in front of you, but it also has RGB light bars on the side and bright red lights in the rear. The front lights are bright enough to play a game of night wiffle ball in front of it and also have a flashing mode for day riding that will alert others that you are coming. That’s hardly necessary however because both sides of the platform have blinking red green and blue lights.
I pulled into my neighbor’s driveway just after dusk and he thought the cops had shown up, coming outside with his hands up. Maybe a disco ball would lighten the mood?
Bonus: This thing has front and rear turn signals actuated by a button on the left thumb area. The only problem is they get drowned out by the other lighting on this thing. You can, of course, adjust what lighting you want based on your needs and applicable neighborhood decency regulations.
It also has a great folding mechanism, loud AF horn, keyed starter, voltage readout, strong kickstand, and rear mudflap – not that you should be riding this in any kind of bad weather.
It folds down pretty tight, and it easily fit in my Tesla Model 3 trunk all folded with 52″ x 26″ x 24″ dimensions.
A seat turns this into a different experience
I should mention that I rode with the optional seat, which is probably the lowest-quality part of this whole apparatus. But it also feels a little more stable when riding (vs. standing) and gives the feeling of connecting to the scooter in a more meaningful way than standing. I was hoping for a Vespa scooter type experience, but it was not to be.
I should be clear, the base of the seat pole was strong and secure. The seat post itself was less so – and with its extremely loose suspension and aluminum pipe, it felt unstable. My immediate gut reaction was to look around for a better bike seat. Probably one with a longer, stronger pipe without suspension because the ZO03 has cushy pneumatic tires coupled with great suspension already.
That said, I felt comfortable enough to hit the roads sitting on the seat, hitting about 35 miles per hour before chickening out.
The ZonGoo ZO03 Drive
To be clear, I have no idea if this thing is legal for street use anywhere (it isn’t). I can’t imagine it is in many jurisdictions in its full power mode anyway. Of course there are buttons to neuter the power and make it behave like a normal scooter. The sticker on the side of the ZonDoo says its top speed is 25 km/h so you can show the authorities that (then chirp out at triple that speed).
But that’s not fun and we live back in the woods, so I took this for about 20 miles of on- and off-road experimenting. It handled its business – mostly. It has three power levels (along with an eco/rear wheel drive buttons) ,and I can say that the second setting scared the crap out of me. It was easy to spin the tires, even when already rolling along at a good clip. You will throw yourself off the back without careful throttle manipulation. I tried level 3 but it just felt like I was trying to hard not to throw myself off of the scooter to be fun. I got used to 2.
The throttle itself is a finger throttle, and I think perhaps this could have used a twist throttle more like a motorcycle. It was tough but not impossible to operate both the brakes and the throttle with one hand, especially in cold weather.
We have a significant 800-ft. high hill not too far from us, and the ZonGoo rocketed up that thing faster than some Vespa-type scooters I’ve driven. I really can’t get over the power on this thing.
The downside was that seat post with also the folding, adjustable handlebars both felt a little wobbly, and with the short amount of time I’ve had with this, I just didn’t feel confident about turns. I almost always slowed down to about 20 mph before attempting anything more than a subtle turn.
Off road, you’ll want to ditch the seat post and keep your speed reasonable. It fares as well as you could hope motorized 11-inch wheels could do, and I could easily see a 10-mile commute on a dirt road with this thing. Bend those knees!
Electrek’s Take:
Or… okay, what’s the point of this thing? It is more than double the power that anyone should have on an electric kick scooter. But if you want relatively unlimited power and off-road capability and the ability to beat cars off the line, look no further. With its huge 2.25kWh battery, you can go weeks without charging this thing (ZonDoo recommends charging it weekly). And the sticker on the side says 25 km/h, with metric system alone enough to throw off most cops.
ZonDoo’s ZO03 is a ton of fun. You will have the most powerful scooter on the block (and likely in the state), and if you are careful, you can probably avoid serious injury. $1,549 at Amazon.
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At CES2025, the impressively built-out John Deere exhibit was all about automation. Autonomous job sites, autonomous farms … but it was this new, battery electric, autonomous lawn mowing robot that stole the show.
