Got thrown off the GT, board took off without my command, petition to Evolve to fix remote

I'm new to evolve and these forums. Love my board so far, no issues. Wiztecy, you sure spend a lot of time here for someone who seemingly wants nothing to do with evolve anymore.

 

Thanks Skywalk3r for the note, that's because I've been into E-Skate boards for a few years now and a very vocal forum member no-matter what product or hobby I'm passionate about. I'm HAPPY with JOY that you have a board that appears to function correctly. How long have you owned it? Mine worked great for a couple weeks and then started acting up out of no-where where I then dislocated my shoulder. So I hope you have better luck than I. When did you buy it? Also how many e-skate boards do you own and have you owned? Is this your first? I own 5 of them, where my GT is the latest one I purchased so I'm no new kid on the block with this technology. I have 4 other boards to compare how the GT should work and act out in the wild.

You DO want to have a safe and reliable skateboard that you can count your life on, right!?!? You DO want a board that will do what you tell it to do, and not do something on its own such as keep accelerating when you let off the throttle and to brake when you come into a busy intersection loaded with moving cars, correct?!? You do want a board that doesn't throw itself into reverse while moving forward at 9mph due to something as a simple communication drop-out, correct!?!? You do want a board that accelerates smoothly when you give it throttle and give it brakes right!?!? Well if you don't have these issues, count yourself LUCKY! I for one must be the UNLUCKY one as well as a number of owners who have these boards. Do you have any qualifications in QA? Any qualifications in RF design? Any qualifications in Electronics? I do and its my career. If I can make someone more cautious to not put 100% confidence in this board, and possibly even better, have EVOLVE get their act together to make the product safe and work their bugs out by an amateur design, I've succeeded, and I'll have no need to post. Anyways, did you read all of the design flaws of this board, such as enclosing the transitive for the remote communication inside an RF filter? Its acting like a Faraday cage. If you don't know what that is, please google and educate yourself. Carbon fiber is a KNOWN RF filter. Please google that one too while you have the search engine up. Something tells me you don't understand what any of this technical stuff means like Evolve.

I also want to ensure that NO-ONE puts 100% trust in this board as I did. I got too relaxed I have to say coming from a very reliable and safe Electric Skateboard that was done correctly to ensure safety of the rider by not being half baked. From what I see, Evolve is a $ profit motivated marketing machine. You do know that the motors you have on the back of your board can be found for $50 at retail prices correct? Also you do know Evolve marks up and gouges the customers by charging them $180 a pop for each, correct?

You also know that Evolve DID NOT want to sell us riders the aluminum drive pulley on the motor when they wear down and begin skipping belts. No? By the way, steel pulleys is the only way to go there.... But I don't think you understand why that's so. They wanted us to shell out $180 for each motor all because the replaceable gear pulley wore out. So when you wear out two pulleys, that's $360 to just maintain your board throwing two perfectly good motors into the trash. You must be a high roller I guess to afford to shell out cash like that I guess.... But after I and others have noted on this forum and put our views into the public domain, only then did Evolve begin selling the pulleys separately. Hence getting back to your statement, why should someone be quiet of a company that does not do the right thing, why not be vocal and have them change? Its sad they abandon people who've shelled out $2,000+ on a board and they don't respond to issues regarding your safety. It also is a bit scary when you talk to them in a technical sense and you can tell the information goes right over their head, they have many spelling errors, simple ones, in their emails. I'm not a nit picker there, but that is a sign of an issue and not professional. How hard is it to use a spell checker when you run a world-wide company?

Something tells me you haven't done much reading on this product and have lots of catching up to do. I also recommend you search other forums to listen to other people having problems with these boards as I and many others have had and documented.

The only way to get me to become quiet on this issue are the following:

1) Evolve Refunds my money and takes my defective board
2) Evolve gives me a Carbon GT board they can certify is glitch free and works as it should where it does not endanger the rider by doing something stupid from a bug / poor design, and they can have my current glitch b-i-t-c-h.

Sound fair?

 

And this post cracks me up on how TERRIBLE Evolve's QA process is on the GT. Honestly this isn't funny, you can get hurt really bad by the rear of the board locking up from the motors falling off while riding at 26 MPH. But only if there was a pie there for your face to land in, that this would be a true comic relief. But the truth of the matter is that we have a serous pattern of QA FAILS from Evolve here and its been going on for quite some time now:

Motor Fell Off

This comes to mind when I think of Evolves poor QA processes, the movie is called Gung Ho:



I guess we all should be dumb and quiet about all of these defects right Skywalk3r? If you own an Evolve and its not working safely, you have the right to keep complaining until it gets resolved 100% to your satisfaction. Period. That goes with any product.

