I feel really sad for mellow boards!

This is so sad to see…

First boosted boards get directly copied, now mellow…

Please support the original designers or build your own eboard!, boycott this ripoff company!

http://www.gzonan.en.alibaba.com/product/60442283699-802965746/Environmental_PU_Wheels_Roller_Scooter_Fish_Board_Bearing.html

Thats really sad! On the other hand it’s impressive/scary to see how fast the Chinese industry can develop/copy products.

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Crap. Now these are going to spontaneously combust, and e-skates are going to get the same bad reputation that Segway-boards have.

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This really pisses me off. I was just talking to mellow on Instagram the other day about their hub motors.

Don’t be. I backed Mellow because of the innovations (e.g. rheostatic secondary brake) and high-end quality that they’ve invested in the product. They’ve undergone multiple iterations to perfect the product, and i know that 100% of dev and manufacturing is done in Munich.

The Chinese will surely reverse engineer Mellow Drive, but they have to wait in line behind the backers to buy their own first. Whatever is in Alibaba, other than similarly colored wheels, has absolutely nothing from Mellow. You might notice the hub wheels on the front trucks, instead of on the one with the battery/ESC.

On the hand, now that Hydroflex has dropped out, every single component of Inboard’s M1 is made in China. Harder for them to control quality, and easier to pirate. Moral of the story: don’t be surprised if the M1 is the next on Alibaba - and not just am empty look-alike, but an actual 1 to 1 copy with cloned tech.

Edit: changed “rheumatic” to “rheostatic”. Damn you autocorrect.

Wow that was a fast rip-off. I haven’t even seen the real one yet. The manufacturing might be good though. Might not be. The original was very expensive. How’s the rheumatic brake work and is it worth it? What is high-end quality about the mellow board? I hear them say “made in Germany” but that’s pretty empty.

I see the motor’s on the other wheel. China seems to do goofs like that often in advertisements. The hub motor company on alibaba has their trucks backwards

I like how they call it a skateboard booster…Doesn’t show up in a Electric Skateboard search… Can’t wait till they perfect cloning people…that should be awesome sauce

I don’t think rheumatic brake is the correct term. It’s called a rheostatic brake and it it functions by sending the current generated by the BEMF through a large resistor which is able to dissipate the power into heat rather than sending the current back to the battery. Unless you live on top of a large hill it seems to be nothing more than a nice marketing gimmick.

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It’s always a risk to design a new product and put it online before you are ready to deliver. I think Mellow have a good quality product but the prize is too high for most people. So now they have to decide if the are going to outsoarce their production to china as well or focus on quality…

The problem is most people are uneducated about the technology, especially if they have just decided to buy an electric skateboard. They will naturally look for things that are cheaper… They will see that this looks the same as mellow on the aesthetic level…so it must be the same, they think they have found a bargain…

it’s going to be extremely difficult for mellow to counter this. in my opinion they have a few options.

  1. lower their price - they probably can’t if they want to produce in Germany
  2. educate the market - costly and not effective in the short term
  3. change their design and continually innovate - which I doubt will happen due to extremely expensive mold costs.
  4. prove their kit is better - has anyone seen a video of it going up a hill?

People will always buy the cheap option first! It’s an undeniable human characteristic. The false economy exists because of this, it’s in our DNA.

The only way we can counter the recent & relentless china manufacturing hunger for developing cheap eboards is growing the self-built eboard movement… educating the masses about building awesome custom rides! We must focus on exceptional quality, unmatched product performance, amazing service and constant innovation.

China will never understand the intricacy of what makes a really good eboard… they are exceptional at copying but they just don’t really know what they are making and why/how it is better… they don’t really get the “cool” factor… masters at the art of copy… not much innovation.

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Well, Mellow say that their Product is 8kmh faster than this copy, so it must have either more power or less torq. Besides the high prize of Mellow I see another problem: if you preorder now you will get their product in a year. I doubt that many sk8ters will be that patient, even if the quality is much better…

E-skates is a new market, appealing to the masses, many of whom have never set foot on a board. Boosted must have decided to go without the “marketing gimmick” because their boards shut off in the situation you describe.

Not good for a newb on a downhill who can’t footbrake.

Oddly enough, Boosted HQ isn’t far from San Francisco, where there are quite a few hills, with people living atop them. C’mon, when you advertise uphill torque, shouldn’t you plan for the downhill on the other side?

Aside from capacity, there’s rate of charge: even if your cells have room to take a charge, hard braking might send too much, too fast. Rheostatic brakes will dissipate the excess, so braking will always be strong.

You and Mellow agree: quality and features. There’s no better advertisement for the original than buying a cheap crap copy and realizing that you just threw your money away.

Mellow could have just opted to be the first powered truck and slammed it out in one iteration, but instead, they deliberately aimed to be the best. First… best…at the end of the day, which would you rather have under your feet?

Hub motors’ are already at a relative disadvantage to indirect transmission in terms of torque . Onloop, I you said that Chinese ESC development isn’t quite there yet. Now add to this a swappable battery clattering about underneath with dubious dust/water ingress protection? The general public might be fooled into buying, but will have a bad time afterwards.

One of the first videos showed the uphill, not very quantifiable, but they also said they’ve increased total torque from 3 to 3.4Nm. With sealed motors and a 2 years, I’m betting they know a thing or two about managing excess heat system wide.

How does this stupid chinese company have the molds and blueprints of Mellow Boards?

They probably just reverse engineered it. if you’re already familiar with the underlying tech, it doesn’t take much to imitate aesthetics, even on this level.

My guess is that Mellow is buying their parts in China and their supplier probably has pretty lax ethics with regards to intellectual property.

i’ve often thought about calling suppliers to see if they would sell me stuff that i KNOW other people are having made. You know, with very important modifications… like anodize color.

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Exactly that @longhairedboy and @trbt555… My understanding is that it is very costly to find a factory that won’t make “midnight runs” of a product; using cheaper materials and less quality control. Strip off the branding and slap a new sticker on it!

My next video will be how to make your own electric skateboard motors.

step 1) buy an R-SPEC or Tacon or NTM step 2) use chemicals found at Lowes to strip off the anodize and branding step 3) stamp your own brand on the can step 4) sell them for $300 each and say they’re the world’s first something or other and talk about how they’re better than the original motors because reasons you make up. Its not criminal fraud, its just good marketing.

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I don’t know, isn’t this is the sort of system we have all bought into. At least here in the U.S. Many would say this is capitalism at it’s best (worst?)… Maybe for the electric skateboards industry at this point and time this is a huge bummer, but if China wasn’t mass producing nearly everything we use in a much more efficient, and cost effective manner the cost for everyday goods would be through the roof or we would have to find a much better way to do things. This leads to cheap garbage products sometimes, and they often utilize unethical labor practices as well, so I am not saying that I personally support these ideals or practices, but it seems this is what its come to unfortunately.

Don’t a great majority of the sellers even on this forum look to factories in china for mass producing their products? Are not many of them fairly close representatives of the competition with only mild changes or innovations? I’m not saying this is right, but this is what ultimately drives prices down and brings products into the mass market nowadays. Unless you’re in an industry like pharmaceuticals with insane trade protections ( and even they are far from immune to this effect) you are highly subject to this type of market behavior, and most people won’t even bat an eye.

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