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The Defiant: One review – a beauty to look at, but a true beast of a skateboard to ride [Video]
All hail the Capybara! It’s only been a few months since electric skateboard brand Defiant Board Society introduced the Defiant: One. I recently got my hands on one to see this beauty of a board up close and give it a spin. Despite its best efforts to knock me off, I was able to eventually carve this electric skateboard around town and had a blast doing so. Here are my thoughts.
Table of contents
Defiant Board Society wants to recruit you
Defiant’s name is an excellent summation of its entire ethos. It is more than just another eskate company, but a social club that describes itself as “inclusively rebellious.” I love that. Here’s a blurb from its website to give you an idea of what this group is all about:
Across the board, we stand for human rights. We’re not afraid to have an opinion. If that doesn’t sit well with some people, that means we’re doing something right. Although we’re against-the-grain, we have a supportive ethos for our community. We’re always seeking to build people up, create an approachable atmosphere, and help people do what makes them happy.
Defiant makes people happy by delivering electric skateboards designed to give experienced riders a rush back to their youth, where consequences (and blatant risk of injury if you’re me) are overshadowed by the sheer thrill of skating fast and living faster.
Long before the company even delivered its first board – the Defiant: One – this past February, it was working behind the scenes to ensure it delivered a flagship product curated and tested using the highest quality parts available.
Behold! The Defiant: One.
The Defiant: One sets new rebellious tone in design, function
We’ve covered plenty of electric skateboards on Electrek, many of which have impressed us and are worth a ride. While the segment continues to grow, a community of riders has begun to blossom. However, this world is still missing a tremendous element, in my opinion – culture.
I grew up pretending like I could kickflip on traditional skateboards, donning my favorite Spitfire or Zero tee while brandishing a subtle middle finger to every imaginary defiance my teen angst could drum up. Man, those were the days. Skating is just as much a state of mind and style as it is kicking, pushing, falling, and in the electric world, cruising… fast.
The Capybara logo with a safety pin through its ear (so punk) and thick chain strengthen a company name that already says it all – Defiant. The Defiant: One brings a fresh and welcomed rebelliousness to the world of electric skateboards that has previously skitched parallel to traditional skate culture but has rarely crossed over.
Although there are a few kinks to work out, this brand is off to an awesome start.
40 miles of range and speeds up to 38 mph? Sign me up
I talk a big game, but I admittedly did not get the Defiant: One all the way up to 38 mph, but I got close! My helmet is in storage as I’m in the process of a move, so I had to gear it back a little bit to ensure I stayed alive for my next skate review. You’re welcome.
As I said before, the Defiant team is no stranger to skateboards, and it did its homework when designing the One. After you get past the unique center logo and the beautiful deep cherry stain on this ten-ply maple deck, the next thing you’ll probably notice is its massive motors.
To reach such high speeds, the Defiant: One is propelled by two 6396 4,550-watt motors, which are powered by a 930Wh Molicel P42A battery pack – designed in a modular accordion style to flex along with the deck.
Moving along the side, you’ll notice the board’s big shiny, white wheels (which didn’t stay that way for long – trust me!). These are 100mm 76a duro urethane wheels, chosen by the team to deliver a smooth and grippy ride on any street.
Where the rear of the Defiant: One shines in pure power, the nose stands out in innovation. Defiant Board Society has implemented a “digital dashboard” at the front that offers real-time ride data such as speed, remaining range, plus odometers for a given trip and the lifetime stats of the board.
This was easily the coolest feature on an overall unique board, but it could use some fine-tuning. More on that below. Before that, here are some more specific specs of the Defiant: One:
- 2 x Large 6396 4550-watt motors
- 930 Wh Molicel battery pack
- 100mm 76a duro urethane wheels
- Hoyt St Puck remote control
- Genuine RipTide bushings (87a board side, 84a roadside)
- Adjustable trucks can be set to 50-, 43-, and 36-degree angles
- Three different ride modes of varying speeds
- Top speed: 38+ mph (depending on height and weight of rider)
- Range: 40+ miles (depending on height and weight of rider)
The One is defiant in both look and speed – can you tame it?
