Why it’s happening

There’s a running theory that boards shipped on cold trucks need to warm up before turning on, but Stock doesn’t think that explains it. Many boards, including his own, arrived after days in the back of a cold truck and started up just fine.

Instead, Stock points to variation in battery cells. Three to four different brands of cells are being used in Onewheel GT units; this was confirmed by the Future Motion support team in response to a customer inquiry. The representative told the customer, “We qualify multiple suppliers to allow us to continue producing if one supplier is interrupted… all suppliers of the batteries have been thoroughly tested for the GT specifically.”

However, Stock said, variations in quality and cold tolerance across battery types could definitely explain the discrepancies we’ve seen.

What to do about it

Keep calm and listen to some Rage Against the Machine, I guess.

The first batches of Onewheel Pints and Frontier Edition XRs also included several units that were DOA or bricked within the first 100 miles. More recently, there were power button issues on XRs with hardware version 4212.

The trend, as he sees it, is simple: The system increases in complexity every time Future Motion implements a new safety or security feature. The more complex the system, the more opportunities it presents for something to go wrong. While some of these features are necessary for rider safety, Stock feels that others compromise functionality in the company’s perpetual efforts to ensure third parties cannot modify their products.

“Unreasonable security measures overcomplicate the system and don’t add anything for the rider,” Stock said. In his opinion, “These features are not about making the good stuff work. They’re trying to make sure we [the community] can’t see what’s inside.”

Why it’s happening

The new concave front footpad, which houses the sensor, is the most likely culprit for false readings that can cause the GT to accelerate when no rider is present. Sensitivity is an inherent challenge when integrating the sensor with a curved surface. Most aftermarket concave solutions for the Onewheel XR have had similar problems.

Race for the Rail champions Tyler James and Zoe Thomas had a chance to put the GT prototype through its paces, and both said that ghosting did not seem to be an issue at that time. This tracks with speculation that the sensor design changed between GT prototyping and production, and could explain why Future Motion may have overlooked new sensor design flaws until customers started having issues.

And boy, are they having issues. Here is a non-exhaustive list compiled by Louis Rossman, a right to repair activist who has done not one but TWO YouTube episodes about Future Motion in the few short weeks since GTs started to ship.

What to do about it

Future Motion has been quietly replacing faulty footpads free of charge. For some, this seems to have solved the problem, but not for everyone. It is unclear whether Future Motion actually adjusted the design to reduce the likelihood of ghosting, or simply replaced “bad” footpads with “good” ones from the same stock shelf without actually revisiting the design flaws behind the issue.

Why it’s happening

The Onewheel GT is Future Motion’s first 3 horsepower board, and that power increase has been a major selling point for the new model. Riders can feel the difference in acceleration, nosedive recovery, and climbing. Increased power and torque are also attractive to bigger riders who may find the XR has “mushy” engagement or just doesn’t quite cut it on hills.

However, more power generates more heat within the motor, and the heat dissipation design of the GT doesn’t seem up to the task. Stock observed that all the additional power—twice as much as the XR—is being pushed through the same stator as on the less powerful XR.

As cooler spring weather gives way to summer heat, Stokelife Service predicts high temperature shutoffs will become one of the most significant issues with the Onewheel GT.

What to do about it

Some of the community’s “mad scientists” have implemented temporary fixes, such as shimming the motor cover and re-installing it with longer screws or milling the hub to create additional avenues for heat dissipation.

These McGuyvers provided proof of concept. Now, in collaboration with Tech Rails, Bob Nicholson (Bob’s Stoke Shop, SLS) is developing a replacement motor cover with cooling fins on the outside. Nicholson says this new plug-and-play cover will be backwards compatible with the smaller XR hub, enabling users to swap in a hub sized for their favorite aftermarket tire.

A more robust axle block would address this issue at its root, but it could take months for the manufacturer to roll out a design change. Nicholson’s covers will likely be available this month from StokeLife Service centers—check out the directory to see which one is closest to you!

Why it’s happening

Every hardware update has made it harder for onewheel owners to add the modifications they want or simply to perform repairs on their board, with the Onewheel XR controller eventually getting locked to the battery and BMS so that owners could not swap in aftermarket products even for wear components.

Is it possible that this apparent GT battery booby trap is actually just a bug? It would be nice to think so, but in the context of Future Motion’s rich history of blocking third party service providers and innovators from working on their products (including direct statements that FM will do everything in its power to shut them down), it is very hard to draw a charitable conclusion here.

What to do about it

Onewheel owners and riders are at a crossroads. They can choose to accept that this is just how the maker of their favorite product does business. They can play by the rules, purchase OEM parts only, and ship their board to California for every tire change and battery swap.

Or, they can make a stink about it by reporting Future Motion to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for unlawful repair restrictions in hopes of forcing them to push an update that removes all pairing locks from Onewheel products.

But what is the risk undertaken by doing so? For some, the possibility of seeing Future Motion fined, sued, or shut down by the FTC could be a price too high to pay.