Weped FF Review

Weped FF – The Lowdown…

The Weped FF is a hyperscooter that was designed to be used on paved / track surfaces – as in, don’t buy a Weped thinking you’ll be able to scoot across fields – you won’t be able to, and if you did, it’d be dangerous.

The Weped is a track machine and it’s easy to see why. The weped has an incredibly low centre of gravity with barely an inch of clearance between the deck base and the ground, this is to give the scooter a tighter feel when driving at speed on tracks.

Whilst the Weped FF DOES have suspension, you’ll barely notice it – to keep the wheels planted to the floor the Weped uses old style hard spring suspension that offers very limited travel – this is on purpose as it’s just too easy for the Weped to break traction – so if the suspension WAS to be more forgiving it’d be almost impossible to ride.

The Weped is really a scooter for enthusiasts and adrenaline junkies.

It’s best kept for track use or areas that are paved and pot hole free. This isn’t a scooter suitable pottering around on – it’s a hardcore racing scooter designed for agility and quick acceleration.

Weped FF Specifications

Weped FF Summary

The Weped FF is a scooter designed for performance events, racing and those who love copious amounts of torque and acceleration.

It’s a scooter more for holding on, rather than something you can potter around on. It’s quick, it looks very robust and has a very mechanical appearance with contrasting black paint, gold pins and silver bolts.

It’s fast, fun and not for the feint of heart.

Performance Overview

Performance wise the Weped FF doesn’t disappoint, whilst it doesn’t have a top speed that matches its acceleration, it’s still capable of 55 mph – however with 12,000 watts of power, some users may expect 60mph, but real world speed tests over GPS net 55 mph as a comfortable top speed.

What gives the Weped FF an outstanding lead over other scooters is acceleration – it’s SO aggressive that Weped have had to retard power output from take off – this means that pulling away is actually possible without spinning all over the place – however, as you accelerate past 5-10mph the controllers open up and all hell breaks loose as peak current output can reach as much as 200amps.

From a performance point of view, the Weped FF is a hyper scooter designed for racing. 

Top Speed & Acceleration

Once the acceleration kicks in the Weped will spin the wheels and break traction from 10 mph up to 40 mph – and we’re not joking. For an electric scooter to be able to break traction with the weight of a rider & scooter AND be moving at speed – that should give you an indication of just how much power those motors put out.

The ACTUAL rated power output per motor is 3600w per motor for a combined continuous output of 7200w, but, the controller & motors can peak at 12,000 watts. What’s even more incredible is that the FF is only 60v! Weped offer a booster kit that increases the systems voltage to 72v allowing for a max peak power output of up to 20,000w! that’s MORE than a RION.

Acceleration statistics are shocking, so, here’s how fast the weped accelerates:

That’s right, the Weped FF will absolutely leave other performance scooters behind. The figures above are averaged. Rider weight, battery condition / state of charge will ultimately impact acceleration rates – but, make no mistake, the FF will out accelerate nearly ALL mainstream scooters.

Only a handful of hyper scooters will offer the equivalent acceleration such as the Weped SSR / GTS / FS and other scooters such as the RION RE90, RION THRUST, Bronco 11 Xtreme etc.

So to summarise, it’s VERY quick at accelerating and it has a great top end speed to boot, however, at this level of power it would have been great to see the Weped FF be able to top 60+mph.

It’s also VERY important for FF owners to know that:

1. You cannot achieve maximum acceleration starting in 3rd speed mode – starting off in 3rd will overload the controllers ultimately causing the scooter to cut out.

2. You should pull off in 1st, accelerate and then quickly hit 2nd.

3. Doing lots of continuous hard stops and hard acceleration can cause the controllers to get extremely hot – it’s worth pacing the FF for short acceleration bursts.

Battery Life & Range

So – how can you have a narrow deck scooter + 12,000 watt output and go more than a few miles? Well the FF does this by using performance Samsung INR 21700 cells which pack more capacity over 18650 cells. However, make no mistake, the Weped’s range still isn’t overly impressive.

The fact that the Weped is HARD to ride conservatively + that the discharge rates are high will mean that real world ranges will equate to between 20-30 miles on average.

Hard and aggressive riding could deplete a fully charged battery in as little as 15 miles (we’ve tested it).

The maximum acclaimed range from Weped themselves is 100km (62 miles) but in reality, we doubt this is possible, even with a light rider on flat terrain.