And this reminds me of a story my dad experienced, he bought a brand new 1980 Chrysler Valaree Station Wagon. After a week of owning it he took off one morning to goto work, he went 1/2 mile from our house to have the front wheel of the car fall off the car! Someone who built the car didn't care to tighten then nut down the lower ball joint to the proper specs and it vibrated off, causing the ball joint to fail and causing full loss of control of the car due to the front right wheel to falling off. That could have resulted in not one but multiple deaths if a head on collision occurred. This is serious stuff people when lives are on the line. But some don't understand the scope of the issue at hand. What does it take, someone to die and a lawyer to dig into this? There's a gold-mine of information that will favor the lawyers in the public domain I must say if it does go down that path. Hence where and why I return the importance that even if a small or even one defect arises from a product, shouldn't it be addressed by the manufacture so it does not propagate to one or more? But this comes back to how you think how a quality product should actually function. And to come back to my dad's experience, if you're the guy driving a Chrysler Valaree who didn't have the privilege to have their front wheel fall off while driving, well, he doesn't give two roosters asses about some random guy who had his wheel fly off and possibly could have died if the situation was right. He thinks his Chrysler Valaree is the greatest things compared to tits. Which comes back again, any defect is a serous defect if it surrounds the ability to drive, ride or control a moving vehicle or object which endangers the rider/driver or even a bystander's life.

*PROPER* QA of a product is not option, its a necessity people. Its 100% UNACCEPTABLE for any company to release crap like what we're seeing with the GT to the public, especially when an individual's safety and life is on the line.

I honestly could not work for a company who keeps pushing crap out to customers let alone be the owner of one.

But hey, if you own a company and want to make loot in the short time, tell people to look over in the corner at the shiny gold bling rather than fixing your flawed design and QA processes where quality and invested money really counts. If you have time to make bling bling videos, you have time to stay up at night diagnosing defective boards to get the product sorted and working as it should. There's obviously some sort of misaligned priorities here with Evolve.

And while I'm here, another link of customer noted defects of the GT, only after 2 short weeks of ownership:

Got thrown off GT due to faulty remote

 

Seriously? No. It doesn't sound fair. It sounds like blackmail.

Alex, what makes you think evolve hasn't responded? We're only seeing one side of the conversation, as it is uncommon for companies to provide customer service in forums. I think wistecy mentioned that already got his board back, but still wasn't satisfied with the design.

I can't speak to his motives but it smells like someone is just pissing in the community pool.

 

still only one side of the discussion. I'm skeptical, don't care to know more. I'm gonna go ride my perfectly working awesome December carbon GT with ZERO issues. So much fun, I can't stand it.

 

Yet, another QC issue like mine posted on the Evolve GT Owners FB page. When will Evolve fix these serious issues? Instead Jeff and Evolve are spending time making bling bling videos. That's good and all once you've got your product dialed in and its not dangerous from poor QC. When you're riding a moving object that has zero protection around 3000 or more pound weighted cars, you have to get it right not partially right. A person has one life, not 9 like a cat.

 

I sent Evolve another email as some have pushed me to contact Evolve again and to request a resolution in addressing the odd behaviors I'm having with my board. Alex from Evolve responded in less than a day after I sent the message which I greatly appreciated. Alex also supplied a contact number and was open to talking on the phone to discuss the issue so it can be resolved, he clearly stated he wants to turn the poor experience I'm having with this board around so I'm completely satisfied. Fair enough and again this was a very professional email that shows Evolve is concerned about the issue and wants to ensure I enjoy the board.

I'm going to give Alex a call later today after I get a break from work, I'll keep you all posted on how it goes and lets see if Evolve can identify and fully resolve the issues.

 

Ok. I was able to talk to Alex today on the phone regarding the incorrect behavior I had been experiencing with my board. We spoke for over 30 minutes on the phone, and I was able to discuss my experience. Alex was very compassionate, open, and apologized for the way my board was acting up as well as the difficulty I was having in resolving the issue. He also noted that is not his goal nor the goal of EvolveUSA or Evolve in general. He also stated that he really strives for a positive customer experience and honestly wishes he personally could test and verify each board is working as it should before it goes out to the customer so that a customer wouldn't end up with the experience that I encountered.

From the conversation we had, I honestly felt relived, I felt good that I'm being heard, and was happy I was talking to someone live who really felt like I do about quality, and knows a high bar should be held for that. Alex noted that my emails propagated up to him, and once they did, he then forward them off to Jeff who owns Evolve. Alex said he'll be talking to Jeff about what I discussed about the board and about the entire customer experience I had which gave me a bad impression on Evolve and the GT product. We also talked along the lines of how many boards are sold and the defects he sees in terms of ratios. He noted the defects/RMAs are low compared to the number of boards sold, and he confirmed that Jeff keeps a close eye on this number to ensure it doesn't go astray. He also noted that when a customer's board has been repaired, that the bad part / defective item is tagged with a tracking tag and sent back off to China where they are made so a full diagnostics can be performed on the part, that way, they can see why it failed and that correct it in manufacturing in the future if need be.

