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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Environment
The global critical minerals race is heating up — and rare earths stocks are skyrocketing
A wheel loader takes ore to a crusher at the MP Materials rare earth mine in Mountain Pass, California, U.S. January 30, 2020.
Steve Marcus | Reuters
The emergence of critical minerals as a new arena of geopolitical competition has coincided with a dizzying rally in U.S.-listed rare earths mining stocks.
Despite paring gains in recent weeks, shares of Critical Metals have advanced 241% over the last three months, while NioCorp Developments, Energy Fuels and Idaho Strategic Resources have all surged well above 100% over the same period.
The eye-watering gains are even more remarkable year-to-date. Energy Fuels’ stock price has quadrupled through the first 10 months of the year, while NioCorp Developments’ shares have nearly quintupled.
Rare earths have come to the fore as a key bargaining chip in the ongoing geopolitical rivalry between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies.
Tony Sage, CEO of Critical Metals, which has one of the world’s largest rare earths deposits in southern Greenland, described the rally of U.S.-listed rare earths miners as evidence of a major market boom.
“I talk of it like this, I mean, there have been four big booms. You had the gold boom in the 19th century, the oil boom in the 20th century, in the early 21st century you had the tech boom — and now you’ve got the rare earths boom,” Sage told CNBC by telephone.
“But the rare earths boom is the future. It will power all of the above.”
We are going from a philosophy of ‘fill the gap’ through imports to ‘mine the gap’ domestically or regionally.
Audun Martinsen
Head of supply chain research at Rystad Energy
Rare earths refer to 17 elements on the periodic table that have an atomic structure that gives them special magnetic properties. These materials are vital components to a vast array of modern technologies, from everyday electronics, such as smartphones, to electric vehicles and military equipment.
China, which has a near-monopoly on rare earths, recently threatened to expand its export controls on the elements to further leverage its dominance of the supply chain. However, following an in-person meeting in South Korea on Thursday between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Beijing agreed to delay the Oct. 9 export controls by one year.
U.S.-listed rare earths stocks rallied on the news, although analysts remain skeptical about whether the apparent trade truce can offer long-term relief.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping as they hold a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, in Busan, South Korea, October 30, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
“As in all booms, there were a lot of oil companies that couldn’t find oil and there were a lot of gold companies that couldn’t find gold. And I’m sure there are going to be a lot of rare earths companies that won’t make it either — because when there’s a boom, there’s hype. And when there’s hype, there’s overexuberance in investing,” Critical Metals’ Sage said.
“It’s not a straight rise up. It’s a jagged line, but the trend is in the right direction if you’ve got the right project in the right place, and you’ve got the right partners,” he added.
‘A much bigger and longer supercycle’
Kevin Das, senior technical consultant at New Frontier Minerals, an Australian-based rare earths explorer, agreed with Sage’s description of a rare earths market boom, while acknowledging the likelihood of stock price pullbacks.
“People are saying we’re in an uptrend on what is a bigger supercycle and some of the evidence behind that is there has been low commodity prices for some time, there’s been underinvestment. And now, with the advent of AI … we’re going to see a much bigger and longer supercycle,” Das told CNBC by telephone.
Das drew parallels between the Biden administration’s support of clean energy projects, which coincided with a rally in lithium-related stocks, and the Trump administration’s backing of rare earths.
Shares of Critical Metals over the last three months.
“In the last nine to 10 months that Trump has been in power, he’s talked about annexing Greenland, he’s talked about doing a deal with Ukraine for rare earths and then the real clincher was this equity deal with MP Materials,” Das said.
“So, I think the runway over the next two to three years is going to be very fruitful,” he added.
Not everyone is as bullish on the outlook for rare earths-related stocks, however.
Audun Martinsen, head of supply chain research at Rystad Energy, said the recent surge in equity prices reflected a mix of geopolitical tension, strategic policy support and speculative momentum.
“Rare earths have clearly moved to the center of global industrial strategy, vital for defense, EVs and clean energy, but this looks more like the early stages of a structural shift than a mature ‘fourth boom,'” Martinsen told CNBC by email.
Neodymium is displayed at the Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth Hi-Tech Co. factory in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, on Wednesday, May 5, 2010.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
“We are going from a philosophy of ‘fill the gap’ through imports to ‘mine the gap’ domestically or regionally,” he continued. “It will be a lengthy, expensive and rocky path forward as adequate, cost-effective resources and element diversity are complex to get full control over.”
Clean energy transition
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University, said there were two clear factors at work as global competition intensifies to secure the supply of critical minerals — one structural and the other political.
