Review: Taur Scooter

For the past few years, the entrance of my New York City apartment has been littered with one or two electric scooters for testing, along with a folding ebike. My wife has been thrilled. She and I have tripped on the handlebars, knocked into the wheels, and—well, let's just say I'm surprised she didn't cite these daily hazards in our vows when we tied the knot.

Escooters are, yes, more convenient to stow away than a bicycle (not to mention a car), but they're not as compact as scooter manufacturers might have you believe. When folded up, they're often too tall to roll under a couch. You can balance them upright by leaning them against a wall, but, speaking from experience, they'll come crashing down every so often. That's where the Taur won me over. It's the first escooter I've tested that has no trouble standing upright on its own. My wife and I are very thankful.

It is unusual in other ways, too. There's no traditional “deck” on which to place your feet. Instead, two pedals flap out from the tubular frame. You put your feet on these, and the Taur makes you ride with your legs parallel, instead of one in front of the other, which the company says is more of a natural stance. This also helps shave down weight and the overall size of the vehicle. Unfortunately, my overall experience has been mixed. The Taur does a few things right that I'd love to see extend to other scooters, but it very much feels like a work in progress. You probably don't want to feel like a beta tester after spending $1,195.

Photograph: Taur

The Taur is gorgeous. It has a clean and minimalist design, with an off-white powder-coated aluminum tube that runs all the way from the handlebars down to the rear wheel. There's a front light, a taillight, a motorbike-styled center stand, and a decently loud horn that's sure to get the attention of that dolt in a car blocking the bike lane.

There's a little latch at the bottom of the frame you can twist to make the stem fold down. Align the metal peg on the stem with the hole on the rear fender, and the Taur stays folded. You can use the center kickstand to give it more stability or put the whole scooter upright. The latter is arguably one of the best features of the Taur. It's not only space-saving at home, but it was immensely helpful in not taking up too much room on a crowded subway (more on that later).

It's not my favorite folding system—the latch feels clunky and can require some force to move. Pushing down on the rear fender to unhook the stem also isn't intuitive when you aren't using the center stand, because it's easy for the whole thing to fall on its side. I should add that when it's folded up, the Taur is relatively lightweight to carry at 37 pounds, but the thick stem makes it unwieldy. I wish there was a slim grab handle affixed to the stem, like on Fluidfreeride's Mosquito.

Power isn't a problem with the Taur. It has a 500-watt motor that had no trouble taking me up and down bridges and other slopes. The dual 12.5-inch air-filled tube tires are larger than what you'd typically find on an electric scooter, and they help provide a smooth ride despite the lack of suspension. The hydraulic disc brake does a nice job of coming to a halt, though I did have to initially tighten the brake lever.

The rides are smooth, but going over bumps and holes can feel a smidge too bouncy, and I'm not sure if this is due to the larger tires or the floating pedals that you stand on instead of the traditional deck. I've also felt the rear tire skid when I turn more often than I'd like, which makes me especially cautious when riding in wet conditions. I usually avoid it, but the Taur is IP55 water resistant, so it can at least withstand the elements.

There are three gears you can cycle through, but they don't feel too different to me. They supposedly alter the acceleration profile, which generally felt slow, but the changes between the modes are so slight that I just left it in “Performance” mode all the time. I'd prefer if these were speed modes, but you have to use the companion app to set those. There's Uncapped, which lets you hit the top speed of 24 miles per hour; Cruise, which rides at 15.5 mph; and Eco, which restricts it to 12 mph.

I restricted it to 15 miles per hour to follow local speed laws and to maximize range. However, Taur hasn't nailed the speed controller yet. When you restrict the speed, the ride suddenly feels like the motor is having an argument. Instead of a smooth and stable speed, it keeps fluttering around the target speed, so you feel a weird push/pull sensation as the speed keeps adjusting. It's not pleasant. The company says it's addressing this in a firmware update.

What sets the Taur apart from any other scooter are the pedals you stand on with your feet parallel to each other. It's … OK. Sure, it feels more natural to have my feet together instead of one in front of the other, but I've also felt some pressure build up where my feet meet the edges of the pedal during lengthier rides, enough to make me want to occasionally lift and give them a good shake. (This might just be my oversized feet.) Except you can't just take one foot off! It's much easier to lose balance with one foot off the Taur than on a scooter with a traditional deck.

