As part of Exway’s 7th anniversary celebration, they are letting me give one of my YouTube subscribers an Exway Ripple electric skateboard for free! Use the form below to participate. If you can’t see it, go here instead.
My Exway Ripple video: https://youtu.be/ixaoa1M3IxI
Exway Ripple Giveaway
I’m looking for an experienced video editor to edit my YouTube videos in my style. The ideal candidate:
Keep reading if you’re interested!
I need a good editor. Better than me. You need to be good with pacing, composition, colors, audio, and have a ton of empathy for the viewer. You need to know how to keep the viewer’s attention.
And you need to be great with Adobe Premiere Pro. Many of my videos will be edited by both of us so we need to use the same software, and that’s Adobe Premiere Pro.
My team communicates in English, so you’ll need to as well. My videos often have text overlays and they need to be presented in standard American English.
If you can read some Chinese, that would be a plus as we sometimes receive specs sheets and whatnot in Chinese, but it’s not a requirement.
Most of my videos are about electric skateboards, electric scooters, and electric bikes. You need to be (or become) familiar with the names of different components and how they work in order to edit my videos efficiently. It’s ok to learn on the job.
Be honest with me and yourself – does this kind of stuff bore you or interest you? This may affect whether you enjoy this job or find it to be a chore.
My typical video project has around 50 to 100 GB of footage. I need you to have a stable and fast internet connection to download those footage for editing.
Work from home or a co-working space or McDonald’s or wherever. I imagine you should have some sort of editing setup at home to work effectively and comfortably but that’s up to you. We’ll communicate through messaging apps and email.
I don’t need you to work 8 hours per day nor stick to normal work hours. As long as you finish within the generously allotted time frame and meet my quality expectations, work any hours you want. In fact, I would prefer that you take a day off in between big video projects (in addition to weekends and holidays, of course).
But you’ll need to be at least as efficient an editor as myself to be able to pull that off, and have the self-discipline to manage your own time.
You need to be obsessed about the quality of your work. I’m not talking about splashy transitions and motion graphics and stuff. You need to check your own work for mistakes like typos, ghost frames, inconsistent audio levels, BGM not ducked, underexposed shots, et cetera.
A small amount of jank is welcome in my YouTube videos but there’s a difference between jank and mistakes. You need to set a high bar for yourself.
If so, please spend some time and watch these examples from my channel to get a good idea of what my videos are like:
Each of my videos are typically 6 to 18 minutes long and take 8 to 24 man-hours to edit. You should have prior experience in editing videos of that length.
DO NOT show me montages or reels set to music! Show me your complex edits.
Bonus: If you can demonstrate that you have an eye for graphic design and typography, even better.
If you have problems using this form, let me know the issue on my contact form.
Help write video scripts and other materials in American English. Must have an excellent understanding of electric skateboards.
This can be a part-time or full-time position. Can work from anywhere and communicate with me online. Pay commensurate with experience.
To apply, show at least 10 pieces of relevant past work such as articles or video scripts.
Help edit videos for my YouTube channel and various social media. Applicant should be fluent in English and have a good understanding of electric skateboards or be willing to learn on the job. Must use Adobe Premiere Pro.
This can be a part-time or full-time position. Can work from anywhere in China. Pay commensurate with experience.
To apply, show at least 10 videos that you’ve edited from scratch. I need to see videos with storytelling and voice tracks. DO NOT send me montages set to music!
Reach me at https://dkwan.com/contact. To send me files, upload them to a file sharing service and send me the download links.
Help me get back on a board again! Sales of the DKWAN Rehab line of merch will go towards my physical therapy bills.
I broke my ankle from a longboarding accident. The break was a bimalleolar fracture, meaning the bottom parts of both the tibia and fibula broke. My broken bones are now held together by a metal plate and screws, and I got a couple gnarly scars for free!
The bones will undoubtedly heal, but whether I’ll regain the full range of motion in my ankle is in question. If my ROM does not improve, I will walk with a limp and may not be able to run, much less skate again.
