Apollo Explore Review UK

If you want a fast, powerful electric scooter that’ll turn heads – this is the one!

The Apollo Explore is a cracking ride you can take anywhere. Whether roads, hills, grass, pavement or dirt path, this fearless scooter doesn’t hold back. Zipping around at over 30mph, it’s easy to get anywhere fast.

An on-trend design, excellent ride quality and a premium build make the Apollo Explore a fun investment you just will not regret.

Let’s take a look at the qualities that make this scooter so great, starting with the key specs.

Apollo Explore Cons

  Front Headlight is a little Dull

  Lacks Audio Alert

  The Display is Difficult to see at Night

  Can be a bit heavy to transport

Performance Overview

Racing along at the speed of a car whilst enjoying excellent ride quality makes the Apollo Explore a joy to ride. At night, blue and red LED lights ensure you’ll get all the attention whilst you speed past traffic and up hills with ease.

With no restrictions on where you can travel, this electric scooter is well worth the price. Positioned in the higher price range, the amount of power and speed you get for your money makes the Apollo Explore a great value buy that will save you tons on travel costs in the long run.

Complete with a quality 52V Dynavolt battery, dual spring suspension, robust 10 inch pneumatic tyres and a triple braking system, you have all you need to glide over bumps, potholes and all types of terrain in comfort.

The only drawback for the Apollo Explore is its weight. At 23kg, although the scooter collapses down really well, it’s not the type of scooter you want to carry around for long. But then you didn’t buy it to carry!
What the Apollo Explore does do is to fold down fully so it’s easy to store and the 4-hour charge plus the long 34 mile range means you can charge it without any hassle.

It is water-resistant, tons of fun and well-made – another great electric scooter from Apollo’s excellent range. Here’s a closer look at the Apollo Explore’s most important attributes. 

Power and Performance

Pulling no punches with it’s 52v 18.2ah Dynavolt battery, the Apollo Explore has an excellent range of 34 miles meaning you can ride it for a couple of days at least, without worrying about charging.

With a top speed of around 55km/h, this electric scooter’s speed makes it a head-turner and you’ll enjoy riding past all the traffic at breakneck speed.

The energy efficient, brushless 1000W motor gives you far more power than you’ll find on most electric scooters.

With a peak output of 1400W, whether off road or in more urban areas, you can look forward to leaving your friends straggling far behind The Apollo Explore isn’t a full scale off roader but it can find its way across grass, over dirt paths and up hills without any problem.

Construction & Build Quality

Built quality is another high focus area in which this electric scooter particularly excels. The Apollo Explore uses forged aluminum for all of the critical parts of the e-scooter (base, stem and handlebar), and the frame quality is second to none.

Additionally the Apollo Explore also has all external cables wrapped in hard plastic coil to prevent cut or torn cables.

Acceleration

Despite its lightning fast acceleration that takes you to 15mph in 3.5 seconds, the Apollo Explore is never anything less than a sturdy quiet ride and you’ll have no misgivings about dashing along at 30mph.

The official measurement from Apollo Scooters is from 0-15 MPH (25 km/h) in 3.5 seconds. On average, rider reviews state that they are able to reach the same speed in 3.7 to 3.8 seconds, so that’s very close. Lighter riders should be able to easily do 3.5 seconds or even beat that.

These numbers are definitely on the good end of the acceleration spectrum – especially considering the great ptice of this e-scooter. It won’t have the same pull as a dual-motor scooter, but the 1000W motor holds no punches as far as acceleration is concerned.

Top Speed

In it’s price class, the Apollo Explore offers some impressive speed. A 1000W rear motor with a peak output at 1400W enables the electric scooter to reach a top speed of 31 miles per hour or 50 km/h.

Battery & Range

A 52V 18.2aH Li-ion battery powered by Dynavolt cells (globally renowned manufacturer of electric motorbike batteries) offers exceptional range of 34 miles (55 KM) on a single charge.

No other electric scooter in this price range offers comparable battery performance by a wide margin. The best part? Big battery doesn’t mean long re-charge times. Get yourself the fast charger upgrade and recharge in a mere 4-5 hours.

Motor Configuration

The Apollo Explore features a high-efficiency (86% energy conversion rate) brushless 1000W motor with 1400W peak output.

Brake System

With all that power, the Explore comes with exceptional braking capabilities. Featuring two high-performance disc brakes and an electric re-gen brake, it all adds up to an average braking distance of only 8 ft or 2.45 meters!

The re-gen brake activates when the brake handles are pressed, and works by passing a reverse current through the motor. This smoothly slows down the motor and re-charges the battery while doing so.

Suspension

The Explore features a terrain-agnostic suspension system, providing exceptional comfort for those looking to get the “on-road” comfort regardless of how “off-road” they have gone.

The Apollo Explore features a high-performance dual spring suspension in the rear and an additional spring suspension in the front. It also comes with two 10-inch pneumatic (air-filled) tires, making your ride as smooth as butter.

Ride Quality

Most riders report that the ride quality on the Explorer is really great, and offers a seamless ride by preventing the jarring bumps from rattling your teeth.

The ride quality on the Explorer is made possible by several important features.

