Board braked / jumped into reverse on its own in ECO mode

So another issue pops up on my board again, after having it come back from Evolve for repair as I talked about in the other getting thrown off the board thread. The board worked well for 1 week after getting it back, then it became very unpredictable again. Move the throttle forward, nothing, then it starts off chattering and then full on with your request. It wasn't as bad as when I sent it in, but now its getting worse and worse everyday. I've been VERY CAUTIOUS riding this board and never putting my full trust in it. Thank God!

So I want to mention that another rider reported getting thrown off the board and he believes the board went into reverse on its own. Well now I totally 100% believe him. It happened to me too. Today when I began my ride to catch the bus a few miles away from my house I took it very easy, starting off in ECO, shifting into FAST then GT mode. But today I wasn't in GT mode for long. Half way into the ride when I was in FAST mode which I just switched over from a very responding ECO mode, I went into FAST mode. (Dropping the trigger to neutral, selecting right button to go into FAST, then accelerating). When I did this I had the throttle over 33% or more pushed forward, the board didn't feel right, didn't have the right response. I knew this was bad. I tapped the throttle, then slowly engaged it forward again. Chattery throttle response as I've experienced. I then stopped the board. Turned it off, turned the remote off and followed Evolve's pairing instructions that were sent out by their service team. I then took off in ECO mode, didn't seem right with the throttle response, I then went into FAST and it was again odd, poor response, I then just took it easy, dropped down into ECO mode, went down a hill and then dismounted to cross the RR tracks. I then put the board on the ground and started off in ECO mode and went into FAST. Again bad throttle response. So I then dropped down to ECO mode. (Goto neutral, tap left button once, then accelerate). When I accelerated the throttle response was very very choppy, it started accelerating in that fashion then out of nowhere, the board stops in its tracks. It either decided to apply FULL brakes or to go into reverse on its own. I had the trigger moved back towards me to accelerate, not all the way forward to brake. I really was lucky I wasn't going fast, I was going around 7mph or so. I then started off again, was very choppy, And then it cleared up and the board was fine. This was as I was entering Downtown Santa Cruz when the board jumped into reverse.

Here's the thread of the other forum member who had the same exact thing happen to him, riding into ECO then the board slams you into reverse.

Cruiseing on eco then bang thrown of board split my head open

 

has this ever happened to you when you were not shifting?

I have noticed (just when playing with the remote, without riding) that the gear/display can get "confused" with the timing of the up/down button clicks. I have never experienced a problem while riding.

is it possible you are tapping too many times and it's just catching up?

 

I wasn't shifting while I was going forward in ECO. I typically go to neutral then shift into the speed mode. It already shifted into ECO, it was applying forward movement to the wheels, it was ECO since it didn't have as much torque upon acceleration.... it then on its own became jittery then either applied full brakes or went into reverse. Like the other person as well, he wasn't playing with the remote and nor was I. I would say I went about 50 feet or more however after I dropped down from FAST to ECO and started accelerating in ECO with the jitters from the remote/board before it locked up. Its a serious issue. You'd have to move the trigger full forward to have the braking it had or have the board go into reverse the way it locked up.

How does the board decide to activate full brakes? That takes the user to fully push the remote trigger forward.
If it wasn't brakes, how does the board go into reverse? I was in ECO mode, verified before and after the lockup. After the lockup it was still in ECO, I looked for the REV sign on the screen. Nothing. You'd have to push the left button one more time to drop into SLOW from ECO then another press to go from SLOW to ECO REV. And I didn't do that either.

 

Geezus with the remote already! Such awful design. Why in the world would the board ever be allowed to go into reverse while it's rolling forward!? It should only be allowed to go into reverse once it's stopped.

Will it take someone getting seriously hurt or worse for Evolve to fix this design flaw!?

 

Well the gen2 GT remote has down/up buttons. The gen1 GT has rev/cycle buttons. I think Evolve know that the reverse button was a bad idea... I saw somewhere that Oz would flash a remote to gen2, assuming rest of world can do this too.

Suggest unless you really want that feature get in touch with your distributor and get it flashed, seriously doubt it will be an issue, tho may take a bit of patience.

Dunno which remote version the topic post had tho.

 

The remote version I have is the V2 protocol set in the remote / new remote / GT style. It has the second firmware update which my board was with the November batches and all got at that time from what I can see. It was to take out the issue of putting the board into reverse by mistake.