Do I hate it? No. I can also appreciate how thin and narrow the Taur is because of this design. If I could suggest some alterations, it'd be to make the pedals slightly larger. Thankfully, they never felt like they would break off. It's a sturdy build.

Photograph: Taur

There's a joystick on the left handlebar, which is how you control the OLED screen in the center. Like most scooters with a screen, it's tough to read in sunny conditions. I also wish the joystick felt more like one on a gamepad instead of a little nub. Push it to each side to trigger an action, like turning on the lights, activating the horn, seeing the battery gauge, and switching gears.

You move the joystick to the right to switch gears, and you need to hold it as the screen cycles through them. This feels dangerous, because I had to look down at the screen while riding to see what gear it was cycling to. The battery gauge is pretty vague too. I often had trouble figuring out exactly how much juice is left. Look at the app and it shows … the same exact gauge. Taur says it's adding a battery percentage soon.

Speaking of, another feature that's coming soon? The ability to turn the Taur off. I'm not joking. By design, it does not have an off button. Instead, after a few minutes of no use, it goes into a low-power state. Move the scooter and it'll come back to life. Here's why this is a bad idea. When I stop my ride and start folding the Taur on the side of the street, sometimes I accidentally hit the joystick upward while handling the whole scooter. Guess what that triggers? The loud horn! People really appreciate it when you make them jolt as they're trying to get some coffee.

On my first ride, the Taur didn't even go into its low-power state due to a connection issue with my phone and the app. I also spent my entire time with the scooter using kilometers per hour as the unit of measurement because the scooter couldn't display miles yet. I don't like that it takes something like 30 seconds to pair with the app too—that's valuable scootin' time! Keep in mind, I tested this on the Android app; the iOS version is supposedly more stable.

You need the app if you want to set the scooter to a certain speed. You can skip it otherwise. In the box are two RFID cards you can use to pair with the scooter, allowing you to tap them on the display to unlock and lock the Taur, which is a nice option. I have had a poor history with scooter apps, and the Taur hasn't changed my mind about them.

Ultimately, the range is what ends up sinking the Taur for me. For almost every ride I took, I needed to utilize public transportation in some way because the scooter had a depleted battery. Riding at 15 mph, I frequently eked out roughly 10 miles on a single charge, sometimes less. Granted, I am 6'4" and 230 pounds, which is slightly higher than the weight capacity: “While Taur is capable of carrying heavier folk, our warranty only covers riders up to 220 pounds."

Most of my trips on a scooter are to head from Brooklyn to Manhattan for a meeting and then back, which includes inclines up a bridge. If you're sticking to grocery store runs and other errands, the range should be fine. The average person will likely get 15 miles out of it, but that's still fairly low considering how much you're paying for this scooter. I easily hit 15 miles on the Speedway Mini 4 Pro riding it at 18 to 20 mph, and it costs $1,049.

Thankfully, there is one workaround. Taur is one of the only brands that bundles in a fast charger instead of a slow, standard charger. Where most scooters take upwards of six hours to recharge completely, the Taur can reach 100 percent in half that time. So if you spend two to three hours at a coffee shop, that's enough juice to get back home. This only works if you actually remember to bring the charger, which I most definitely did not.

Despite many of the hiccups, I generally enjoyed my time riding the Taur. And there are a lot of great features I'd like to see more scooter manufacturers adopt. Taur uses lots of standard bike components, with the intention that most repairs can be handled by local bike shops without needing to ship a scooter elsewhere. If you do have a bigger issue, the company says it will send a member of its team out to select big cities, and it's currently in discussions with a national bike repair network for local servicing. It also offers a two-year warranty that covers all packaging and shipping costs. (The packaging is also recyclable with no plastic.) The Taur's battery is UL-rated too (UL-2271), which offers some peace of mind in that it won't spontaneously combust and cause a fire.

But it's hard for me to wholeheartedly recommend it right now in its current state, particularly at its high price. I love that the company is working hard to push firmware updates to bring new features and fix existing issues, but it also feels like these should have all been addressed before the scooter launched. (I have never tested another scooter that couldn't smoothly maintain its set speed.) I'll be keeping my eye out on Taur 2.0 when all the kinks have been ironed out.