XM3500 review

XM3500Li Electric MoPed Review - 11-12-2008

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The XM3500Li is a good looking machine. It comes in a steel crate with a lot of plastic wrap for protection. Removing the bike from the crate requires disassembling the top half of the crate by removing 6 bolts and swinging it up out of the way. The wheels are wired down to the crate as well. I did this by myself when I had some time but two people would be better, especially when horsing it out of the blocks of the crate.

Check closely for shipping damage around the center posts. If the bike is loose in the crate at all, it will likely rub on the plastic trim and leave small saw marks. One side of this bike had this happen. I also had a broken mirror out of the box. The good news is that Extreme Scooters was helpful and quick to replace the damaged parts with no out of the ordinary questions asked. Extreme has a support page on their website just for this purpose. Response was timely and service was courteous and quick.

I chose the black machine with silver accents on the footpads, rims and drive hub. The extreme emblems are very nice in white on black on this bike. Some of the other smaller bikes emblems are more gaudy in appearance and I’ve removed them sometimes but this one looks good.

The 13 inch wheel size is adequate for this bike and doesn’t seem small at all, and fits the overall size well. The body seems quite big for what is supposed to be a small moped style scooter. It feels a lot like a small lightweight motorcycle when moving it around while straddling the seat. Just looking at it, you would never believe that it was an electric until you start looking for the “drive train”. A few friends of mine who are Harley riders looked for 15 minutes before they found the wire that powers the drive hub and realized it was electric! They were all quite impressed and I didn’t receive the moped jokes that I had expected from a bunch of hard core cycle riders.

I first rode the machine on the back parking lot here at our store. I couldn’t get it up to full speed before I ran out of room but the speedometer said I was doing 50 so I thought that the specs were probably in line. Later I realized I was looking at the big numbers which are Km on this dash with the small numbers being Mph.

The weight of the XM3500Li is only 276 lbs so it is quite lively while riding it. The suspension has a double spring in the back which seems to absorb bumps well. However the front forks transfer quite a bit of feedback. Not much more than I’d really expected from this size of a bike though. Certainly within acceptable limits of comfort, but it will get your attention when hitting anything more than small bumps at speed.

The manufacturer claims an impressive 55 mph on this machine and a 70 mile range under ideal conditions. This is what drove me to put down the cash and check out this scooter. I couldn’t wait to get it licensed and out on the road.

The license and registration procedure was painful at best. I was excited when I walked into the office that I was first in line with no wait... or so I thought. I was first told that if it didn’t have a CC designation that it couldn’t be licensed. After a couple of remarks that made that statement obviously ridiculous they began researching further with the supervisor. Well, 45 minutes passed while phone calls were made until I was told
that I would have to come back tomorrow. I left that day and when I returned in the morning they were able to make a completely new classification for the bike and were able to give me the license for it.

Insurance was not much better. Nobody will insure something without a CC designation. GEICO finally did insure electric scooters and used a CC that was similar to the output that is expected from the XM3500Li. I think we used 100cc for this.

When I finally got to ride it out on the road I was certainly impressed. The pick up speed from a dead stop almost put me into the back end of the car in front of me more than once! I could beat almost anything off the line! Okay, that’s probably an exaggeration but you get the point. There is a bit of electric motor noise but not much. Almost like when we used to put cards in our bicycle spokes when we rode. but that is bad analogy and maybe a bit louder too.

I drove it about 15 miles to my workplace on the access roads and roads posted 40 mph or less. I never felt that I was going too slow compared to the cars around me. I finally started reading the speedometer correctly and realized that it said I was running at about 40 mph. Having ridden bikes all my life I felt that I was going much faster and wasn’t sure if I believed the gauge. Of course I was on a light weight bike and didn’t have a helmet for this spur of the moment decision to ride this day, so the wind in my face could’ve made it feel like it was faster than it was.

Riding back at night time, the headlights were quite adequate and provided plenty of light for the speeds I was riding. The turn indicators did fine as well and the running lights made me feel that I was being seen. Unfortunately on the way back I ran out of juice rather unexpectedly. When the battery level needle starts to go down it goes down quick! I still had about two miles left to go so I knew I would be pushing it eventually. Turns out that the batteries are regenerative as you coast. So for about a mile I was able to coast for 50 yards, get some juice back and then power forward for another 50 yards. This lasted for awhile as I continuously slowed down until I got to a hill and that was that. I pushed it up the hill without too much difficulty though and eventually was able to coast down the other side and get enough battery back to almost make it home.

Now I should say that I did not charge the battery when I received it from the factory and while it said it was full, that was probably not the case. Even so, I had made about 35 miles on the charge. I’m looking forward to doing this again after a full charge and seeing what I can get. I’m afraid that I will never see 70 miles unless I’m driving 20 mph or less. All of this test was at maximum output for the most part, so bear that in mind when I say that I only got 35 miles on a partially charged battery. I’ll update this more later when I ride it next week if the weather permits and get another test for total range.

I didn’t believe the speedometer was correct, so later I had a vehicle follow me and the best I could get out of it on a full battery was 42 mph. It sure felt a lot faster than that though, and I was surprised that the top speed was so much less than advertised. However, I wouldn’t want to go much faster than that on this bike. I felt quite safe at these speeds but another 10 mph would be uncomfortable I think.

In summary the XM3500Li does not meet its advertised specs for speed and range but I have to say it makes up for that in pure fun. This is as close as you can get to a motorcycle and still be a scooter,.. and it’s electric! I think the MSRP is probably a bit overpriced considering it doesn’t live up to the published specs out there. We sell this unit here on the website at MSRP but if you give me a call I will give you a good discount when you mention this review.

Overall, I think it is a good purchase if you can get it for less than MSRP somewhere and have it shipped to your door. Pickup at a shipping facility is not worth the $50 you’ll save to have it brought to you directly.

Get out there now and enjoy the day on whatever bike your riding! If you need one, give me a call and let’s make a deal.

Be safe and courteous,

Eric

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