Defiant Board Society describes the One as a skateboard designed by seasoned riders for seasoned riders, and that couldn’t be more apparent. If the nearly 40 mph top speed wasn’t a dead giveaway, this is not a beginner-level board.
It is built in the USA with materials of the utmost quality from what I could tell, but every chance it got to knock me off, it tried and often succeeded… at least at first. As you’ll see if my full video review below, the sheer flexibility of the board took some getting used to, and I found the trucks (although great for carving) far too loose for my ride style. I had to tighten those bad boys up to stop them from wobbling at speeds above 15 mph.
The duro urethane wheels are stickier than they are smooth, gripping the road around each corner and wide carving sessions. However, they don’t absorb as well as some other wheels I’ve ridden, especially on all-terrain boards. Still, I felt zero vibration and never even got close to that uncomfortable sensation like my feet were falling asleep.
When I first saw the puck remote control, I was intrigued because I’m used to longer, more slender remotes, but I learned to love how the puck fit in my hand, although it was a bit trickier to switch ride modes.
The board’s brakes were really good… too good, actually. As you’ll see below, my first couple of attempts to stop in front of the camera sent me lunging forward, with the board suddenly taking off in reverse behind me. This is due to a unique feature Defiant Board Society added called “Smart Reverse.”
After you apply the brake trigger and the board comes to a halt, it will transition into reverse if you hold it long enough. Defiant says the feature is great for backing up out of a crosswalk or stopping on a hill, but I’m used to stopping and staying there, so there was a brief learning curve. Cool feature, though.
The digital dashboard is a truly unique piece of tech on an electric skateboard, but I found it a lot more useful when stopped and especially in the shade. Riding in the sun, I couldn’t really see the screen, and honestly, I wasn’t really looking at it as much as I thought I would. I was just enjoying the smooth, curvy ride it delivered.
I hit a couple of bugs with the display as well. When I first booted it up, it said my speed was 62 mph, and I didn’t even have the motors engaged. Later on, after riding outside for a while, I got red and blue police lights blinking at me on the screen, saying, “VESC fault: OVER CURRENT.” I think it had something to do with the speed controller, but it didn’t affect the ride of the board as far as I could tell, just the display.
This review process was a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions with the Defiant: One. When I unboxed it, I thought it was the most beautiful electric skateboard I had ever seen, but then I rode it for the first time and could not stop wobbling and fearing for my life. I tightened up the trucks, steeled myself, and learned to truly enjoy the smooth, quick ride this board can deliver.
If you’re a first-time rider, I would not recommend the Defiant: One. If you’ve been riding for a while and are perhaps looking for a second or possibly a third board to replace your old ones, this one is definitely worth a look. Like all boards, it really depends on your local terrain and how you intend to use it.
The 40-mile range is awesome as a commuter board, but your route better be smooth as you won’t be cutting through any dirt or grass. This is a street board for sure, and it’s designed and priced as such.
Pricing, discounts, and our video review
As a top-tier model built in the US with power and craftsmanship in mind, the Defiant: One is priced a tad higher than other boards, but you pay a premium for its beauty and function.
It starts at a price of $2,999, but you can use Promo Code SCOOTER100 for $100 off your Defiant One order or click the following link.
Now onto the video review. Watch me whip, wobble, and win below.
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Tesla’s driverless robotaxi has been spotted in Austin for the first time, but it is being followed by a trailing car with a driver.
CEO Elon Musk now says that Tesla aims to “tentatively” start its service on June 22.
Tesla now plans to operate its own small internal fleet of vehicles with dedicated software optimized for a geo-fenced area of Austin and supported by “plenty of teleoperation.”
The company has been discussing the launch of its paid service in June, but as we reported, it only officially began the “testing” phase earlier this week, according to Austin’s official website.
Musk admitted that Tesla only started testing the system without safety drivers at the end of May.
In comparison, Waymo tested its system, which was already in operation driverless in other cities, for 6 months with safety drivers and 6 months without safety drivers before launching its service in Austin earlier this year.
