Due to the rise in popularity of the MyWay e-scooter, blatant copycats of the MyWays have inevitably sprung up. That is the reality hardware developers these days have to face. Inventors take immense risks, spend a fortune and a lifetime to perfect a scooter and within 1 year of launch, copycats with inferior build quality and manufacturing processes replicate their work within a short period of time. Copycat manufacturers may be able to copy the look and feel of the product, but rarely can they replicate the quality and the test of time as their main purpose is to ride on the coat tails of the established brand and sell their products as the cheaper alternative.
If you know the story behind the storied MyWay, it has been a tried and tested product for the past 5 years, undergoing intensive development and tests in the harshest and most rugged conditions. At the end of the intensive development period, it was sent to a TUV Rheinland Lab for independent testing and MyWay eventually obtained its CE certification from TUV. In between, the inventor will have gone through heaps of hurdles just to get to the point of production. Every inch of design of the MyWay will have been iteratively reconsidered and redesigned (at least a few hundred times) by the time it reaches the hands of the customer.
Every first page of the MyWay User Guide has this stamp of quality and reliability and this stamp is what customers should be looking out for.
Original MyWay CE Certification
The copycat products on the market will likely not have gone through the same level of rigorous testing and certification trials that the MyWay has been put through. The truth is copycat riders have gotten seriously injured as evidenced in many scooter forums. The stems of these copycats have literally separated from the deck and frame at will, causing serious injuries to their riders. Please see an extract of a post by a Shengte user below:
Quality issues of the Shengte Speedway
Our advice is to treat these budget replicas which claim to “perform” better than the original with good amount of scepticism. Anyone can fit a V8 engine in a Chery but it doesn’t mean it will perform better than a well-tuned BMW (sorry to Chery owners, no offence meant). Otherwise, choose wisely and ride safe!
“The truth is copycat riders have gotten seriously injured as evidenced in the forum postings below when the stem of these copycats have broken into two midway through riding”
That is true, but it is also true that more often than not their scooters run just fine as evidenced from the countless scooter outings these riders have gone on with their “copycat” scooters. These pictures are not evidence that “copycat” scooters are more dangerous than the original. If anything, they are evidence that the copycats are more susceptible to QC problems.
If you wish to claim that the “copycats” are less safe than the original then you have to provide proper evidence as to why they are unsafe based on the build itself.
Your scooter costs $1000 more than a “copycat”, and the only argument you can come up with is claiming that “copycat” scooters are unsafe because a few of them had defects? In fact, of the three screenshots you posted only one of them is a MyWay “copycat” and in proper context the rider knew that there was a problem with the scooter and chose ride it anyway without properly rectifying the problem. I guess all the other MyWay “copycats” are running smoothly?
From the pic taken from Big Wheels, it seems the 4 screws securing the deck to the handlebar broke off while riding. This is a quality problem which will not be experienced by most people if the scooter does not go through rough handling conditions but since your copycat is relatively new, you will not experience it. Check back with us in 1 year or so and update us. But our position is that, the MyWay costs more because it has been through the rigorous testing of the labs like TUV and its own internal tests for 4 years. Thats the whole difference. You do not simply build something and sell it as a mass market item without that kind of tests. That is wrong and unethical. We have dealt with ST for some time and we know how they do business. They cut corners and they sell cheaply to undercut the originals. We have known them for more than a year and we refuse to deal with manufacturers like that. They have ripped off years of hardwork for inventors to develop the Patgear and the MyWay in one fell swoop and created a niche for themselves by doing that. That is equally opportunistic and unethical. Would you buy a car and put your family in a car that cost USD 300 to manufacture? We wouldn’t and we took a stand to inform consumers of the pitfalls of that too.