However what I had experienced appears to be more of a bug or defect. I wasn't messing around with the buttons whatsoever. I wasn't telling the board to brake. It just got very choppy in the response moving forward then all of a sudden the board stops flat in its tracks and throws you off forward. Still trying to figure out if its reverse or a full stop. I've control tested full stops in ECO mode after this, and its a bit different and I don't think it was a full stop. When it went buggy I could hear something like the belts slip before it tossed me. An indication of the motors going into reverse but the belt skipping over the teeth due to an abrupt change in drive direction. When I do a full control hard brake at 8mph in ECO, the rear wheels will either drag for a quick second or not even drag but roll until the board stops. Ether way... They can easily prevent this from ever happening in firmware and don't know why they don't. When you're above a certain RPM or miles per hour, don't lock up the wheels from braking, also don't ever throw the board into reverse while its moving. I thought they prevented that in the remote firmware. I think it does not allow you to do that and works as it should safely if you try to put it in reverse while moving. So my feeling, since I'm a software / QA hardware tester is that this is a major bug in the firmware or board.

Note that I already got seriously injured from this board!!!! And would have expected a call from Evolve to understand the issue I had before.... The board accelerated on its own full blast in GT mode from 8mph. Threw me on the ground without any warning, had a backpack and dislocated my left shoulder very bad. Its still not the same. Evolve looked at the board, said they didn't see anything wrong, but they went on replacing the motor controller. I had the remote replaced too. Still buggy as all hell and unsafe.

I've lost my patience with the board I have. Nothing but a death trap waiting to happen and when you spend $2k on something is should not be in a pre-alpha or pre-beta stage. However it seems like there's a group of people who have no issues whatsoever. And a small portion that have tons of buggy issues like myself. My Carbon GT is fully enclosed in carbon fiber, that acts like an RF filter, so possibly the radio is below par for transmit/reception and the CF just pushes it under its limit. Your body is a filter too. I'd never enclose any radio or antenna in CF, ever, its a very bad idea.

Anyways I'm done trying to debug issues for Evolve. This last issue has me really pissed off now. If I can't even be safe riding in ECO mode, why the hell would I want to ride this thing?

I'm at the point where I am going offer Evolve 2 options:

A) Send me a totally different board/remote and swap out my lemon of a board that almost killed me 3 times, yes another time the board failed to stop accelerating..., now make that 4 times, another time it failed to stop when going into an intersection. So I DON'T WANT THIS BOARD. PERIOD.

B) Refund my money back completely 100% with no stupid "restocking fee" due to your defective product. And just be happy I'm not filing a lawsuit. But if my patience runs any thinner, and its thin right now, I have no other choice.


From all of this experience first hand, ALWAYS wear a HELMET riding the GT!!!! I can't stress that enough. This is a very buggy board. Secondly, if you experience any oddity from the remote to the board and any weirdness, I suggest you don't ride it and contact Evolve and push them to fix it.

These issues should not be happening with a customer ready product.

 

By the way, I have under 200 miles on my board. Didn't put the AT kit on the board, never used, since I'm fricken frustrated at this piece of crap board.

 

Agreed. Board should not allow reverse with forward movement.

 

Guys, is anyone fromevolve monitoring these posts?

 

I don't know but Evolve sponsored riders are on here... I am assuming they can talk directly to them.

 

Thanks Alex and everyone for responding. I don't think Evolve will respond openly in a public forum regards to issues like this one. It felt like either the board went into reverse after getting the choppy response or either locked on its brakes / regen mode fully. Both that should never occur when a rider is moving forward and giving input to the remote forward. Since this happened in ECO mode with both my self and the other forum member in this post, possibly is just tied to ECO mode but we don't know. We do know that when the remote/board is selected by the user to go into reverse you have to be first in SLOW mode, have the board stopped, then the trigger needs to be in neutral before it will engage and then its in ECO - REV mode.

So there's either a very nasty bug in the firmware remote / controller or the board is getting noise somehow on a line and sending jump junk info across the motor controller. The other possibility is BT interference that somehow hijacks the signal from the remote / board and sends junk. But unless you start putting scopes on the board and RF analyzers we are in the dark here and just speculating.

What I do know is this is the second major uncontrolled / rider uninitiated event I had on the board. Actually more than two, I had the board accelerate without my input while going 8mph throwing me to the ground, and then I had the board keep accelerating full speed when I was in neutral and not brake / activate regen when coming into an intersection, and the choppy acceleration / regen from the remote and board. Board went to Evolve USA and they swapped out the motor controller. Board was smooth for a week and predictable, put 50 t0 100 miles on the board, then it started showing signs of a choppy throttle again. Did the BT repairing of the remote, nothing, then a couple more days later the board throws me off as if its in reverse while I was riding forward in ECO mode. These are some serious issues.