To give myself the best chance of a full recovery, I’ve been going to physical therapy at a private hospital once every one or two weeks and plan on going to a specialized clinic later. Each session at the hospital costs $157 (1000 RMB), and the clinic’s 16-week program is about $4500 (28,800 RMB). At the moment I don’t know how many sessions I’ll have at the hospital but I’m roughly estimating my total physical therapy expense to be about $6000.
I’m selling these DKWAN Rehab items to help offset the cost of my physical therapy sessions.
They will be available from now until the end of April 2022. At the end of April 2022, the amount raised will be calculated. Any profit above $6000 will be donated to charity. (Which charity is TBD. I doubt we’ll reach $6000 but we’ll see!)
My original plan was to sell the DKWAN Rehab items for a limited time and then calculate the profits at the end of the campaign. If the profits were to exceed the amount I’d need for my physical therapy sessions, the extra amount was to go to charity.
Unfortunately I have to scrap that plan because there’s not a simple way for me to calculate how much I’m making from this campaign alone with the way I have my store set up. So now these DKWAN Rehab items are sold like regular items.
I was out with some people practicing downhill longboarding. I exhausted myself, got sloppy, and fell in a way that caused my right ankle to overextend externally and snap. I talk more about it in this video.
My surgery and 9 days at the hospital cost me a little over $6000. I paid out of pocket but that amount should be covered by the one-day sport insurance I purchased which covers up to $9428 (60,000 RMB). The insurance claim is in progress. (Update: I have received the insurance money. About 90% of that bill was covered, yay.)
My physical therapy sessions are not covered.
If these items are too expensive for you but you’d still like to get one, use discount code BROKE at the checkout page. If you don’t need the discount, paying full price helps me out more. Thanks either way!
I broke my ankle in a skating accident on November 16. I had surgery on the 18th and I’m currently still in bed at the hospital waiting to recover enough to be discharged. If all goes well, I think I’ll be out on the 25th.
At the moment I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get back on the computer to do normal work, like editing videos. I might still need to remain horizontal with my leg raised for some time.
If you don’t hear from me for a while, this is why. Hope to be back soon! In the meantime, I’ll probably still post on Instagram (@dkwan).
You get better deals on this page than what these brands advertise!
Here are my best deals on electric skateboards and accessories for 2021’s Black Friday. Share this page with your friends! Using these discounts also helps support what I do so it’s a win-win for everyone!
Backfire’s Black Friday price for the entry-level G2 Black is $419. Save an additional $10 using my discount code, bringing the price down to $409.
Discount code: DKWANG2
Discount link: https://dkwan.com/go/backfireg2/
Save $255 and get free shipping on the Exway Atlas 4WD. The original price of the Atlas 4WD is $2199, plus a $150 shipping fee. During the Black Friday sale it’s $1964 with my discount, and shipping is free!
Discount code: DKWAN (case-sensitive)
Discount link: https://dkwan.com/exway/
My personal favorite for portability and fun! The original price of the Exway X1 Max is $849 plus a $78 shipping fee (US). During the current sale it’s $749 with my discount, and shipping is free.
Discount code: DKWAN (case-sensitive)
Discount link: https://dkwan.com/exway/
Get up to $420 off the Meepo Hurricane by using my discount code at the checkout page. The original price of the Hurricane with all-terrain wheels is $1649. After my discount it’s $1280. The original price of the Hurrcane’s 2-in-1 package is $1799. After my discount it’s just $1379.
Discount code: DKHURRICANE
Discount link: https://dkwan.com/hurricane/
Get $105 off the WowGo AT2 by using my discount code at the checkout page. The original price of the AT2 with one set of wheels is $1100. After my discount it’s $995. The original price of the AT2 with both sets of wheels (175mm pneumatics and 120mm Cloudwheels) is $1220. With my discount it’s just $1115.
Discount code: DKWAN
Discount link: https://dkwan.com/wowgo/
NOTE: Due to my recently broken ankle, I’m not updating this page nor doing much of anything else for now. Sorry and thanks for your understanding! (November 20)
Subscribe to my newsletter to be updated by email when new deals become available.
Also check out my discounts page for the current discounts for other brands.
Only a week ago, Exway issued an apology statement about how they handled the switch to lower capacity battery cells in two of their electric skateboard models. Yesterday it was WowGo’s turn. Who’s next?
