Today we’re unboxing the TurboAnt V8 electric scooter – it’s the biggest electric scooter that TurboAnt makes. We are so excited to pop this box open and see what’s inside.

We’ve got the tools, two chargers (and charging stand), an allen wrench, and the bolts that are going to hold the handlebars on.

We’re always curious to see how many amps the chargers have, and this scooter doesn’t disappoint – with two chargers in the box, each with 2 A, that’s a lot of charging power.

We’ve only seen this electric scooter in pictures before, and the latch to hold the stem in place looked like it could be made of rigid plastic, but it’s reassuringly sturdy and made of heavy, solid metal. It feels really good.

That’s right, this scooter has a really unusual superpower – while this brand is known for having removable batteries, most TurboAnt scooters do.

But this one has a removable battery in the stem but then it has another battery in the deck that’s not removable.

Meaning you’ve got 2 X 7.5 AH dual batteries. So you can either charge the scooter with both batteries installed, using the two chargers, or you can pull the battery out of the stem and stick it in the base and charge it there.

That way, you have a spare charged up battery you can take with you, and if necessary, you can bring the spare inside. You should also get more range with this dual battery configuration. TurboAnt claims you can get about 50.0 miles of range (they tested this with a 165.0 lb rider, in 70% humidity, with a gentle breeze, riding at 9.3 mph), but we typically get about half of that because like to ride our scooters hard in our range test.

As a rough estimate, the real-world range on this scooter is likely to be 20.0 miles. When we test the scooter for real, we’ll get more of an accurate idea.

The scooter itself comes with three riding modes, which you can easily change by pressing the Power button twice in quick succession. It comes with a 3W LED headlight as standard, and four ambient swag lights along the 19.7 inch rubberized deck – two lights at the front and two at the back.

The scooter itself comes with three riding modes, which you can easily change by pressing the Power button twice in quick succession. It comes with a 3W LED headlight as standard, and four ambient swag lights along the 19.7 inch rubberized deck – two lights at the front and two at the back.

The scooter has two hidden springs in the deck at the back of the scooter to give it some bounce, and then it looks like it has it also in the front because it has a little baffle around the front wheel, though this doesn’t provide any form of suspension.

It’s got regen brakes up front and a mechanical disc brake in the back.

TurboAnt claims this scooter goes at a top speed of 20.0 mph, but other TurboAnt scooters that we’ve tested have only made it up to 18.0 mph.

However, this one might actually make it up to 20.0 mph it’s rated at 450 watts, whereas the other ones are rated at around 350 watts.

If you’re a big dog, like Ramier, TurboAnt scooters are one of the best light scooters to ride because it gives you that quick acceleration and even though you’re heavier, you still get to ride at the top speeds. They’re also designed to carry heavier riders too – this one can carry up to 275.0 lbs max rider weight.

These aren’t 10.0 inch tires; they’re 9.3 inch, air-filled tubed tires. Don’t be fooled even though they look like they’re solid tires.

This scooter might be brand new out of the box, but if you’re anything like us, you’ll ride it hard and will likely find yourself in need of spare parts. And luckily for you (and us), TurboAnt have a whole heap of spares on their website ready for you:

• Spare removable battery
• Spare motor
• Spare controller 

They’ve got a ton of spare parts available which we love to see especially when it’s a product that is still fairly new, and they’ve already got the parts available in case somebody needs anything.

The reason we love this so much? Because traditionally getting spare tires or spare parts has been really hard to come by, but the industry is changing, and these things are becoming more commonplace.

So, just how easy is it to remove the removable battery? Very easy.

You simply lift the latch on the stem, pull it all the way up and slide the battery towards you. Then you simply drop it in the charging cradle and let it do its thing.

And because the chargers are on the higher end of amperage – most chargers are 1.75 Amps, with these chargers at 2 Amps each, it means you can charge the whole thing – both batteries – in just 4 hours. That’s super fast.

They do say not to ride it without both batteries in it, and in actual fact, you can’t.

It’s got two battery meters, on the display they look like an upside-down rainbow, each rainbow representing one of the batteries, an upper and a lower rainbow if you will.

The top one is the bottom battery, and our best guess is that when one battery runs down, it switches to the other battery, because you can’t swap them out.

It has an IP rating of IP54. And that’s up from IPX4 on both the previous TurboAnt X7 Pro and TurboAnt X7 Max.

That means you can get it a little bit wet, we wouldn’t recommend you fully dunk it or baptize it.

The side stand is actually made out of plastic but it feels pretty beefy, even so, we wouldn’t recommend you stand on the scooter while it’s on the side stand, but it feels like it’s got a nice amount of lean.

The side stand is actually made out of plastic but it feels pretty beefy, even so, we wouldn’t recommend you stand on the scooter while it’s on the side stand, but it feels like it’s got a nice amount of lean.

The problem we have with the previous TurboAnt scooters, is that they are front-heavy, so when you go over the kerb, or you stop suddenly, the scooter tilts you forward. But with this scooter it feels a little different. The battery is in the deck, so it feels better balanced than other TurboAnts.

As well as having three powerful headlights, the scooter also has three tail lights that also function as brake lights 

The TurboAnt V8 electric scooter costs $799, although it’s on a New Year sale right now for $650. 

Right off the bat we encounter something familiar, if you press the throttle before you kick it’s not going to go, you have to kick and then hit the throttle. There’s a little bit of timing that you need to get used to.

Paul got on the speedometer, (and Ramier too) but we’ll check that for sure during the proper speed test.

One thing worth mentioning is you can really see the tail lights, especially the side lights, even during the day light – they are super bright.

The suspension feels nice too; while it’s not dual suspension, that doesn’t affect the ride quality. This is a nicely balanced scooter that feels stable.

Fun fact – TurboAnt recommend lower tire pressure in their scooters, they run them at about 35 psi. Whereas other scooters run at 45 or 50 psi, so you get a slightly more smoother ride but it probably costs you a little bit of range.

We also noticed two things about the dash –

1. We wish it was a little brighter, it’s quite hard to read in the sunlight;
2. The display shows you how much throttle you’re giving it, and then on the other side it shows how much brake you’re applying.

That tells us there’s a sensor in the scooter that knows how hard you’re pulling and it’s going to give you different amounts of regen depending on how hard you pull the lever.

We can’t wait to put the biggest, most powerful TurboAnt through its paces in Paul’s official test ride. We’re excited to see just how far this will go.