The self-driving Deere mower robot was positively dwarfed by the giant farm machinery surrounding it, but it continues to prove that humans will pack bond with anything as more than one burly-looking and grizzled man asked what its name was. (It’s Howard. I’ll fight you.)
For his part, Howard packs a 21.4 kWh battery pack that runs a suite of electric motors that includes a drive motor and three cutting blade motors spread across a 60 inch cutting deck – but it’s not the electric motors that make John Deere’s little robot mower cool, it’s the way it works.
See, instead of using “just” GPS data or “just” repeating a pre-recorded run, Howard can do something in between. The way it was explained to me, you would ride the stand-up mower around the perimeter of the area you wanted to mow, select a pattern, then hop off, fold up the platform, and let it loose. Howard mows just the way you would, leaving you to focus on edging, planting, or (let’s face it) schmoozing with the clients.
It’s exactly the sort of help landscapers are looking for.
But that should come as no surprise, of course. John Deere, perhaps more than most companies, knows its customer. “We’ve been in the turf business for 60 years — it’s a core part of Deere,” says Jahmy Hindman, chief technology officer at John Deere, explaining things beautifully. “The work that’s being done in this industry is incredibly labor intensive … they’re not just doing the mowing work. They’re doing the tree trimming, maintaining flowerbeds and all these other jobs. The mowing is table stakes, though, for them to get the business. It’s the thing they have to do in order to get the higher value work.”
Tim Lewis, lead engineer with the commercial automatous mower, told Lawn & Landscape that the industry in general has a high turnover rate as well, making it difficult to hang to people who know where one job ends and another begins. “There’s a lot of nuances it takes to do these jobs effectively,” he explains, “so “Autonomy can help with that.”
The John Deere autonomous commercial mower (there’s no snazzy alphanumeric, yet) leverages the same camera technology as other Deere autonomous machines, but on a smaller scale (since the machine has a smaller footprint). With two cameras each on the front, left, right, and rear sides of the little guy, he has a 360-degree view of the world and enough AI to lay down a pattern, avoid an obstacle, and shut off if it thinks it’s about to mow down something (read: someone) it shouldn’t.
John Deere will have Howard on display through tomorrow at CES in the LVCC’s West Hall. If you’re in town, be sure to go say hi.
John Deere CES2025
SUOURCE | IMAGES: John Deere; Electrek.
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Tesla has officially unveiled the Model Y “Juniper” refresh, less than a day after uncamouflaged photos of the vehicle leaked online.
The refreshed Model Y, codenamed Juniper, has been expected for some time, and was expected to include many of the improvements of the 2023 Model 3 refresh.
In October, Chinese social media said the refresh was about to enter trial production, and just days later we saw a photo of the refreshed Model Y outside the Shanghai factory. Then last month, we heard that mass production would start in Shanghai in January, so we can expect that very soon as well.
And while Tesla said in 2024 that there’s no Model Y refresh coming “this year”, 2024 is over now, and the refresh is here.
Today, Tesla updated its Chinese website with all the information about the refreshed Model Y, with many of the same improvements as the Model 3 refresh like a quieter cabin, higher efficiency, more performance, ambient lighting and a rear screen.
According to Tesla’s site, the new Model Y can achieve 719km of range (446mi) in Long-range AWD spec with 19-inch wheels, but this is based in CLTC estimates, which are much more lenient than EPA. Previously the highest-range spec had 688km CLTC range, so that’s about a 20-mile improvement.
The 20″ wheels on the long range version will take you 662km, and RWD standard-range batteries will go 593km or 559km on the 19″ and 20″ wheels respectively.
We imagine this could translate to roughly ~350 miles of range on the top-spec Model Y on EPA ratings, but we’ll have to see when the car gets released in the US.
Acceleration has also been improved, with Tesla saying the large-battery AWD Model Y can achieve 0-100km/h (0-62mph) in 4.3 seconds, down from a previous 4.9. The RWD version does the same sprint in 5.9 seconds. Both of these numbers would be slightly shorter for 0-60 times, because of those extra 2mph at the end.
There is no performance version yet – just as with the post-refresh Model 3, which didn’t get a performance spec until later.
The exterior design is just as leaked photos suggested, with the same rear end we saw in leaks in July and the front end that we saw earlier today. Though now we get to see it in higher resolution and better lighting.