Whilst we haven’t yet done a conservative range test, we did perform a general scooter ride out on a warm day which involved “average” riding (mix of short bursts with general riding) and we were able to max 28 miles. At an estimate, we’d expect a light rider riding SUPER conservatively to achieve up to 40 miles maximum.

Because the Weped has such an aggressive throttle response it’s genuinely HARD to ride slow, even small throttle inputs result in jerky acceleration – which, puts short, strong loads on the controllers – thus depleting battery life even quicker.

Motor Configuration

The motors on the Weped FF are plain to look at but have beasty windings inside. The hubs themselves are matt black and aren’t anything special to look at. A single gold tyre valve sticks out from the hub – we’d have liked to have seen some branding on the motors, but, I guess Weped wanted to keep everything minimalistic.

The motors are 3600W BLDC hub motors with a peak capability of up to 6000w per motor.

When you think about it – that means at peak just ONE motor on the FF can put out as much power as both motors on scooters like the Dualtron Thunder or Kaabo Wolf Warrior – that should give you an indication of just HOW powerful those motors are.

The Weped does NOT allow for a single / dual motor switching – and we think that’s for the best.

The Weped is designed as a racing pedigree scooter – having a single motor mode would ruin that.

Out of the box, both motors are active although we suspect there is some smart current distribution as the FF manages to spin the front wheel but keep the rear wheel in check.

The motors on the FF are larger than most standard hub motors. In terms of hub diameter, the motor takes up all of the space inside the wheel rim, unlike other electric scooters where the hub motor is mounted into the rim (making them removeable) – on the FF, the hub motor IS entire size of the inner part of the wheel.

Construction & Build Quality

The Weped FF is of rigid construction. It’s been designed to race and for absolute performance runs. The construction of the Weped FF is from machined alloy which is painted in a semi-gloss black. The construction of the frame is very mechanical looking, lots of the frame parts are bolted together – meaning that there is a large volume of joints.

Whilst we’re unsure of the long term reliability of this setup, out of the box the construction looks and feels very solid. The stem is a dual column, criss-cross shaft re-enforced part that is very strong, this bolts on to a cantilever style front suspension – interestingly the suspension is inverted (front to back).

The neck of the scooter (joining the deck to the steering column) is a twin column curved piece of cast alloy that bolts on to a flat place with 2 large 16mm bolts. The overall steering / front suspension set up is VERY rigid, minimising travel or the ability for the scooter to skip when leaning.

At the bottom of the steering column is a large solid steel pin with a gold surround and inner button to allow for the release of the pin (so the steering column/stem can be folded down). We found this to all be machined with very tight tolerance, minimising any potential for play.

The main deck construction is very solid – the deck consists of a solid cast box (to house battery and controllers) with a bolted on bash plate / heat sink at the front bottom side towards the front wheel.

On our model, we were disappointed to find that sealant had been applied (Very messily) – which isn’t something we’d expect from a £4000+ scooter.

Interestingly, one side of the scooter has 2 intake fans whilst the other side has 2 extraction fans. This is VERY unique and only appears to be present on some Weped scooters. 

These fans help to draw cool air in to cool the controllers whilst extraction fans on the opposite side help to dissipate heat – the downside to this is that it makes the Weped completely impractical to use in ANY off road / field application where dust and dirt could get sucked in (and yes there are mesh filters but they won’t stop dust). The exposed fans also means that the Weped has 0 water resistance / no IP rating.

The top of the deck is plain, there is no branding on the grip tape.

Either side of the deck in the middle is a WEPED logo which flashes various colour cycles – this can be turned off from a button on the handlebars – there is no option to change the colours, unlike the Dualtron thunder which comes with a remote to control the colour and operation of stem lighting.

Towards the back of the deck is the Weped’s unique rear folding mechanism.

Again, this is one of the ONLY electric scooters in the marketplace that allows the folding of the rear suspension / wheel / arm.  The construction again is very solid and quite simple.

There is a large hinge bolt just below the top of the back of the deck, at the bottom is a retractable steel pin. When the pin is removed, it allows for the entire rear arm & suspension to fold over on to the deck along with the wheel.

This is what makes the Weped FF amazingly portable, it shortens the length of the scooter by over 15cm.

This means the scooter is MORE portable and will fit in almost any car boot.

BUT, with the benefit of portability comes the downside of the scooter having 2 small roller wheels bolted to the side of the deck. When the rear of the scooter is folded it allows the deck to drop down to the floor, however, the wheels provide marginal clearance, making it easier to move the scooter and preventing the underside from getting scratched/damaged.

The side-mounted wheels aren’t overly attractive and let the FF down slightly.

