Kuda New Wolf: One year later review
Twelve months has passed since we first took our first ride in the Kuda New Wolf, is it any good and how has it hold up?
e-Bikes are everywhere
If you live in or visit the Philippines, you'll quickly see e-Bikes in between all the other vehicles. Especially as quickly you leave the big main roads and venture into subdivisions and neighboring areas
Among this ocean of e-Bikes, Kuda is a brand you'll see decently frequently and part of the reason is that they're good at putting their logo on their vehicles. Question is, are they actually any good?
Build quality
Let's dive into one of the topic most of you might be most curious about, how is the build quality?
The main body is fairly stable and build quality is decent, but the coating should have been better. As too many areas you can see paint is removing and slight rust
When you start looking at the accessories you can add, such as roof and side panels. You can see the build quality quickly decreases, where quite a lot of rust building up and screws getting loose. The side panel (rain cover) is sun faded already after two weeks and some stitches starting to falling apart
Battery life
You have two different options for battery size, but with the default size (which most will take). You will have a battery that's good for 30-40 km per charge. Unfortunately all battery options are only lead, so batteries will be slow to charge. For light users, you should be able to use the e-Bike for 1-2 days per charge, while more heavy users might need to charge during the day to have enough battery
After a year, we can see some decrease in how long the battery last. We especially notice it that we are more using the lower gears, to ensure the battery last as long as possible
Unfortunately the charger has seen better days. There's no visible physical damage to the cable, but unless we put it in a specific position the eBike won't charge and we get the blue light, which means the eBike is not charging
Driving experience
As it's automatic, it's fairly straight forward to drive and most will find it east to drive. As the size is about half the size of a car, you can fit many places where cars can't and you can often drive past heavy traffic by driving beside it
During the day you have a good view, but during night time the lights doesn't light very far and is not the best experience. Especially if you have opted to install the covering front. If you plan to drive a lot during night, you either want to install additional lights or consider other options
After using it for a year, we notice that the e-Bike is shaking a bit more when driving, compared to when we first got it
Verdict
Kuda New Wolf is a decent e-Bike, but many of the optional accessories are not of the best quality and only battery option is LEAD, but that goes for most e-Bikes on the Philippines marked
If you plan to use it for smaller trips in your neighborhood and local area, it's a good option. But if you plan to drive a lot, especially greater distance. Then you want to consider something with a bigger battery
Our verdict: Consider your options
Tags: #Kuda #KudaNewWolf
