Razor’s E Prime III is relatively inexpensive, light (27 pounds), and promises up to 15 miles on a charge. Our testing showed this to be a generous estimate, though: We only got a little over 8 miles before the battery ran dry. Over the course of the ride, the scooter slowed, mile -by -mile, and it struggled on slight inclines. The only display on the scooter is a five-bar battery indicator, with four blue bars and one red one at the bottom. Rather than the bars gradually turning off, we saw the four blue lights flash off all at once, about 6 miles in, leaving me with no idea how much range we had left. While it rode pretty smoothly, we wouldn’t recommend this scooter for anyone with serious transportation needs; it looks and performs more like a nice toy.

Xiaomi’s Mi M365 Electric Scooter is one of the more popular models on Amazon, and in our 2019 testing it offered impressive performance, especially for its $400 price. So what was the problem? After riding it a few times, I began to hear a creaking noise near the folding mechanism that got louder and more frequent the longer I rode. I reached out to Xiaomi, and a representative told me that the scooter was “made with reinforced steel which the Ninebot team assured me is safe to ride.” (The electronics giant Xiaomi partners with Ninebot, the company that owns Segway, to make the M365.)

At the same time, I corresponded with TJ Valiant, who is also involved in scooter repair but doesn’t work for or receive compensation from any specific scooter company. “The creaking is actually the aluminum stretching (and potentially/eventually cracking), which is very hard to fix without replacing the bolt, and in some cases the whole locking mechanism,” he told me. “[T]o really fix the problem you have to replace the locking mech with an aftermarket one that is designed to handle more stress than the OEM one.” His conclusion: “I wouldn’t continue riding the scooter in its current condition.”

Not wanting to put myself or any of my colleagues in danger, I got back to Xiaomi with this information. Although the rep insisted that the creaking “shouldn’t pose any safety concerns in the short run” (but “What about the long run?” I wondered), the company also wanted to collect that first unit for testing and leave us another. Xiaomi’s colleagues at Ninebot, the rep said, “did agree with the repair tech [Valiant] that the creaking noise is caused by the friction between the folding lock/hook and its base.”

We traded the original scooter for a second one. I rode that one home, and there it was again: the same creaking noise. Two units having the same issue? That’s bad news, and we decided we couldn’t recommend the scooter. In early 2020, Xiaomi issued a safety notice, acknowledging that some M365 units do, in fact, use aluminum, rather than steel, in the folding mechanism, and that some of these may fail. If you have purchased one of these scooters, we recommend that you see if it’s eligible for repair.

Segway Ninebot’s KickScooter ES2 is another popular model, and it’s the basis for the scooters that many of the rental companies use. But I found it to be a poor value, since currently it costs only about $100 less than the G30LP yet has far less range. In my tests, I was able to ride for just over 9 miles before the battery gave out. That’s simply too little range for something that typically costs $590. Additionally, TJ Valiant told us that the lack of a handbrake was potentially dangerous. “I’ve read a couple horror stories of people riding the scooter downhill, and the scooter shuts down due to protective circuitry and then the brake no longer works,” he said. “I know there is a foot brake but at speeds over 10km/hr it becomes very difficult to stop quickly.”

The Levy Plus starts at $700, a bit less than the KickScooter Max, but it’s warrantied for only six months. Its advertised range is 22 miles, which in reality is likely closer to 10 or 15 miles. But even that we were not able to determine, because when we rode this model, the five-bar battery meter was all over the place, jumping up and down in a way that meant we couldn’t actually know how much charge the battery had left (and there’s no Bluetooth connection, so you can’t get a more accurate figure from an app). In an email, Levy confirmed this to be a known issue.

The Bird One is the first scooter that the rental company sells directly to customers. Unfortunately, this model fails in many regards, the most egregious being that it doesn’t fold. This makes the scooter both harder to store and to transport; literally no other scooter we’ve tested omits this feature. It’s almost as heavy as the KickScooter Max but has only 75% of the range. There’s no on-device display. You have to unlock the scooter with an app every time you want to ride it. And, to top everything off, it’s very expensive, at $1,300.

Swagtron’s Swagger Pro 3 is the least expensive scooter available from a company we trust, typically costing $250. But with its small wheels and diminutive size, it feels more like a toy than a true mode of transportation. Add to that the maximum operating temperature of 77 degrees Fahrenheit, and it’s practically unusable throughout much of the country over many months of the year. (It’s also out of stock currently.)

Glion’s Dolly, which usually costs between $400 and $500, promises the same range and speed that the Segway Ninebot ES2 offers, and its advertised carrying capacity is 255 pounds. But we found its handlebars and stem far too wobbly for our comfort. If it’s not something we’d ride, it’s not something we can recommend. The Dolly is also not UL-certified, although the company claims that the scooter is tested and certified by a company that meets UL standards.

We dismissed a number of scooters without testing them. Here’s why:

Segway Ninebot’s KickScooter ES4 is a variant of the ES2 bundled with a battery that extends the range to 28 miles per charge. But it has the same $800 price tag as the KickScooter Max, with a more limited claimed range.

Tomoloo’s L1 Electric Scooter is popular in the scooter community, but it has no US-based customer service and no stated warranty. If you want to talk to the company, you have to call a Chinese phone number or send an email or Facebook message. In addition to those concerns, it was unavailable to purchase at the time of this guide’s publication. This scooter usually goes for $400.

Minimotor’s Speedway Mini 4 currently costs $1,050 (down from the usual $1,150), and that’s the cheapest scooter the company offers (its Dualtron line goes up to $3,900). That price gets you a fairly impressive 30-mile claimed range and a claimed carrying capacity of 265 pounds. But a company representative told us, “Our scooters are built to UL standards but are not UL-certified,” and there’s no stated warranty. Without that certification or warranty information, we can’t recommend it.

At the time we were researching this guide, Unagi’s Model One (E500 Dual Motor) scooter, which claims to be able to carry 275 pounds, was not UL-certified. It’s also very expensive, at nearly $1,000, and it offers a paltry 15½-mile advertised range, which is likely less than 10 miles in any practical scenario.

Gotrax’s GXL Commuting Electric Scooter has a 90-day (aka it barely counts) warranty and a relatively short claimed range of 12½ miles.

Razor sells more than a dozen scooters that are designed for kids, with low prices and equally low weight limits and ranges that make them toys. The $280 E300 Electric Scooter does support riders weighing up to 220 pounds, but it claims only a 10-mile range, while the $600 E-XR Electric Scooter is heavy and has only a 90-day warranty.

REVRides sells a range of its own Zero scooters, as well as some Segway Ninebot scooters. The Zero models, which start at $800 and go up to $3,500, are all either sold out or available only for preorder. The company offers a 12-month warranty on all of them, but it doesn’t include labor costs in that coverage or the cost of shipping parts (unless you make your claim within five days of receiving the scooter).

Fluidfreeride’s scooters are either prohibitively expensive for most people (with some models selling for $3,000 or more), sold out, or available only for preorder, and they come with just a six-month warranty.

Voro Motors’s Emove scooters are relatively expensive—the models we’d consider testing sell for up to $1,400—and warrantied for merely half a year.