“The structural: Despite whatever political attempts there may be to stop or derail things, the clean-energy transition is happening — and it is accelerating — and yes, it depends on a number of critical minerals, whose prices are bound to jump,” Wagner told CNBC by email.
China, for instance, is the low-cost supplier of many of these minerals, Wagner said, noting that the Asian giant’s mineral dominance is by no means an accident.
“Beijing has invested heavily in green industrial policy for years, focusing on the full, integrated supply chain. That’s where politics enters,” Wagner said.
“Some attempts to onshore supply chains are eminently justified for national security and other reasons, and those attempts will increase prices and stocks of U.S. mining companies. Some of what we see, of course, is merely the current politics or erratic trade wars and the like,” he added.
For the last few weeks, we’ve been running a sidebar survey about how much Electrek readers think it would cost to add EV charging systems to their homes. After receiving over twenty-four hundred responses, here’s what you told us.
In our previous survey, we asked readers why they chose to install solar panels at home. In the recap, many of our commenters mentioned having their systems systems pull double duty — charging home backup batteries and topping off their electric cars. That got us thinking: as more and more first-time EV owners look into the many benefits of home charging, how much do they expect to pay for home charging?
Based on over 2,400 responses, this is what you told us.
What do you expect to pay for home charging?
The most positive surprise was that more than a third of Electrek readers who responded to the poll already had 240V outlets in their garage, so they expected to pay effectively $0 – their homes are EV ready now!
Of the remaining 64%, 44% were fairly evenly split between a relatively straightforward ~$500-1,000 wiring job with a few wiring or panel upgrades while only about 18% expected to spend over $1,000 due to having an older home, a detached garage, or for some other (apparently pricey and/or inconvenient) reason.
Navigating the questions
Just like you would for home solar, we’d recommend getting a quote from several installers before making a decision. One of our trusted partners, Qmerit, offers a quote-sourcing service called PowerHouse. The service scans pricing from thousands of completed electrification installations across North America to provide the best quotes that take regional variability into account and work with homeowners to “bundle” chargers, installation, and even batteries.
America has arrived at an inflection point in which all of the technical, policy and financial elements are in place to support a societal shift toward whole-home electrification. Now what’s needed is a comprehensive way to assemble these complex elements into a simple, financeable, home-energy retrofit that makes it easier to implement.
QMERIT FOUNDER TRACY PRICE
Qmerit says its new bundling program can flag the potential for federal, state, and local utility incentives like the ones we’ve covered from Illinois utility ComEd and others that can reduce or even eliminate the upfront costs of home installations for many.
Original content from Electrek.
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Following a lawsuit brought against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) by major heavy truck manufacturers over California’s emissions requirements, CARB has struck back with fresh lawsuit of its own alleging that the manufacturers violated the terms of the 2023 Clean Truck Partnership agreement to sell cleaner vehicles.
Daimler Truck North America, International Motors, Paccar and Volvo Group North America sued the California Air Resources Board in federal court this past August, seeking to invalidate the Clean Truck Partnership emissions reduction deal they signed with the state in 2023 to move away from traditional trucks and toward zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). The main point of the lawsuit was that, because the incoming Trump Administration rolled back Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) policies that had previously given individual states the right to set their own environmental and emissions laws, the truck makers shouldn’t have to honor the deals signed with individual states.
“Plaintiffs are caught in the crossfire: California demands that OEMs follow preempted laws; the United States maintains such laws are illegal and orders OEMs to disregard them,” the lawsuit reads. “Accordingly, Plaintiff OEMs file this lawsuit to clarify their legal obligations under federal and state law and to enjoin California from enforcing standards preempted by federal law.”
After several weeks of waiting for a response, we finally have one: CARB is suing the OEMs right back, claiming that the initial suit proves the signing manufacturers, “(have) unambiguously stated that they do not intend to comply.”
They want to sell Americans more diesel
In its lawsuit, CARB argues that monetary damages alone would not make the people of the State of California whole as far as damages are concerned, citing that the stated goal of the 2023 Clean Truck Partnership was, “to achieve emissions reductions that cannot be measured strictly in financial terms,” according to ACT-News.
The agency is asking the court to compel the truck companies to perform on their 2023 obligations or, failing that, to allow CARB to rescind the contract and recover its costs. A hearing on the truck makers’ request for a preliminary injunction was held Friday, with another court date set for November 21, when CARB will seek to dismiss the case brought forth by the truck brands. The outcome of these cases could shape how state and federal government agencies cooperation on emissions rules in the future.
You can read the full 22-page lawsuit, below, then let us know what you think of CARB’s response (and their chances of succeeding) in the comments.
SOURCES: CARB; via ACT-News, Trucking Dive.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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