ELV Motors, Inc. Reviews

Excellent Service Center. I went into fix my bike breaks, Nate helped me and explained everything that was wrong. Very friendly and honest environment.

I got a folding fat tire bike (bagi bike brand). Went to just look and educate myself after trying a few other places. I found what I was looking for. Has made my commute a breeze and something to look forward to. After 250 miles it stopped working and took it right back. Took a while to get the part, probably the controller but not their fault. Glad I did get it from them and not online since they took care of the problem at no cost to me. I've had the bike for 14 months now and at 2700 miles with no more problems. If you live in the bay area you really need to look at e biking as an option for your commute. This is the place to start.

It was disappointing because they never accepted my request to repair my nine bot scooter. So I did it myself.

Awesome array. Super knowledgeable and great support.

I've brought my kit bike to ELV multiple times . Every time they were fast and fair.

Good range of product. Great hospitality, The owner and the team is very helpful. Keep it up.

Fleet Certified Electric/Hybrid Bikes - Expert sales, service and support. Best selection of top brand electric bikes in Santa Clara.

Great people! With all the negative press about bicycle shop employees and how they treat customers this place is exactly the opposite they treat you... Like you matter.

This EBike shop is a haven for pedal assisted and EBike enthusiasts.Doug Schwartz, the owner, sells quality Ebikes and road bikes from every price range. His band of 13 year old trainees are knowledgeable-and entgusiastic in helping me buy what I needed.

I bought a scooter on Amazon. It got a flat tire in the first 3 weeks of use. I bought a replacement tubeless tire and tried to put it on myself, but couldn't stretch the tire over the hub. Brought the wheel and tire to them and they got it installed in 20 minutes. Definitely worth the money and I wish I hadn't wasted my Sunday.

Doug was very friendly and helpful. Great and fun to talk too with the best customer service i have ever seen! I highly recommend this place!

ELV Motors is the ONLY place I trust with my bike. I haven't bought any bikes there, but I use them for all my repairs and maintenance.

I've taken my e-bike to two other places, one lost my key, the other did a shoddy repair and tried to charge me for the second fix when I brought it back.

At ELV, not only do they CONSISTENTLY do AMAZING work, they'll sometimes spot something small I didn't notice and fix it as well, included in the price. They work with you on price, and if there's something that can either be replaced at great cost or repaired with some glue and a bit of creativity, they'll do that and do an amazing job with it. They've got a maker, do-it-yourself sort of attitude about repairs, and they're run by a really friendly group of people who seem to really care about what they're doing, and not just try to make a quick buck like some other folks. The place has a sort of small-town charm to it, all the while being very professional about repairs.

I'm really glad I found ELV Motors, and I can't imagine bringing my e-bike anywhere else.

Key points:

Pros:
Good expert recommendation.
Test rides for any bike
No interest financing for 12 months

Cons:
Recommended ebike is less comfortable and has less range than advertised.
- Practical bike 500Wh battery range is 35 miles; advertised is 60 miles. :(
No trial return period after purchase, in case one found the bike uncomfortable, range too short, etc.
- restocking fee on bikes ridden over 25 miles

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I'm new to ebikes and wanted comfortable one for a 30 mile commute to work.

Doug at ELV assisted in giving a comparison of multiple bikes and ended up recommending Emotion City + bike. I test rode that and enjoyed the short ride thanks to the boost provided by the motor.
Before going to the store, I only looked at VonMoof ebike because of its look and smart tracking features, however Doug pointed out that VanMoof lacks throttle option (this option would give flexibility to not pedal if I did not want to) and had similar price point as emotion city. So he convinced me

The only thing that I would have liked when purchasing the bike is a 30 day trial period like that offered by vanmoof. (*sigh).

Fast forward to a week from my purchase date:
My brother and I have ridden the bike for a accumulated total of close to 100 miles. Overall I would rate the bike the following scores organized by the category of importance for me:

Comfort: 4/10
This is a key feature that I wanted, but did not get from the bike. After a total of 4 hours of commute to work, I expected to have a ergonomically stress free ride with little exertion. But even after upgrading to a soft gel seat, I found it to be uncomfortable for long rides.

Battery range: 6/10
As I mentioned I have a 25 mile commute (mostly flat). During my first trip I did use throttle for around 20 minutes of my journey, but that impacted my battery life dramatically. By the time I got to work, I only had 5% of battery life left, which drives me nuts.
On the way home, I had to only drive on pedal assist settings 50% or less to have a comfortable 30% battery life once I arrived home.

