GOING ELECTRIC 2 Shopping for a new electric scooter

A new Wacco E6S electric scooter is hoisted on a lift at a motorcycle shop in central Seoul's Malli-dong, July 28. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

By Jon Dunbar

• Published Dec 13, 2023 12:43 AM KST
• Updated Jul 17, 2024 5:33 PM KST

I've bought my fair share of scooters in Korea before, maybe as many as eight, some from shops and some from online sources, all secondhand. But looking for an electric scooter put me out of my depth.

How do you shop for an electric vehicle, if you've never experienced one before? Who sells them, and where do they come from? Another concern I had was that some of these companies were making customers sign up for a waiting list, so how long would it take for a new bike to be delivered?

By chance, I discovered a suitable-looking bike on Coupang of all places, priced competitively compared to what else I’d seen and apparently available for delivery through a simple online purchase. It made ordering a new road vehicle as easy as getting my next box of cat food.

I had my mind set on the Wacco Motors E6S. It advertised a maximum speed of between 85 kph and 95 kph, and a driving range of between 70 km and 100 km on a single charge. However, obviously these figures are mutually exclusive, meaning if you’re hitting 95 kph, you’re not traveling the full 100 km.

It has a 72 volt battery with a 45 ampere-hour rating — higher numbers than the basic bike, although I still have yet to understand in practical terms what they mean. Is it equivalent to a combustion engine with a 125cc capacity?

It also helped that the E6S is a stylish bike, sort of like my previous bike, a Daelim Besbi. Not that that matters much to me, but if all other factors like performance and price are equal, I want a bike that looks good as well.

But rather than shopping via a Coupang seller I wanted to see if I could buy from the company directly. That's what my friend Morgan had done when he'd bought his electric scooter one year earlier, and he said they were very helpful with everything.

So I found the website of Wacco Motors, which is apparently a Korean company. It appears Wacco’s bikes are assembled in Korea but with parts from China. (Later when I would see the bike upon delivery, there was a big fat “Made in China” label on the back, which fortunately was covered up by the license plate.)

Being a foreign resident of Korea, I found the reservation process on the company website frustrating, so I contacted them through a live chat function offered on their web page. I tried to communicate during Korean office hours, and an employee was able to provide me with the information I needed to complete the process.

Before I could register to purchase an electric scooter, there was one annoying roadblock in my way: I had to submit a certificate showing my residence status. As a foreigner, I found it impossible to apply for the needed document on the government website, so I went to the local district office. After a lot of stress, I ended up not even needing to fill out a form — all I had to do was explain why I was there and show my permanent residence card, and then the civil servant handed me the exact certificate I needed.

Next, I was asked to select between two scooter shops near my address that deal with Wacco scooters. I selected one in Malli-dong, a working-class neighborhood west of Seoul Station that used to host a lot of scooter shops before gentrification hit. Then I was told this would be where I would pick up my new scooter, and also where I would bring it for warranty repairs. Had I known that, I might have selected the other one, which was downhill from my home, as opposed to halfway up Mallijae Pass which might be difficult if I have to push it all that way uphill.

Only a few shops are available to work on electric scooters, for good reason. Gas-powered scooters are built on technology that has been around for decades, and any shop can fix them. EV scooters are too new to bring just anywhere.

Another choice I was offered was the color of the vehicle. Cautiously, I asked if the color selection would make a difference in delivery time, and was told no. So I chose metal gray. Soon after, the dealer shop contacted me saying that color was unavailable, at which point I selected olive green. But nope, that one was also unavailable. So between black, ivory and white, I moved my choice to black, before changing my mind and going with ivory, the most unique color among the three. Later, on my way home, I found out someone living on the same block as me had the exact same bike, in the same color. And I also realized that the color matches the dairy carts that are driven around by middle-aged women selling probiotic milk and various other products.

Picking up the new bike

It didn’t take long — less than 24 hours — before my reservation went through and the Malli-dong shop contacted me to say the bike was already at their store, available for pickup the following day. When I first learned I’d have to make a reservation, I was picturing a weeks-long wait, but this was fast.

I showed up the next day ready to complete the purchase. The shop I chose appears to be a dealer of Wacco bikes, and also does a lot of business with emissions testing on gas-powered motorbikes, as I witnessed three separate tests during my time there.

But there were more trials for me to endure before I could drive away. First, obviously, there was the payment issue. The subsidy, through Seoul City Hall it seems, had already been subtracted from the total price.

Next was insurance. As a scooterist with at least 15 years of experience, I have my friend Mr. Chun at Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance on speed dial. He swapped my existing insurance from my Besbi to the new E6S, and told me I would have to unregister the license plate for the older bike as soon as possible, or there could be fines.

As this was Friday, I didn’t complete that task until the following Monday. To do so, I had to remove the license plate and present it along with registration papers at the district office. I went to a local hardware store to buy metal-cutting shears that could cut the plate off the bike. All this was good enough for the district office. Also, incidentally, I had registered that bike in Dongjak District near where I bought it, but unregistered it in Yongsan District with no problems whatsoever.

My new bike was waiting patiently at the scooter shop, but I was feeling less patient as I next had to go to the district office to register it and get a new license plate. So I caught a taxi away from my new ride and plunged into bureaucracy. Registering the new bike was time-consuming and frustrating. I started off pretty enthusiastic, but by the end, after having to run around and make three separate payments at the district office, I was frazzled.

Finally, I got out of there and caught a taxi back to the scooter shop. It took what felt like an hour of running around looking for a taxi that would pick up someone off the street who didn't have any of the taxi-hailing apps. Finally, I caught one and had him bring me back to Malli-dong, where I would be picking up my new wheels, which would free me from the burden of any more taxis.

Once back in the shop, I still had to wait an agonizing amount of time before I could finally take possession of my new scooter. First, the shop owner was conducting another emissions test on a motorcycle, which he explained to me was a big source of income for the business. I wondered if they would have to put my new bike through this process, just to prove that it didn’t have any emissions (not counting its manufacturing and assembly processes).

Affixing a license plate is something best left to a proper mechanic, something I found out with a previous scooter after I almost lost the license plate and ended up having to return to the district office for new bolts. So this time, I presented my new license plate for them to install.

Oh yeah, there was just one more thing to go through before I could hop on the bike, something pretty major that I had no experience with despite all my years of riding various scooters in Korea: the battery.

To be continued…