Firstly, the scooter sports large pneumatic tires, which alongside the spring suspension in the rear and front, make for a smooth ride, on nearly all terrains.

We found the spring system to be well-balanced, neither too stiff nor too soft, meaning that this scooter won’t rattle even on the rough roads.

Another fantastinc element that promotes the great ride quality is the large 20” by 90” spacious deck that gives ample standing room. This is absolutely essential for your longer rides.

Another – often overlooked – ride quality element on the Explorer is the impressive 5.3″ of ground clearance. This seriously ups your gamel for dropping off curbs and getting over obstacles.

Portability

Despite being 23kg, the Apollo Explore folds up into a very compact size. The stem and front-wheel can be folded up over the deck and the handlebars can be screwed loose and folded in.

This is really great if you want to pop it in the boot of your car, or don’t want it to take too much space in your home.

Cockpit

For all your stats requirements, the Apollo Explore has a colourful LCD console to display all the information you need to track performance, current speed, distance, battery charge and more.
Press mode and power together and you’ll be able to access all the data and tweaks you could ever want.

Apollo are all about attention to detail, so useful customisable extras include things like: multiple speed settings for different types of journeys, metric or imperial measurements, cruise control, different riding modes, etc.

You can even choose between kick-and-go or instant acceleration, as well as set the acceleration strength.

Lights

After dark, the Apollo Explore reaches new heights when coloured LED lights take your experience to a whole new level. Lights at the front, back, and along the deck and stem, create a fresh look guaranteed to draw plenty of attention.

You’ll find front and tail lights, as well as really cool blue lights under the deck and up the stem for an attention-grabbing yet practical look.

Despite the configured amount of lights on the Explore, you may also choose to add a light to the handlebars to boost your own line of vision as the view from up top in the dark isn’t as good as it could be.

Either way, the Apollo Explore is a really fun way to travel at night, and it’s always great to know you can just hop on your scooter and go when you’re ready.

Tyres

The Explore features dual 25.4-centimeter by 8-centimeter pneumatic tyres manufactured by HOTA. The generous diameter of these tyres really helps to smooth the impact if you happen to go over a pothole.

Because they are air filled, the tyres assist the suspension in providing a smoother overall ride. The increased width of the tyres makes the ride feel very stable, but don’t worry about handling, because the tyres also have rounded profiles that make the scooter feel nimble.

Another benefit of pneumatic tyres is that they tend to perform better in wet conditions, compared to solid airless tyres. The rubber is more supple and provides better traction in all conditions.

Yes, the tyres have inner tubes, making them more prone to getting flats than tubeless tyres. So that is why we recommend adding tyre sealant to your new scooter’s tyres, to reduce your chance of getting flats.

Deck

At 53 by 20 cm the Apollo Explore’s deck is far more generous than you’ll find on most electric scooters and it’s properly finished with plenty of grip as well as an on-trend blue and silver geometric design.

The Apollo Explore can take a maximum load of 120kg and the sizeable deck makes it easy to travel comfortably with both feet planted firmly.

Warranty & Support

With the Explore, Apollo have hit it out of the park!

Generally, cheap electric scooters tend to be drop-shipped and hardly have anything in the way of support and repair options.
With Apollo Scooters the story is completely different. Operating out of Montreal, Canada, the guys behind the brand offer an impressive 24-month warranty, and this is really starting to change the entire e-scooter game.

Before they ship any scooter, the Explore undergoes a strict triple inspection quality control (143-point checklist) to ensure you get an electric scooter in perfect condition, right out of the box.

The Apollo team is highly knowledgeable, and they genuinely care about building their business on solid and responsive customer service. They even have a live chat system on their website allowing you to quickly get the answers you need. Very few brands offer this level of support in the current e-scooter market.

Maintenance

The Apollo Explore comes with its own multitool for everyday maintenance and if you really have a problem, you can always send your scooter to one of their repair centres.

As a bonus, you can go over to the Apollo YouTube channel, where there is an amazing collection of well-done self-maintenance videos with more being added on a regular basis.

A common statement by owners of Apollo scooters, is that it’s much more convenient to watch a video and do your own maintenance, compared to taking your scooter into a shop or mailing it somewhere.

Water Resistance

The Apollo Explore has a factory certified water-resistance rating of IP54. This means that the scooter should tolerate light rain with no problems. However, you should definitely not soak the scooter for long periods of time.

Please keep in mind that Apollo doesn’t cover water damage to the scooter. Because the scooter isn’t rated as waterproof, there is no way of Apollo to determine if the user exceeded the rating.

Known Issues

There are none reported that we could find. But just like other scooters with folding handlebars, the mechanism on the Apollo has a tendency to need retightening after long rides.

Technically this is just an annoyance comparable with many other scooter brands on the market.

Apollo Explore Review: Conclusion

For fun, style, and travel, without the frustrations of slow speeds or frequent charging, the Apollo Explore just can’t be beat. Its much faster than most comparative electric scooters, and has tons of great details and excellent construction and stability.

Riding the Apollo Explore is a dream, and you’ll find yourself using it all the time because it’s so fast and easy-going. It really is a top notch, head-turning electric scooter that’s well worth the investment.