Good Luck Buying a ‘Hoverboard’ on Amazon

The popular scooters are getting the side-eye from airlines and online retailers.

Funny thing about those self-balancing electric scooters often branded as “hoverboards”—some may have a nasty tendency to catch fire and burn down houses. Major US airlines Delta, American and United took notice and banned them from flights. Now Best Reviews has broken the news—in what could be a major blow to the scooter industry and the Christmas morning dreams of kids everywhere—that Amazon has decided to pull some brands of hoverboard from its pages. 

Swagway, one ridiculously-named hoverboard brand yanked from Amazon, gave a statement to The Verge regarding their product’s removal. It said in part that Amazon had asked hoverboard sellers to “provide documentation demonstrating that all hoverboards you list are compliant with applicable safety standards.” Swagway didn’t seem concerned:

Swagway already meets all those certifications and is happy that Amazon has decided to take steps to weed out the low quality boards. As safety is always on the forefront for Swagway, we’re glad that this is taking place, especially in light of recent concerns with the fires with the poor quality batteries.

Mashable’s Adario Strange—who first contacted Swagway regarding their product’s removal from Amazon—that in spite of Swagway’s “what, me worry?” tone, they seem to be squarely in Amazon’s crosshairs. Strange noted buyers can still “find a range of alternate hoverboard brands available on Amazon, including the Razor Hovertrax, the Jetson and the Hover X.” Mashable’s report added that the hits don’t stop with Amazon—Overstock.com has stopped selling hoverboards as well.

These fiery developments may disappoint a lot of tweens, teens, and hipsters for whom walking is just, like, so yesterday, man, but they could lead to fewer burning homes nationwide on Christmas night, which seems like a net positive. 

Perhaps if hoverboard safety standards are improved by the crackdowns limiting their sales, we can then address the fact that they aren’t even fucking hoverboards in the first place.

We can dream.

Photos by Ben Larcey / urbanwheel.co / Flickr