In the end, Alex put the power in my hands to decide what I really wanted and how I would like to have this handled. I honestly felt empowered as a customer, and I thank him for that. Since I had my board back to them before and it still was having issues, I had sent Evolve an email asking for either a full refund of my money or to have a new board that's known to work properly swapped for mine which was having problems. He left the decision up to me, and only me. And again I thank him for that. This is how true customer service is made, by actions. Actions that clearly show that the company stands by their product and ultimately wants the customer to have a positive experience with it. And if the customer does not have a good experience, to step in and clearly state that they want to change that, to turn that experience around to be a good one. That is the root of good customer service.

So for me, I now need if I just want my money back and call it quits for the GT or to swap out my board for a brand new one and keep on riding. I'm leaning towards the latter honestly. The board is a beautiful board and it is very very fun, very very fast, and very very quick not to mention it carves like a dream. So loosing that would be quite depressing I'd have to say. I'm happy to give Evolve another chance with another board. Not only that I have an open channel with Alex if something odd arises, but I have the feeling I may be ok this time around. But one point I did stress is that I would like Evolve to fully investigate and understand the issues that my current board had exhibited. I stated it may be induced by RF interference in my area, and happy to provide any information they need to dig deeper into the issue. I also discussed other theories that many of us have discussed in this forum on what could cause the issues we've been seeing. Again Alex listened and had a very intelligent and professional discussion the entire time through. I also noted to Alex that I will try to gather information from other riders who've had similar issues if this may help Evolve in any way. So with that, feel free to PM me if you had any problems that were similar to mine. I'll try to get them all organized and presentable for Alex. With that, Alex said he's on our side. The customer's side. And when you hear that, its refreshing and re-assuring. There are some things that can't be expressed or described right over the email channel, with the phone you get to hear the callers full emotion, feel their true professionalism, and sense if they really mean it or not. What I felt truly from this call was that Alex and Evolve wants to get it right this time, that ultimately their success relies on the end-user's customer experience.

Thank you Alex.
Thank you Evolve.

 

Take the money and run!

You will never be satisfied with the faulty design, pervasive quality control issues, cheap components, crappy software, problematic everything, why would you even think of riding an evolve board, ever again? What a waste of your $2k.

Here’s what seems to have really happened (based solely on riders diary of posts):

1. Rider mis-uses shifting feature, and wipes out. Ego severely hurt. Requests and gets board “fixed”.
2. Rider’s ego cannot accept cause as “user error” and must save ego by attributing cause to poor design.
3. Rider gradually escalates postings of design issues to protect ego and build coalition
4. Rider discovers that NEWER releases of boards have improvements that rider wants, and discovers that others are really satisfied with newer board.
5. Rider runs “squeaky wheel - customer is always right” routine (while claiming to be "helping the community") - and escalates until he is able to dissuade potential riders from purchasing said product.
6. Rider finally gets “customer is always right” response because of incessant complaining
7. Rider attempts to retract all negative statements with yet another TL;DR essay.

So let me get this straight… if a company comes out with a newer product, and I want mine upgraded for free, I can just ***** and ***** until the company caves for fear of social media retribution? Got it! Thanks!

You WON!!! BYE BYE!

 

@aniicrisus - Thank you for congratulating me. Its a BIG WIN for all of us honestly and I couldn't have done it without the exchange of information on this forum with forum members like you, Alex, Andy, Julian, W.Jorden, Julien, etc.

I do keep asking a couple of questions that you've always seem to bypass or forget I'll also add a few more:

-> Please state you're RF qualifications.
-> Do you work in High Tech and *are* you an Engineer?
-> Have you participated in releasing any consumer ready production device or item?
-> How long have you been an active Electric Skateboard community contributer
-> How long have you been riding Electric Skateboards
-> Do you have any other electric vehicles?
-> If so what are they?
-> If so, do you do your own maintenance and service on them?
-> Are you mechanically inclined?

Reason I ask is that you're coming from outer-space the way you respond in this thread. I'm happy to point you towards great resources if you want to learn more and educate yourself technically. You have to start somewhere.

By the way, talking to Alex at EvolveUSA, he *noted*, again he *said*, that I have way more technical knowledge than others whom have issues with the board. Alex has worked in other fields in the industry which I and *we* (not you anticrisus can relate to. I'm sorry anticrisus if you don't have any technical experience to understand any of this talk nor what's happening electronically with your board as your riding it. But however, since *you* have a *fully* *functioning* board and didn't get hurt from a defect due to faulty radio communication it really doesn't matter. Again I'm jumping up and down with JOY and HAPPYNESS that you have a fully functioning board that meets your expectations and where its safe to ride. That's the best outcome here for you.

