OneWheel: The "Unwheeledly" Recall
Future Motion has announced an official recall of its Onewheel electric skateboards following the unfortunate deaths of four individuals using the single-wheel technological wonder. This action comes almost a year after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission initially highlighted potential safety issues with the skateboard. While Future Motion maintains that the skateboards are free from defective parts and attributes accidents to user errors, they have committed to releasing a software update for the majority of their models.
We asked founder and CEO Kyle Doerksen to comment and compare product safety with other forms of transportation.
“I think points of comparison are important. New technologies are often subject to much more scrutiny than products people are already familiar with. If you look at actual safety per mile traveled or per user, Onewheels are comparable to bicycles and much safer than motorcycles. But, as you know, there's always an element of risk when you're moving through the world at speed, and people need to be okay with that or choose not to use this type of product. Helmets are so important to use with any product like ours, which is why we are always doing so much to encourage their use.
“It's also pretty amazing that we can do what we're doing, which is pushing new safety functionality via over-the-air update. The requirement to use the term "recall" for this type of announcement with the CPSC has caused some public confusion because most riders think of it as a “firmware update” rather than a recall where you send the product back to the manufacturer
“As we said in response to the CPSC’s statement last year, Onewheels do not have faulty components and they do not suddenly shut-off due to any fault with the product. Future Motion has always taken the position that Onewheels are as safe as any other board sport. Nevertheless, over the last year, we have continued to work with the CPSC on ways to enhance safety and the overall experience for Onewheel riders. Like any new innovation, the haptic buzz safety feature took a huge amount of work to create and it wasn’t yet developed when the CPSC issued its statement last year. We are proud to have innovated an exciting new safety feature that is the core of last week’s recall and has allowed us to turn the page on this chapter.”
Let’s compare. In 2022, there were an estimated:
810,000 bicycle accidents in the United States, resulting in 457 fatalities.
127,000 skateboard accidents in the United States, resulting in 114 fatalities.
810,000 motorcycle accidents in the United States, resulting in 5,932 fatalities.
Source: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
Read more in Christopher Neely’s Lookout Santa Cruz article.