Fonz Arthur 6 Performance 2024 Review

Oh, how I joked about cheap electric scooters. No stone was left unturned in my quest to poke fun at the new kids on the block. A better, more mature journo wouldn’t have touched the subject as they’d have the foresight to realise that this is the way of the future, but dumb old me? I went there with bells on.

Seeing the smartarse biker from a mile off, a Fonz representative gave me the full rundown and a few telling probes. “Have you ridden many electric scooters before?” he asked, knowingly. The truth here is that missing the point of why Fonz came about and who it’s intended for would be a very easy thing to do for a GS-riding dinosaur like me.

With zero showroom extras and only one battery on board, you can ride off on the Arthur for $5790 plus on roads. Trust me when I say that you’re going to want the two-battery option ($7490 plus on-road costs) as I feel that the second battery adds a whole bunch of fun and useability that you definitely will want.

Checking the bikesales database for Arthur 6 alternatives, the choices are stark. The main scoot coming up in search is BMW’s CE 04, which isn’t in the same category or price bracket as old mate Arty; you could have three of him for one CE 04. A better comparo is the Super Soco CPx, which bikesales gave a 65/100 in 2021 and which currently retails for similar monies as the Arthur.

As you can hopefully see from the photos here, the Arthur is a hub-powered ride meaning that the engine is inside the rear wheel. Hence the fact that it’s solid. Spinning up 8.3kW in its performance guise, the little electric donk is an integrated brushless, DC, radial flux, permanent magnet motor with 195Nm of torque. Phew. The upshot here is that the body of the scooter is really just a place to bolt the wheels to, hold the batteries and protect all the electronic doo-dads.

An extra battery and the upgraded software is the short answer to this question; in reality that means this version of the bike is rolling on two 72V, 30Ah/2160Wh batteries and not one like the base model. You also get a reverse gear, regenerative braking, all-LED lights and some go-faster stripes. There’s also nifty little touches like fold-away passenger footpegs.

There’s the option of a fast-charging socket, but weirdly this doesn’t allow you to actually do fast charging. It’s just for the convenience of being able to use all those Tesla roadside charge stations; the top-up time is no quicker than plugging it in at home using 240V mains.

What electronics does it have? It’s all electronics, people. Haven’t you been listening? Dad jokes aside, this isn't a bike brimming with mod cons. But I’d counter that by saying that this also isn’t a bike you’d be riding all day over hundreds of kilometres, either. So things like Bluetooth connectivity and iPhone apps kind of fall by the wayside if your maximum ride time is a 20-minute dash to the beach, shops, or local cafe.

Interestingly, the bike has no ABS. Only CBS, or a “Combined Braking System”, meaning that the front and rear brakes are linked. “The ADR requirement for electric powertrains with this power-to-weight ratio is CBS,” says Fonz CEO Michelle Nazzari.

I hummed away from the Fonz showroom in Sydney to cover the 10km back to my home. At 114-odd kilos, this bike is light by any standard. And no, it's not all the batteries. I removed one from the bike to check it out and it’s no heavier than a decent bag full of shopping.

Stopping and turning the Arty is a pleasant enough experience. But what did immediately strike me was the bike’s ride quality. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that my local roads are crap, so while riding the Arthur 6 around your average European city may prove uneventful, Sydney’s Bad Bitumen Museum highlighted the fact that this scooter’s suspension is a little basic.

About 10 minutes into my first ride, I looked down at the dash to notice that my range had dropped from 130km to a mere 65km. Then I remembered the Fonz guy telling me that when you run the bike on one battery, the range is halved. I also remembered that this happened over a bad patch of road…

Pulling over, I found that – you guessed it – one of the battery cables had popped off. I also noted that the batteries aren’t secured in place. So take some basic suspension, add crappy Sydney roads and batteries that are free to bounce around and what do you get? You get a scooter that’s going out of its way to freak out the anal, note-taking journalist.

A simple battery harness would fix this but the fact that it happened to me after only 10 minutes means it’s probably happened to other owners. No, the bike isn’t fundamentally compromised, but an issue like this needs to be dealt with. Please fix this, Fonz.

The average ride quality had other knock-on effects, too. Rough roads made the mirrors hard to use and the silver plastic fairing shook quite a lot.

My only other gripe was that the bike’s switchgear felt cheap and plasticky. On the positive side of the fence, the bike’s reverse gear is a great inclusion and the topbox on my bike gave me a lockable storage area for my open-face helmet while also allowing me to store the bike’s quality 240V charger in between top-ups. And it’s just so bloody quiet; I kid you not when I say that the loudest sound the bike makes is the click of the indicator switch.

In the end, the Fonz Arthur 6 scooter is a futuristic EV experiment you can own and ride. But you don’t do experiments to be safe and comfortable and to stand still. You do experiments to discover and progress. So if you are more about moving forward than standing still, then this scooter may be for you.

No, the Arthur 6 isn’t perfect; some will opt for a used Vespa knowing that it’s the better scooter in many ways. But a Vespa isn’t progressing us away from fossil fuels. Quite the opposite. If that matters to you, like it should to anyone who breathes air and likes not being killed by freak weather events, then maybe you should give the Arthur 6 a try.

ENGINE
Type: rear-hub mounted, brushless permanent magnet DC motor powered by 2 x 72V, 30Ah/2160Wh lithium-ion batteries

PERFORMANCE
Claimed maximum power: 8.3kW
Claimed maximum torque: 195Nm

TRANSMISSION
Type: Single-speed

CHASSIS AND RUNNING GEAR
Frame type: Carbon structural steel frame and cast-alloy swing arm
Front brakes: Single 220mm disc, Hydraulic, EBS regenerative braking and CBS
Rear brakes: Single 200mm disc, Hydraulic, EBS regenerative braking and CBS
Tyres (F): 110/70-12 47K
Tyres (R): 110/70-12 47K

DIMENSIONS AND CAPACITIES
Overall length: 1910mm
Overall width: 720mm
Overall height: 1130mm
Ground clearance: 130mm
Seat height: 800mm. Optional 750mm low-profile saddle
Wheelbase: 1350mm
Claimed kerb weight: 114kg

OTHER STUFF
Price: $7490 plus ORC ($8679 ride away, as tested)
Colours: Scarlet Red, Optic White, Moon Blue, Racer Green or Billet Silver
Warranty: 36 months, 20,000km limited
Service Intervals:
1 month/500km
6 months/2500km
12 months/5000km
24 months/10,000km
48 months/20,000km