With that said, are all GTs that exhibit the choppy remote going to turn worse such as in my case and endanger the rider? Are boards that have going 500-1000 miles without issue immune from this issue ever? Honestly I / we really don't know. What I do know is that Evolve needs to look into this and get to the bottom of it ASAP. I'm not a person who just jumped on an electric skateboard, I'm a rider who rides for fun as well as uses the board for my daily work commute so I have some miles under my belt. Secondly after being thrown off and hurt when the board took off in GT mode I NEVER trusted the GT and that SAVED me from injury when it decided to go into full braking/reverse while going forward 7-9mph. If that happened and I had let my guard down I would have ended up like the other rider here where the board ended up going into braking/reverse while moving forward at a good rate of speed, and face and body injury. And that is very uncool to have happen to you when you spend $2k on a board. When that much money is spent on something, customers assume that it has been properly tested and is safe. We all put our trust and confidence behind the company that they do due diligence in testing and assure that quality checks are done to protect our safety and confidence in the product. Even if only a small percentage of boards may show defects, as what appears to be happening here, these are very SERIOUS defects and should NOT be ignored at all. They surround the realm of rider safety and that needs to be #1 priority over the fun factor I hate to say but its true.

I found Jeff, the owner of Evolve's email and sent him a writeup of all the issues I had with my board and hopefully I am contacted by him. I also supplied my phone contact information and asked him to contact me that way which is what NEEDS to be done with serious issues to get to the bottom of a defect. I offered Evolve USA this same invitation, no call back. And if you call Evolve USA they screen your phone calls, to me is very shady. I don't know if there's multiple people having issues with these boards, if it surrounds new orders and shipping, I don't know. They need to have a separate phone number for service and for product orders to give customer's confidence. Although some have had great experience in Evolve's customer service I rate mine as poor. I knew from the start that my issue was not going to be fixed by Evolve, however I didn't expect it to get even worse which it did.

If others are saying they get 1000 miles without issue and there's a small percentage of boards with defects, well then I want a brand new board replacement. My luck has shown to be against me at this casino to say and the odds is playing against my personal safety.

Best way to handle a board that is a lemon is to give a full replacement and do a full diagnosis on the defective board. And honestly at this point I'd be happy with getting my full money back on this thing. I am not happy one bit with this product and my experience. Its a beautiful board but what good is it if you can't trust it enough to ride it where it puts your life at risk?

 

Really sorry to hear all the issues, so far touching wood I haven't had any issues with bamboo GT but it makes me nervous reading the posts! I hope that evolve will try to support you in a resolution! Out of interest do you have a bamboo or carbon?

 

Hope Evolve takes your issue seriously and steps up. If not, go forward and do what you need to do. At that point it will be their fault for not rectifying the issue 100%.

 

Yeah, I think it is fair to say even those whose boards that are fine are finding the way some Evolve distributors and perhaps Evolve themselves seem to be handling this.

But to that I will add that Evolve UK are awesome and have always helped me out with every problem, which are often self induced that I have had, which is the reason I bought the GT.

 

Please visit the Ideas and Suggestions forum and vote for ideas that you support: just "like" the initial post. This is the best way to help the Evolve team prioritize bug fixes and new features. Your vote matters!

Here are a few to address this issue:
Evolve Suggestion - Remote preference: Option to allow or disable reverse
Evolve Suggestion - Vibration in remote to signal rider
Evolve Suggestion - User updatable firmware

 

This weekend I put my unused AT kit on the Carbon GT. Great ride and setup, I also recommend to leave the motor / gear covers off. They do absolutely nothing honestly. And with them off there's less chance of branches and debris getting lodged in there. Anyways. I got to ride the GT on trails far away from population this way and on trails along where the ocean is, and nothing else. Well everything worked well. Remote, motor controller and everything. Great experience actually and lots of FUN. Then when I came back to civilization it started acting sensitive with the remote, I was riding GT full blast and looked down at the remote at one time, nothing bad happening, and the batter gauge was GONE! Ohhh, no! I put the puppy in neutral and waited for the battery gauge to come back. It did and all was fine.

So with this, I was thinking about the ECO and jumping into REVerse mode. I have a very high confidence the issue lays with the remote and the dropouts/bad RF signal/ interference, rather than a firmware bug. What most likely happened was that I put the board into ECO mode. Was that it could have been in ECO mode already and got slammed into ECO REV or there was a lag or something in the selection / display. The old ECO or forward mode may have been cached at the board, but somehow it could carry on the throttle forward response. Then it got the mode change and while moving forward, and went into reverse. Only thing that makes sense really and all my issues with this board can be linked one way or another to a bad remote connection. Looking to hunt down a fiberglass thin top cover and cut to size. If not I'll guess I'll have to YouTube my way into making one myself.

I still suggest that Evolve disables REV mode and any reverse action of the board while the board is moving forward. And in the menu have an override if a rider wants to do slides and such.