The front-end includes a Cybercab/Cybertruck-like “light bar” rather than the more traditional-looking headlights of the Model 3 refresh, and has been narrowed to remove the “duck lip” bump at the front of the hood.
Also on the front end is a new front bumper camera (again, like the Cybertruck, but unlike the Model 3), which should help with parking and also offer an additional point-of-view for Tesla’s Autopilot software. The inclusion of this camera, while it will improve Autopilot accuracy, does lead to questions over whether previously vehicles that don’t have a front bumper camera will be able to achieve the same level of accuracy as refreshed vehicles do.
And the interior design changes are also roughly as expected, though the steering wheel has undergone less radical changes than some had hoped.
Earlier today, photos leaked suggesting that the Model Y would receive a similar “squircle” steering wheel as the Cybertruck, leading to speculation that it might also receive the Cybertruck’s steer-by-wire system. But it turned out that those photos were just a Model 3 with a custom steering wheel.
The actual interior of the Model Y maintains a circular steering wheel, which suggests that it won’t get steer by wire (the steer-by-wire specification isn’t listed on Tesla’s Chinese site for the car).
It does however have photos showing missing steering column stalks, which has been a controversial feature of the Model 3.
However, looking closer at the steering wheel, the turn signal buttons from the Model 3 are not present. It looks like Tesla may have included a vestigial turn signal stalk hiding behind the steering wheel, and just deleted the PRND drive mode stalk.
This is still a controversial change, as changing drive modes through the screen isn’t the most popular feature, but the turn signal deletion was particularly egregious and it’s good to see it back. We wonder if the Model 3 might eventually gain this improvement, or whether this will be different in different regions.
Tesla says the new “acoustic glass” in the Model Y reduces interior noise significantly. The Model 3 also got this improvement, and testing does show a significant improvement in interior noise levels as a result.
The Model Y receives other interior improvements seen on the 3, like a screen for the rear seat. The Cybertruck also includes this screen.
This shot also shows the ambient lighting LED strip across the dash, which can be customized through the vehicle’s UI.
Another rear-end improvement is electric rear seats, operated through a button in the trunk. This button gives easier access to rear storage space, allowing owners to fold the rear seats up or down while loading or unloading cargo.
Tesla’s Chinese website calls these “anti-gravity” seats, but it’s unclear what exactly the improvements might be in this respect. The seats are ventilated.
First deliveries are scheduled for March in China, subject regulatory approval, though Tesla’s configurator says “the specific delivery date will vary depending on the configuration and pick-up location and other reasons.”
Tesla is offering a “Launch series” in China, something that Tesla has done with many of its cars, but hasn’t done before in the US with the Model 3/Y. It includes some unique design elements and “Launch series” badging in various parts of the vehicle.
As for other regions, they will probably have to wait. The Model 3 refresh came out in Europe first, and the US needed to wait months for it. This is particularly likely now given new US tariffs on Chinese-built cars (which are a bad idea).
Electrek’s Take
As I wrote in the Take section of our leaked photos article earlier today, this refresh is needed, because not only has the Model 3 had access to lots of improvements that the Model Y hasn’t gotten for the last year and a half or so, but Tesla is having a challenging time with sales right now.
The company just finished a year where its sales dropped for the first time since 2011 – back when Tesla only sold the low-production Roadster. This happened despite the overall global EV market surging to new heights, even though Tesla, the world’s largest EV maker (just barely), did its part to drag down the EV market by failing to grow apace with the rest.
Part of the reason for this is due to stale models – while the Model Y is Tesla’s best-selling model, it’s starting to seem a little long in the tooth, particularly given the Model 3’s upgrades. So we wondered earlier today whether the Model Y refresh could reignite Tesla’s growth.
But it’s not just about models. After all, Tesla did just finish its first full year of Cybertruck production, which is a new model, but its polarizing nature led to disappointing sales numbers.
That polarization is not helped by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who is doing his best to harm the company and say phenomenally stupid things or make ridiculous promises basically every day (or every few minutes). His idiotic behavior is turning away customers, whether he believes it or not.
Maybe the company – not the stock – would be better off if he surrendered his title and let Tesla have a real CEO, so he can go play videogames on twitter all day instead (as he already does).
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