If you don't like what I write, nor my opinion, please don't follow me nor my threads.

However I would not have had the response from Evolve I'm sure without people like you who help bump this thread up to the top and for fantastic people like Alex who offers this forum for us as well as his positive criticism and fantastic contributions. Same for Andy. Andy has 3 working boards, but never threw non-sense nor judged me as to if I was not having the issue.

So who are you @anticirsis to judge people?

Are you above others in some way or have some special power to look at some device a person is using and have a magic ball to identify like an X-Ray machine that all is kosher? If so, please fix and address many of the worlds BIGGER problems if you have the time an power for that.

Again, thank you for saying I WON. It does make me feel good in the end and its been a long battle. However I do feel I've built a better relationship with Evolve and would like to help bring other customers closer too.

*So for other riders who are having issues like mine, we all know @anticrisis has a fully functioning board so he's not included, please feel free to PM me. I discussed with Alex @ EvolveUSA that I'd gather up data from other GT owners who're having throttle issues, drop outs, basically issues with the board that don't meet your expectations and I'll send that to him. That way it will have a direct route to Jeff. Again Evolve wants YOU to be happy as the customer.*

Note I also discussed the cosmetic blemish I had from day one with my CarbonGT. I told him that with a Carbon Fiber board, any glossy weave, that the carbon fiber beauty is part of the look and why people pay a premium for it. My carbon GT had a bad blemish on the underside. I documented it as well as my whole experience I had with the board on this forum as many know. He said that should not be happening, and also to contact Evolve if you're not happy. In no way should a board be reaching the customer like that with blemishes.

 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand your approach, but thanks for being up front in this post:

 

I'm sorry @anticrisis you appear to have troll like behaviors and are riding a wave of some sick fascination with me. Once again you've ditched all my questions that I've answered most of and will be open to answering all of. But that's ok because its all non-sense that doesn't help anyone greater than ourselves in the end.

Thanks again for bringing up that point in you last repsonse:

So I will say I'm choosing #2 and it does sound fair to myself and Evolve. Evolve gave me the choice and that's what good customer service is about.

=======
2) Evolve gives me a Carbon GT board they can certify is glitch free and works as it should where it does not endanger the rider by doing something stupid from a bug / poor design, and they can have my current glitch b-i-t-c-h.

Sound fair?
=======

Again as you made it clear, I WON. But not only that, the Evolve Community WON. Evolve WON. So you're correct in the comment about winning all the way around.

 

As a new rider, i spent a lot of time reading these forums. One of the first posts I read was about your accident. I had just finished my first ride, and almost ate it by shifting into REV while moving forward, so I was very interested to know whether this was a "bug" or just an area for design improvement. I read about your experience in detail, on many posts, specifically your detailed comments about shifting and throttling, how sensitive the buttons are, the potential for radio dropouts, and most importantly, your stated challenges with polarized lens and the remote screen, which impairs your ability to "look" at the remote before throttling after a gear change.

And THAT is when i realized that I was experiencing the same thing as you, but was just dealing with it in a different way.

I don't shift much. I don't need to. When i do, i do it slowly and wait for the indication of being in the desired gear before throttling. It's really just that easy. Since learning to be methodical, i have never had an issue. not one!

let me be clear - I've seen the board do some crazy stuff, and I know that future versions will be improved, but the board ALWAYS performs as expected, operator error not withstanding. I've had dropouts... but learned how to work with them. I've shot this thing into traffic by nicking the throttle at an intersection. I've almost ate it while adjusting my wireless BT, and nicked the throttle while coasting. I hope I will not make those mistakes again, but they were MY FAULT.

Yes, these boards will be improved over generations, and yes, there are some really tricky things about these boards, and yes, your engineering expertise in RF and eboards and everything else CAN be really helpful for a company like Evolve, and for our community.

But sadly, that doesn't appear to be how you chose to handle this issue.

You should have reached out more productively to the company sooner, assuming of course 1) user error, and 2) knowing that if there was a technical issue, that yours was an outlier. It's likely that they test rode your board after the initial repair, and based on your posts, seems to be why it became a design issue for you (instead of a product defect). At that point, by using your experience, you could have worked with and negotiated a better result directly with Evolve. Your approach online was abrasive and one can only assume some of your dissatisfaction was conveyed similarly with Evolve.

Now that you got your way, please stop pissing in the pool!

Just go ride!

 

IE you have a work around...

 

I'm actually surprised they offered you a full refund. If I was you, i'd take the refund and start on building a DIY board.If they were willing to refund my board after these two cracked decks, I would have done it in a heart beat. I'm giving them one last chance with my new deck that is supposed to come today