Editorial Policy & Scooter Selection Process

Whether I’m working on a new buyer guide or an individual scooter review, I always place myself in your shoes to understand what information will be most helpful. That’s why I don’t publish lazy “Top 10” guides. Instead, I carefully curate content to deliver a rich and useful experience. This process involves 3 steps:

Step 1: Shortlisting the Scooters

Shortlisting the scooters isn’t an easy job, and this is because each is subject to a certain set of criteria.

Before I get my hands on new scooters to test and review, I scour and scrutinize coverage of them across the retailer’s website, third-party review platforms, and the opinions of scooter riders from Reddit. I also often schedule face-to-face calls with the retailers/brands to learn more about who they are, what they believe their scooters have to offer, and importantly, clarify post-purchase details (including customer support and warranty information).

All too often, I see electric scooters being reviewed, but the companies behind them are simply in it for a money grab and fail to provide a good level of post-purchase care. This is why I go the extra step to assess customer support in my tests.

Following the tests, the scooters are added to our database along with their key performance metrics and design specifications. This sets the foundation for the shortlisting process that’s required for the creation of my “best” electric scooter guides (i.e. best for speed, off-roading, commuting, etc).

To paint a clear picture of this process, I’ll use my guide to the best long-range electric scooters as an example.

To shortlist the best models from the entire database of electric scooters that I’ve tested and reviewed, I placed particular focus on areas of their design and performance that addressed their ability to be top performers in the long-range category.

Here, each scooter was assessed on the following:

• Maximum range (based on optimal riding conditions)
• Real-world range (based on real-world riding conditions)
• Battery size (voltage, amp-hours, watt-hours)
• Battery quality (cell type, branded vs non-branded)
• Battery management system (the protection systems that ensure battery health)
• Charge time (the time it takes for the battery to fully charge)
• Ride quality (handling, comfort, and power delivery)
• Reliability (how well a scooter holds up on long rides, i.e. durability)

Following this analysis, a pool of 55 top-performing long-range models were shortlisted.

Step 2: Understanding Your Preferences

This is one of the most time-consuming steps in the process and it’s vitally important that I get it right.

It’s not good enough to simply present a “Top 10” list of the best electric scooters. Instead, a thorough understanding of your intent is required so that I can curate the list in a way that recognizes diversity in rider preferences.

Again, to paint a clear picture of the process, I’ll use the long-range scooter guide as an example.

The term ‘long-range’ can mean different things to different people. Some may think a long-range is 30 miles, while others may think it's 60 miles. Similarly, you may be searching for a long-range scooter that can be ridden fast, whilst someone else may want one that can go off-road.

I think of every possibility and address them in an easy-to-digest format. For the long-range guide, I created three overarching categories to provide a breakdown of the best models by different range classes – including long-range (20-40 miles), super long-range (40-60 miles), and extreme range (60-80 miles). Within each of these, I then added sub-categories to address riders of varying experience levels – including entry-level, intermediate, and expert.

Example: See how the top-performing long-range electric scooters have been categorized by range class and rider experience.

Taking this one step further, I categorized the scooters by use case (i.e. for heavy riders, off-roading, commuting, and so on) to give you a complete overview as to which model is best for your specific needs.

Example: See how the top-performing long-range electric scooters have been categorized by use case.

I repeat this process for all of my “best” electric scooter guides, whilst also addressing the suitability of each scooter in my reviews.

Step 3: Selecting the Scooters

Once I have an understanding of your preferences and have outlined the types of scooters that would be most suited to you, I then carefully select the best models from the shortlist.

Depending on the guide, the number of scooters selected can vary. For instance, in my guide to the best long-range electric scooters, 9 were chosen from a total of 55 shortlisted models. On the other hand, just 6 were selected from 31 models in my guide to the best off-road scooters.

As a result of my precise approach, you can be confident that all the scooters featured in my guides are there because of merit.