Now, a Tesla Model Y without a driver was spotted in Austin for the first time:
From the video, we can see that a second Tesla vehicle is trailing the driverless vehicle, likely with a remote teleoperator ready to take control or activate a kill switch.
As we previously reported, Tesla has been building a team of teleoperators to remotely control its vehicles when needed.
Just this week, days before the planned launch of the service, Tesla has posted a new job listing for engineers to build a teleoperation system with as low latency as possible.
Having a trailing car can address the latency problem.
After sharing the video above, Musk highlighted that these are unmodified Model Ys, like the ones that Tesla delivers to customers. This prompted someone to ask when Tesla plans to deliver unsupervised self-driving to customers, as he promised every Tesla vehicle produced since 2016 would be capable of doing.
Musk didn’t confirm it, but he said that the custom software running on those vehicles have about 4 times more parameters than the current version (FSD v13) in customers vehicles and he could see that being deployed in the customer fleet later this year:
It’s a new version of software, but will merge to main branch soon. We have a more advanced model in alpha stage that has ~4X the params, but still requires a lot of polishing. That’s probably ready for deploy in a few months.
As we previously reported, this fleet deployment in Austin is quite a moving of the goal post for Tesla, which has been promising unsupervised self-driving in all vehicles since 2016.
This service is only going to work in a geo-fenced area where Tesla is optimizing its FSD software to perform better, and it is supported by teleoperation, something that can’t be scaled to the customer fleet.
Electrek’s Take
I don’t know why Musk wants to emphasize that Tesla is using the same vehicles it delivers to customers as if it’s a giant advantage over Waymo.
We know that Tesla’s hardware approach is much cheaper than Waymo. That’s not new. The real question has always been about safety and performance.
I can see this program eventually helping FSD progress, but as you can see, Musk is not stating that unsupervised self-driving in customer vehicles will be achieved when the new customer version of FSD, which comes out of this custom software, reaches the market.
Even if this 10x the miles between disengagement in the current version, which would be impressive, Tesla would still only be at about 5,000 miles. That’s behind the competition and nowhere near what’s needed for level 4 unsupervised self-driving.
At this point, I expect Tesla to start admitting that HW4 will not support unsupervised self-driving in customer vehicles by the end of 2026.
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Porsche is preparing to release its Cayenne EV in the next year or so, but that didn’t stop it from taking the car out in secret to a hillclimb meet, where it utterly destroyed the previous course record previously held by a 12-cylinder Bentley Bentayga.
Hillclimbing is a specialized sort of racing where cars start at the bottom of a hill and then race to the top of it. And it’s a type of racing where electric cars do quite well because of their high amounts of instant torque and fast low-end acceleration.
We’ve covered some other hillclimbs before, such as the famous Pike’s Peak hillclimb, where EVs shattered records last year, and where Ford is running an unrecognizably modified Mach-E this year in just a couple weeks. EVs do well here due to the race’s high altitude, which leads to inefficient combustion from gas-powered cars due to low oxygen in the air, which EVs don’t have to worry about.
And hillclimbing is popular in the UK, where courses are much shorter than the brutal 12.42-mile “race to the clouds” at Pike’s Peak. Most UK courses are more like a mile long, give or take.
One of the most famous in the UK is Goodwood hill climb where an electric “fan car” holds the overall course record and where Ford competed (and won) with its ridiculous 1,400hp electric van.
Another course, part of the British Hill Climb Championship, is Shelsley Walsh, where this last weekend’s news happened. The race was first contested in 1905, with a length of 1,000 yards (910m, .57mi).
So, it’s just a sprint, and it’s a sprint that a Cayenne EV just absolutely destroyed every other car in its class on – even though the car isn’t out yet. It’s expected to get a full unveil later this year, but that didn’t stop Porsche from flexing its muscles ahead of release.
Porsche took a prototype version of its upcoming EV out to Shelsley Walsh, where it was looking to beat a record previously set by the Bentley Bentayga W12, an absolutely bonkers ultra-luxe SUV with a massive 12 cylinder, 6 liter twin-turbo engine capable of producing 600hp.