According to a Reddit post, people started noticing WowGo’s reduced battery capacities weeks ago. It just didn’t get much attention (at least not my attention) until u/Lelle_91 compiled the evidence from various people into a single post.
What happened wasn’t exactly the same as what happened with Exway. Exway at some point changed the batteries and later updated the battery specs on their website. They claim that it happened in that order by mistake.
In WowGo’s case, they changed the batteries and removed battery specs from their website. They claim they weren’t trying to fool customers.
But the end result is the same in both cases: customers didn’t get what they were expecting.
That Reddit post has a glaring mistake though: it states that the WowGo AT2 now uses Samsung 29E cells, which are 2900mAh and 2.75A discharge per cell. That would make the AT2’s 10S4P pack only 11A. Impossible.
I asked WowGo’s CEO Jason about this. He says the AT2 is using a domestic cell called Dongci (东磁) 29E, which is 2900mAh 10A. The person who guessed Samsung 29E likely made that wrong assumption because of the “29E” on the battery label.
Being 10A cells, the battery pack is still 40A like before, but the capacity has dropped from 504Wh to 418Wh.
The switch from imported to domestic battery cells is understandable given the worldwide battery shortage, but naturally prospective buyers of electric skateboards have to wonder if this capacity reduction is happening to other brands as well. I talked to two of the biggest e-skate mass producers: Meepo and Backfire.
I’d ask Evolve as well but mutual friends tell me they hate me over there. (I wonder why, lolz!) However we can make educated guesses on what cells they’re using.
By the way, check out my new range calculator! Use it to compare the range of different boards before buying.
According to Kieran, Meepo’s CEO, Meepo has dealt with the shortage of imported battery cells by switching their use of Samsung 40T to the more expensive Molicel P42A since November of last year. This covers all of their boards above $500. While the Molicel cells are imported as well, Kieran says they are not in short supply because of their higher cost.
For boards under $500, Meepo has been using domestic cells since 2019 – and also stopped showing their battery specs on their website at that time. I don’t remember any commotion about that. Maybe no one noticed or cared? Maybe capacities remained the same? In any case, they have no need to make any changes now.
Backfire’s CEO Randy saw this battery shortage coming a long time ago and the brand has been using domestic 21700 cells since 2019. Only two of Backfire’s boards today use 18650 cells but they too have been using domestic cells since they came out middle of last year.
To reiterate, all of Backfire’s boards today use domestic cells so they have no battery supply issue and don’t need to make adjustments. They still show battery specs on their website, but just the voltage, capacity, and cell size.
Correction (July 15): The Ranger X2, G3 Plus, and G2 Galaxy use imported cells but they simply remain out of stock when their specified battery cells aren’t available to produce more of them.
I didn’t talk to Evolve (patent troll) but we can speculate based on what we know.
The Evolve GTR uses Samsung 35E and I believe they will continue to use that cell until they sell out and discontinue the board. It makes no sense to me that they would continue to sell such an outdated and underperforming board in mid-2021 unless they’re overstocked.
Perhaps Team Evolve mistakenly thought that their spike in sales in mid-2020 was due to their ingenious marketing so they produced more GTRs than they should have? (Every PEV brand got a spike in sales during 2020’s COVID lockdowns.)
Nope, that video wasn’t a mistake and it did well for us.
Comment from Matty of Evolve Skateboards
Anyway.
Evolve openly disclosed the cell model for the GTR but not the Hadean, so I believe they are using Chinese cells in their $2500+ board. According to sources in e-skate manufacturing, the cells are likely one of these: SunPower (长虹三杰) INR21700-4000, LiShen (力神) LR2170SA, or Haihong (海宏) INR21700-4000.
It’s also possible that Hadean’s cell type hasn’t been finalized since the board won’t ship until September.
I know it’s difficult for some people to crawl out from under the rock and believe that good products can come out of China, but plenty of great products today come from Chinese companies.
I’m not saying that out of some sense of nationalism or anything – I’m not even a Chinese citizen. I just get tired of racism. Oh excuse me, that’s a harsh word for something that’s so rampant. Call it bigotry or stereotypes if that makes you feel better.