The wheels look out of place but they do serve a purpose.

When the scooter is completely folded it’s easy to drag around, BUT, you won’t be picking it up easily as the folding mechanisms do not complement one another.

When the Weped rear wheel was folded up and the handlebars folded down, we were not able to put the pin in so that you could lock the handlebars in the downward position.

This means that you cannot pick the FF up, the only thing you can do is lift from underneath – and, with the limited ground clearance, it’s very unwieldy to do.

However, the compact form the scooter takes will mean anyone with a good bit of strength won’t find it too difficult to lift from underneath – although most people will need to lift as a pair to get it into a car boot.

Here we can see the Weped FF folded next to the Bronco 11 xtreme, notice the difference in length.

The FF also has collapsable handlebars – again, there is nothing to latch them too, so they are free to move around.

So, our overall view of the Weped’s construction? Very good, it’s a very sturdy, rigid feeling scooter that doesn’t feel underwhelming in any areas, you feel confident that travelling at 50+ mph you are not at risk of suspension/stem / component failure – unlike the ZERO 11X which had recalls due to failing frame components.

The FF appears to use good quality components including good quality bolts.

The frame has no components that have any play, it’s all very tight with precision engineering and perfectly connecting parts.

The build quality is very good, and the innovation in the frame is there, we see Weped have added what looks like a military port to the deck – the only part of the scooter to sport a military green part, the charging port cover is reminiscent of an army water bottle cap.

It screws on and off, revealing a NON standard charging port. The cap makes a tight seal to keep dirt and dust out which is great, the custom port however is a bit of a turn-off, if you break the part you’ll have to get a replacement from Weped, which, for some people could take a while depending where in the world you are.

The FF comes with a custom adapter to fit its port, it allows you to charge with a standard GX16 charger but you need to use the adapter to do so.

This was done intentionally as the FF and other models support booster packs that connect directly to the port – therefore the ports need to be able to support HIGH currents, something that standard GX16 ports cannot do.

If we wanted to be really nit picky, we’d say that the poor silicone application around the deck wasn’t really acceptable and we didn’t like the handlebar grips nor the voltmeter.

The handlebar grips feel very cheap & the voltmeter / throttle feel like low quality for what is a premium scooter.

Suspension

Ever heard the saying – What Suspension? well, with the Weped FF you don’t really get suspension. Whilst it DOES have suspension, the travel is minimal and the out of the box set up is VERY stiff. This is a racing scooter, therefore the last thing you want is for the wheel to be able to break traction.

On traditional scooters, suspension makes the rider comfier, absorbing potholes, uneven surfaces, drain covers etc, but, on anything with high power output, you want to keep the wheel in contact with the floor as much as possible.

Weped designed the FF so that it could accelerate quickly. Soft suspension would make it even harder to ride, not to mention that the wheels just wouldn’t get any traction.

The front of the FF sports inverted front suspension with a single stiff spring. The rear of the FF under the folding mechanism are 2 smaller, stiff springs.

Riding the FF, you’ll feel all the bumps in the road, you’ll feel uneven surfaces and over time, you’ll fatigue holding on.

The FF really is for the track – of course you can go anywhere with it (on paved / tarmac surfaces), but, don’t expect a comfy ride. 

Weped FF on the grass – not a good idea.

Ride Quality

The ride quality on the FF is fine on smooth surfaces, but, general use on roads will leave you feeling fatigued quite quickly.

The push down thumb throttle + aggressive acceleration make it relatively hard to maintain an even speed on the Weped, couple this with a very bumpy ride on hard surfaces, it can be very tiring to do any sort of distance on the FF.

On smooth ground it’s fantastic, it feels very tight and sharp, bends are a doddle and with the FF, you really can lean into bends.

But, day to day road use isn’t overly comfortable. It’s not terrible, but it’s not great.

The ride quality overall is average, but not award winning by any means

The FF isn’t for long endurance cruises unless you happen to live somewhere with ultra smooth roads. The UK is pot hole ridden & half of the roads have poor quality surfaces, so riding the FF can get uncomfortable.

Braking

The FF like most other performance scooters uses the same set up – front and rear hydraulic NUTT brakes on 160mm rotors. The brakes are completely standard, the rotors appear to be Chinese/unbranded.

The “out of the box” braking is generally very good – even though NUTT is an obscure brake manufacturer in China, the quality of them appears to be modest.

With the scooter in this price point, we’d have loved to have seen Magura’s – but it would seem Weped have spent more investing in the motors and battery.