Handling in hilly terrains: 2/10
On my way home, I have a steep hill (roughly 130 ft, at roughly 45 degrees incline on average). I weigh about 180lbs, and I found it very tough to navigate up the hill, spending way more effort than I wanted to. I guess the battery is just too weak to handle this

Overall: While advertised and well recommended by the store owner, I found that this bike is uncomfortable and too weak (power and battery life-wise) for my needs. :(

From my understanding ELV does not accept returns with 25 miles or more on the bike. They only offer exchanges minus a 10% stocking fee. I really hope I can return or exchange this for a more comfortable Emotion bike with a bigger range for a similar price point.

Cool shop with lots of electric bikes and scooters. Very friendly staff with great support. Not a very easy place to test bikes but the owner will let you ride around the nearby neighborhoods. Be eco friendly and upgrade your commute!

Great store. The owner is very passionate about electric bikes and offers a good selection of models and accessories.

Perfect place to grab entry level affordable e-bikes.

Sold me a part for a reasonable price then spent good time helping me get it back in running condition. Good people! Thanks Nate.

Great bike shop! Very good verayrty of electric bikes and scooters, the owner and staff are very informative, Professional and helpful! Check out their GreenBike scooter (:
Highly recommend!!

Was very nice getting to see first hand and test drive the product before purchasing. They are friendly and helpful especially when you have an issue like I did with your purchase. They went very far to help me out even replacing the product to try and remedy what I can figure is just a manufacturer issue. Thank you for spending the extra time with me i'll make sure to refer my coworkers to you.

Terrible service response, slow, and high prices. Not a great combo. If you have the option to service or buy your e-bike elsewhere, I would recommend you do that.

Service response. It usually takes me days of calling to get a hold of anyone and I have never revived a call back from any message I have left. After I did get my part ordered I haven't heard a thing about how long it normally takes or that they have even sent a request to the manufacturer for the part. When I was able to talk to someone there about my order he told me he didn't know anything about my order status or the additional charges to my invoice because he wasn't the one who I spoke with when ordering the part.

Slow. As stated above getting any order initiated takes days of calling to get initiated and it's now been over two weeks and I still don't know if my part was ever even ordered.

High prices. This is partly not their fault since Stromer sets the price for their replacement parts, but I was not happy about the $50 fee on my invoice that was never mentioned when we discussed pricing over the phone.

I used ELV since they are the only Stromer dealer in the area, but next time I will make the drive up to San Francisco to avoid having to use them.

ELV Motors is one of a kind

Sure, there are bike shops around, but none as competent or capable as ELV Motors when it comes to electric light vehicles. The staff are always friendly and helpful, even if you need to charge your Electric Car.

I purchased a replacement battery for a Prodeco Tech folding electric bike, through ELV Motors. It came quickly and I got help installing it.

I enjoyed learning about electric bikes. Doug Schwartz was gracious and informative. He had great knowledge of products . He was greatly appreciated.
Their expertise was appreciative.

I have been doing business with ELV MOTORS for many years. The owner Doug, his associates and service department are the best in the business. They treat me like family. Great customer service at ELV Motors.

Helpful staff great inventory and made sure I was happy with the bike I wanted and subsequently bought.

I gave you two stars because of the experience I had with your service department. My husband and I are your customers. You could ask before telling "Berfin Paker since you are not a customer". We bought our Magnum electric bike from your store in 2018. In 2020 we bought a new e-bike from another store (online). A while later, our new bike's rear tire got flat, and we called ELV Motors. Nate told us that appointment is not required. Just drop off your bike on Mon/Tues/Thurs/Sat 12:30-6. We dropped our bike. For a while later, it got flat again because the patch didn't hold. We bought a new inner tube and brought it to you for replacement. The bike mechanic told us that we can't drop off our bike without even listening to us, and he was rude. The service was good a few years ago. But it was not the same for the last six months.

Great customer service very knowledgeable about his bikes.Thank you.

The best experience. We enjoy our new electric bikes. Really looking forward to night rides with our friends, getting back to mountain biking and becoming more familiar with our neighborhood.

Had Nate replace regular air tires with solid rubber tires on our Xiaomi m365 eScooters. Nate is VERY busy with service. We weren't in a hurry to get them replaced so we didn't care how long it took Nate.

Overall very satisfied with the service. Definitely recommend it.