Based on Kieran’s recent video about batteries, there are domestic cells that have a good balance of capacity and discharge rate. (LiShen LR2170LA seems to be the standout winner in his table.) They’re likely expensive right now due to shortages.
Meepo and Backfire (and others) have been using domestic cells since 2019. It’s now 2021. If domestic cells as a whole are problematic, we should be seeing more reports of issues from domestic cells than imported cells, but we don’t. So far so good.
In any case, use of Chinese brand cells in mass production electric skateboards and other PEVs is now the norm and it’s likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future.
Shopping for an electric skateboard? Be sure to visit my discounts page to get the best deals!
Evolve has applied for a patent in Australia claiming to have invented the electric skateboard. But obviously Evolve did not invent the electric skateboard.
This post has been updated. New info added to the end.
Gas-powered skateboards came on the market in the 1970s. Wireless electric skateboards came in the 1990s. Evolve was founded in 2012.
Evolve founder Jeff Anning himself stated in a video that he got the idea of making electric skateboards because he saw someone else on one.
But surely Evolve invented something, right? And they did, sort of. They put double kingpin trucks on an electric skateboard. Does that count? Seriously, that is as close to an invention as they get.
They first used Gullwing Sidewinders (the original double kingpin trucks) and then made their own copy and named them Super Carve. Sorry, Evolve fans – Evolve didn’t invent those trucks either.
Oh but now with the Hadean they have that drop-in enclosure which doesn’t offer any benefit to customers. It just lets Evolve call their deck a forged carbon fiber deck when it’s actually mostly plastic. Will they patent that?
What will Evolve do with this patent? We don’t have to wait to find out. According to Scott Davies:
Evolve have sent letters from their legal team to a number of ESK8 brands demanding they stop selling their Carbon boards in Australia, they have also demanded they turn over % profit and destroy stock & a number of other demands.
Community post on Scott Davies YouTube channel
First electric skateboard company to use double kingpin trucks.
First and only electric skateboard company to make a racist video.
First and only electric skateboard company to become a patent troll.
Evolve has made a response to this stuff:
The patent was applied 4 years ago and has since been approved. It does not apply to the entire concept of an electric skateboard, Evolve has been very clear that they did not invent this. It specifically addresses a moulded Carbon deck with a series of other claims about internal electronics accessible from the top cover etc. A board must infringe against ALL claims in the patent or they have nothing to worry about.
Evolve Ambassador comment in Evolve Skateboard Owners Intl. Facebook Group
So Evolve actually intended on being a dick since 4 years ago but just hadn’t been able to.
Do they really believe that a “moulded carbon deck” with “internal electronics accessible from the top cover” is some sort of innovation that deserves to be protected?
For those who don’t understand, this is basically a lid you unscrew to access the inside – like unscrewing your computer case, or unscrewing the back of your watch, or unscrewing the vent cover on the floor.
Evolve Skateboards, like all other e-skate companies, benefited from a sea of incremental innovations that came before them in skateboards, radio control, batteries, etc. And now they’re threatening competitors with a patent on a conventional lid.
Fuck off, Evolve.
Exway is in hot waters for changing the batteries for the Exway Flex and Exway Wave electric skateboards without informing buyers ahead of time.
The Exway Flex and Wave had been out of stock for some time. I wasn’t following this closely so I don’t know how long, but I believe many had been waiting for more than a month. Customers were however still able to place pre-orders.
Around the end of last week, people started receiving their pre-ordered boards. And shortly after that, reports of battery discrepancies began to surface.
Instead of 259Wh batteries for the Exway Flex, customers received 216Wh batteries. And for the Exway Wave, instead of 216Wh batteries, they got 180Wh.
Although Exway’s product descriptions on their website do show the reduced capacities (though nobody knows exactly when the site was updated), there was no announcement or alert of any kind to make buyers clearly aware that the battery capacities had been reduced.
Basically nobody knew about this change until after they received their boards. Unsurprisingly, people are upset.
Yesterday (Monday) I spoke with my contact person at Exway. He had only just returned to work after being away for two weeks so he himself had to find out what this hubbub was about.