The FF does NOT come with regenerative / assisted electric braking – you rely entirely on the hydraulic brakes alone.

On the FF, we were able to stop relatively quickly thanks to the scooters light weight and rigid suspension. Stopping from 50mph to 0mph is possible in just 40 meters.

Portability

We have a love hate relationship with the Weped FF’s portability.

On one hand the folding rear wheel makes the scooter wheelbase shorter – which is absolutely brilliant as the FF fits in pretty much any car boot (unless you own something like a smart car). The scooter can be moved around with ease thanks to the side mounted wheels.

BUT, and here’s the big but, you cannot pick it up in a folded state as none of the folded mechanism latches to anything, so, folded down handlebars? well, you cannot lift the FF by the handlebars when folded, nor does the rear folding mechanism lock.

SO, if you live in a flat is the FF ok? yes.

If you live up a flight of stairs will you struggle? yes.

If you want to lift it into a car can you do it alone? yes, but the lack of locking mechanism will make it hard to lift alone.

The size aspect makes the FF suitable for anyone whether you live in a flat or penthouse, but, whether you should will depend on whether you have to lug it up a flight of stairs or whether you have access to a lift.

Lights

Lights? well, if you are looking for something to use at night you can forget the Weped. It has NO front lights, just side RGB LEDS and a pulsating rear brake light.

There is no out of the box lighting and no controls for lighting other than a button on the cockpit to turn the side deck LEDS on and off.

You can use the Weped at night if you add your own lighting, but, don’t expect to tap into the electrics on the Weped easily.

To be honest, with the lack of suspension and more difficult ride-ability, night time riding on the FF probably isn’t a good idea unless you live in a city where there is round the clock lighting.

Tyres

The FF ships with standard radial tyres that are fairly sticky and manage to offer SOME grip, but, overall tyre performance is going to be underwhelming unless you switch to sticky tyres / PMT slicks. In fact, if you want to get the most out of your FF we recommend going to slick tyres.

The stock tyres struggle to hold grip when you accelerate hard – for the most part they just spin and spin.

This will mean the tyre lifespan is MUCH shorter than traditional scooters which struggle to wheelspin.

The FF will spin tyres for much longer than most other scooters, meaning that tread depth will vanish before your eyes as you transfer rubber to the tarmac at an alarming rate.

Deck

The deck on the FF is underwhelming – but then again, for a race scooter does it really matter? You had better be prepared for a narrow deck, in fact, it’s only just over half the width of other performance scooters such as the Dualtron Thunder and Bronco 11 Xtreme.

You won’t have much room for “stance” positioning.

The deck isn’t too short, but width is questionable.

The grip tape is plain, no logos, patterns or emblems.

The grip tape covers more than 90% of the deck, with only a small border around the top of the deck as exposed metal.

Also – don’t expect to put a foot too far behind the other, there is a footplate with 2 rubber areas, but, it doesn’t make for a great ride

Controls & Display

The FF has NO control panel (LCD panel) – it is featureless in that aspect so don’t expect a speedo, battery indicator or P settings – there aren’t any. The controllers CAN be toyed with, but, it involves direct controller manipulation, there is no panel like on most other scooters.

There IS however a voltmeter.

The voltmeter is an integrated part with a key and throttle – and, well, the quality isn’t great.

The voltmeter is relatively accurate, so you’ll have SOME idea of the battery SOC when riding, but, like most scooters, when you apply a load the voltage will dip / sag, making it hard to understand a true reading unless you come to a stop and wait for the reading to go to where the true voltage is.

The FF DOES allow for some battery sagging (allowing the reported voltage to dip below the cut off point).

Overall, the cockpit of the Weped FF is very plain – as you would expect from a racing electric scooter.

Water Resistance

We could dive in to the fact that the Weped FF has an intake and exhaust fan which immediately means WEPED FF + WATER are an explicit nono unless you fancy killing the controller, creating a short condition and potentially corroding things inside the deck. The FF has 0 IP rating and no water resistance.

To be fair, the FF is hard enough to ride in the dry, any damp surfaces and the wheels just simply will not be able to gain any traction.

If you are OUTSIDE with your FF and it begins to rain, stop and immediately shut the scooter off.

The fans run continuously when the ignition is ON, so even if you stop riding the fans could introduce water into the scooter.

So, if you live in a wet climate, the FF probably isn’t a great scooter for you. 

Reliability, Warranty & Customer Support

We’ve not had the FF long enough to ascertain true reliability – no doubt over time we’ll come back to this review and we’ll update when we have put a few miles on. BUT, from our research and scouring the internet, the FF appears to be a fairly reliable scooter.