But that gigantic engine proved to be no challenge for the Cayenne, which crushed the antiquated dino-burner’s record by several seconds.
On such a short lap, records are often set by tenths or hundreds of a second, but the Cayenne EV beat the Bentayga’s 35.53 second record by more than four whole seconds, setting a new time of 31.28. Watch it below (the Cayenne EV’s part starts at 2:36:30, if the deep-link doesnt work):
(*Porsche told us those engine sounds are from another vehicle near the microphone, not from the Cayenne EV itself)
In the video, the Cayenne is extremely well behaved up the course, exhibiting very little body roll for such a large vehicle. This is owing to the low center of gravity characteristic of many EVs, due to the weight of the car being in the battery at the bottom of the vehicle, and to Porsche’s active suspension.
And on such a short run, the instant acceleration of the Porsche gave it a lasting advantage over the hulking Bentayga W12, allowing it to crush the previous record.
The Cayenne EV was driven by Gabriela Jilkova, Porsche’s development driver for its Formula E team. It even beat the production electric car record which was previously held by another Porsche, the Taycan Turbo. That record was 31.43 seconds, so the Cayenne was just able to pip it.
It isn’t, however, the fastest electric vehicle up the hill – that’s currently a 30.46, set in 2018 by Mitch Evans in a Jaguar Formula E car (from an earlier generation – surely the new Gen 3 EVO cars would be even quicker).
As of now, we still have no final numbers on what sort of specs the Porsche Cayenne will have, as the vehicle is still in prototype form and hasn’t gone through homologation. So, Porsche is still figuring it out like the rest of us, but from these results, it looks like they’ve got something good on their hands.
Electrek’s Take
Now this is just one race, and not a particularly famously-contested one. There are surely cars that haven’t run this hill that would beat the Cayenne up it. But 4 seconds is a huge record on such a short course, and is certainly a shot across the bow, such that we can’t wait to see where else Porsche takes this thing and what other gas SUVs it might be able to embarrass.
When I reviewed the 576-hp Macan EV Turbo, I found it to be absurdly, unnecessarily quick.
It also handled very well for a large vehicle (and it is indeed large – almost twice the weight of my own EV, a Tesla Roadster). An SUV is still not a sportscar, but I had no particular misgivings when driving it… except perhaps that maybe it was too powerful, and that I preferred the 4S since I just never knew when I would need the amount of power the Turbo could put down.
So I’m not surprised that its bigger sibling, the Cayenne EV, would also perform extremely well here. Porsche knows how to make a car and how to make it perform well, and somehow they’ve even brought that magic to a vehicle as big as the Cayenne EV.
So, I’m looking forward to a time that I get to bring the Cayenne EV to a Porsche meetup, just like I did with the Macan, and have another dad tell his child “you wanna see the fastest car here? it’s that one.” And it’ll have the records to prove it.
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EVs got a little more affordable in May, and Tesla’s price drop had a lot to do with that. According to new data from Kelley Blue Book, the average transaction price (ATP) for a new EV in May was $57,734. That’s down from $59,123 in April. Year-over-year, that’s a 1.1% drop.
At the same time, incentives are heating up. The average EV incentive in May hit $8,225, or 14.2% of the ATP. That’s more than double the average incentive across the broader auto industry and higher than last May’s 12%. According to Cox Automotive, that makes May the most incentive-heavy month since what Cox Automotive calls the beginning of the modern EV era, which is when EVs passed the 1% market share mark, in 2018.
Tesla’s prices played a big role in this shift. The company’s ATPs dropped 1.5% in May, landing at $55,277. Year-over-year, Tesla prices are down 2.8%.
The Model 3 and the Cybertruck inched up in price in May, but just barely – less than 1%. Every other Tesla model saw prices fall month-over-month. The Model Y, Tesla’s top seller and the most popular EV in the US, dropped 2.9% from April to an average price of $53,895.
Read more: Cybertruck sales slump as EV prices rise and incentives dry up
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