According to Exway, this is what happened:
The new batteries with the reduced capacities were not supposed to be used on the Flex and Wave until the end of this month (July) after proper announcements and whatnot had been made. The production team went ahead and used the new batteries by mistake.
As for why they decided to switch to lower capacity batteries in the first place, the gist of it is that there’s a worldwide shortage of battery cells due to both an increased demand from electric cars and raw material shortage for battery producers. Exway had to find alternative batteries and after testing several domestic options, they felt the ones they chose were the best overall for the Flex and Wave.
The original higher capacity batteries have been sent out to Exway’s various resellers around the globe. So if you buy a Flex or Wave from a reseller, you may still get the original battery. But eventually, all new Flex and Wave units will use the new batteries.
Exway has posted an apology notice on their various social media accounts and published a blog post. Customers affected can either return the board for a full refund or keep the board and receive a $50 refund.
This reflects badly on me. My Exway Flex and Wave videos on YouTube are some of the most viewed videos covering those two boards. More than a few people have told me personally that my videos were their main reason for purchasing the Flex and Wave.
I literally have the words “everything you need to know” in my Exway Flex video’s thumbnail. And among the things people needed to know was that the Exway Flex has a 259Wh battery. But now it doesn’t, and neither myself nor the customers were informed ahead of time.
This is not the first time Exway has had to issue an apology over the past year, but this instance is probably the first one that qualifies as a scandal. The past were all for missed delivery dates.
With each apology, Exway gave customers some lame gifts or small refund as compensation which only added insult to injury. (Well the quick charger was nice.) I hate to say this but this seems like Exway’s M.O.: fuck up, apologize, offer compensation. It’s sad, and I’m saying this as a fan of Exway’s products.
I told them the $50 refund would not be received well, and it wasn’t, but I honestly don’t know what they could have offered to placate the upset customers. $75? $100? I have no idea. The fuckup shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
I can’t imagine this being anything other than a big blow to Exway’s reputation. The only way they can recover from this is to stop having things to apologize for and slowly rebuild their image.
I’ll still use their products of course. And I am looking forward to their upcoming X1 Max more than any other upcoming boards that I know about. But I can’t ignore the fact that this incident has damaged people’s trust in the brand.
If you’ve been considering getting the Flex or Wave, should you still get one?
For the Flex, I suppose you need to see if the reduced range meets your needs. (Take off 16.7% from range tests from reviews.) If range is important to you, Backfire Zealot S is a popular alternative.
As for the Wave, I can’t really think of an equal competitor in terms of features and polish. Range was never the Wave’s strength so I don’t think the new battery impacts the Wave as much as it does the Flex.
The Wave is my most frequently used board right now and I’d still recommend it for people who want something portable for short range travel in the city. Just be aware that you should reduce any range test results you see for this board by about 16.7%.
Here is Exway’s blog post about this ordeal.
Shanghai – and possibly all of China – doesn’t allow personal electric vehicles to be used on public roads, and not even sidewalks. The enforcement of that rule varies a lot. Sometimes the traffic cops ignore me, sometimes I get a warning, sometimes I get fined. Yesterday was the first time they took away the board. It was the Exway Atlas during my 2WD street wheels range test.
The officers told me I need to go to a police station on Monday to get the board back. Sounds simple enough. That means I have to postpone the big comparison shoot I had planned for Monday. The problem is that while the board is confiscated, it will likely be kept outdoor along with the confiscated cars and scooters – and the next couple days will be raining.
That is a huge problem. Electric skateboards and other PEVs (and most electronics in general) should not be left out in the rain, even if they claim to have some kind of IP rating. Water finds its way into places if you give it enough opportunity.
Best case: some replaceable parts get rusty. Worse case: something gets corroded and the board loses performance or fails. Even worse: the board catches on fire while charging or riding. And the very worst case: everything seems fine but weeks later the board starts shooting flames at home while unattended.
When I go get the board back, I’ll find out if it was left outside in the rain. If so, I’ll have to take everything apart as much as I can and carefully inspect them. Sigh.
Update: I got it back! See video below.