There are some complaints across the web but the overall reliability isn’t thrown into question.

As with MOST electric scooters, reliability is a 2 way street and that’s

a. it depends on the quality of the scooter and

b. it depends on how the scooter has been ridden, cared for, where it has been used, charge cycling and more

For most people who look after their Weped, there is NO reason why riders shouldn’t be able to comfortably get 5,000 miles of trouble free riding (excluding basic maintenance such as tyre changes, brake pad changes etc).

As long as the FF is used in dry, dust free conditions, is charged and discharged properly, is kept well away from damp/water and is stored within optimum temperatures for battery health there shouldn’t be much to go wrong.

If the FF is used off road it’ll put an elevated stress on the frame as there is almost no suspension for dampening – this will transfer excess loads to frame components. Using the FF off road is dangerous because a. the wheels could spin much easier on grass, braking traction and causing the rider to fall off – it’s also dangerous because the lack of clearance means hitting a bump / rock / hole could cause the rider to fall off.

The Weped FF’s main vulnerability are the fans, whatever they suck in is likely to accumulate inside the deck – dust, mud, grit or water getting inside the deck will significantly reduce the life of the scooter.

Introducing dirt and dust will also damage the intake / exhaust fans, if they do not work, it’ll allow the FF’s controllers to get even hotter – and, as you can predict, electronics that get excessively hot do not last as long.

So reliability? Is the Weped FF reliable?

For most users YES, the Weped FF is likely to be a reliable scooter based on the components, build quality and setup. But the reliability is also down to the rider and how the scooter is treated.

What about customer support?

We’ve not yet had to deal with Weped’s customer support. There are stockists around the world who are likely to be able to support requests for parts, but, scooter returns or dealing directly with the manufacturer at source may be harder as Weped’s manufacturing operations are in Korea.

What about the warranty?

The standard warranty with the Weped FF is 12 months (parts / faults) but, damage as a result of negligence, falling off or misuse is not covered. Warranty terms may also vary depending on where you buy your Weped FF from.

Controllers

We couldn’t find out much about the FF’s controllers. We know that there are 2 independent controllers inside the FF’s decks.

They appear to be unbranded, chinese controllers (these may just be custom controllers direct from Weped themselves). The standard controllers are capable of 100amp peak power per controller (200amp combined).

Unfortunately, the controllers are easy to overload on the Weped FF, the handlebars has a mechanical 3 mode button allowing users to select between mode 1, 2 and 3.

From a soft start, loading the controllers in mode 3 causes the Weped FF to cut out completely – this can only be reversed by putting the scooter on charge – so, if you go out away from home and you happen to overload the controllers, you’ll be pushing the FF back home.

They are enclosed in metal casing and they rely on a mix of fan induction and passive cooling to dissipate heat (and to protect the mosfets).

Maintenance

Maintenance is relatively simple on the FF. The benefit of electric scooters overall is that unlike petrol engined counterparts (gopeds / petrol scooters) there are far less moving parts, no chains and less components to go wrong.

The main maintenance requirements for the Weped FF include:

1. Keeping on top of tyre pressure / tyre changes

2. Brake pads

3. Keeping the fans, filters and inner deck clean (yes dirt and dust will be sucked in and not all of it will be pushed back out via exhaust fans)

4. Checking on bolts and making sure things do not come loose

Known Issues

1. The fans can stop working, if this happens they need replacing as the controllers on the Weped get hot

2. Some Weped users have reported flex / play in steering head bearing over time

3. Easy for controllers to overheat and cut out – they cannot be restarted without plugging the charger into the scooter

Is this E-Scooter value for money and is it worth buying?

So, in our opinion, the Weped FF is an incredible scooter full of buckets of power and will challenge even the most experienced of riders. The acceleration is an absolute thrill and the scooters agility make it a pure racing machine.

Whether it’s worth buying is really down to personal preference.

The FF isn’t a scooter designed for long cruises, nor does it fair well on poor quality road surfaces.

It’s not overly practical either, with no speedo, no lighting, a narrow deck and a tendency to try and chuck you off it when you hit the throttle it probably isn’t a good scooter for people who want something that’s quick but can also be used as a cruiser.

The Weped FF is most definitely suitable for adrenaline junkies and those with a competitive streak – those who love to race.

We love the FF, it’s honestly one of the most fun scooters we’ve ridden to date.

We feel it’s priced a little too high for what it is, but, it’s DEFINITELY worth buying if you want something fast, agile and easy to take to a track.