SUPER SOCO CPX (2020 - on) Review

Electric bike sales jumped 50% in 2020, with most interest at the milder end of the power spectrum. With city commuters fleeing pox-ridden public transport for two-wheeled self-isolation, Super Soco’s new flagship CPx scooter has landed at the perfect time to offer just such an escape.

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You can buy a CPx with one battery (£3654, 2020 price), or two (£4754). Each removable 2.7kWh unit is good for around 35-40 miles if you stick to 30mph or less (so 70-80 miles for the two-battery model). If you ride everywhere flat out, range drops to around 20 miles per battery.

The CPx’s straight-line performance is shy of a typical 125 scooter, so it’s most at home making easy work of short city trips. Tasked doing just that, the single-battery option may well offer enough range to manage most daily cross-town commutes. That leaves the twin-battery version feeling like a tougher sell, especially given its near-£5000 price.

But whatever your commute entails, there’s plenty of petrol-powered 125cc scooters that are cheaper, accelerate quicker, go further and offer more practicality than the CPx. Batteries definitely beat the bus, but petrol power isn’t done for yet.

The wide, plush seat is comfy enough for an hour’s commute and you’re sat behind a tall, protective windscreen that helps shelter you from poor weather. Footroom is modest, with just enough space for my size-9 boots.

On MCN’s digital scales the CPx weighs 146kg with two batteries, or 127.6kg with just one. It’s well-balanced, with easy walking-pace U-turns and superb agility nipping through traffic. There’s even a reverse mode to help back the scooter out of a parking space, as well as a walking-speed setting for crawling forward gently without having to push.

Suspension is pretty basic – 31mm forks up front and a monoshock at the back – but the action and ride quality is reasonable over potholes. Brakes lack ABS but are instead linked: squeezing the front brake lever moves two of the three pistons in the front caliper, while the third is activated when you squeeze the back brake. In practice both levers need a firm squeeze together, as bite and stopping power are best described as ‘mild’, while the motor adds little in the way of regenerative engine braking.

Standard tyres are Michelin City Grip 2, and while the wheels are a decent size (16in front, 14 in rear) the rubber is a somewhat skinny-looking 100 front and 110 rear.

The hub-mounted 4kW (5bhp) motor drives linearly but leisurely, eventually building to an indicated 57mph (a GPS-tested 53mph). However, from a standing start the CPx is decidedly unhurried – even with freshly charged batteries our quickest 0-30mph time is a very relaxed 7.56 seconds.

However, performance drops noticeably as the charge in each battery depletes. Top speed reduces to around 45mph, while acceleration becomes increasingly sluggish. It’s particularly noticeable because of the way the CPx sources its power when two batteries are fitted.

Rather than draw from both batteries simultaneously, the CPx first drains battery one from full to 20%, then switches to the second (still fully charged) battery. In practice, this means the CPx’s performance is inconsistent over a ride. It starts off with full power, gets slower as the first battery drains, perks up when it switches to battery two, then slows again. When both batteries get down to 20% it switches to taking energy from both. When there’s 10% battery left, top speed is cut to around 25mph.

We did achieve Super Soco’s claimed 80-mile range for our two-battery bike, but only by staying strictly below 30mph and limping the final few miles.

When they do run out, batteries can be charged either in or out of the bike. If you want to remove them, just pop the seat open, disconnect them and they pull straight out – though they weigh a rather hefty 18.4kg each. One battery takes just over three hours to charge, at a cost of roughly 40p, so that’s around six hours and 80p to charge both.

The Super Soco CPx was brand-new for 2020, so it’s impossible to assess long-term reliability yet. Component quality appears to be from the affordable end of the scale, but it all seems put together fairly solidly and we had no faults or issues with our test bike.

The CPx comes with a two-year warranty. Batteries, however, have a three-year warranty and are rated for 1500 charge cycles. In theory that suggests anything from 30,000 to 60,000 miles per battery (so 60,000 to 120,000 miles for the two-battery version) before capacity drops to 80%. If you later find yourself needing a replacement outside of warranty, or later decide you want a spare battery, each unit costs over £1800.

The Super Soco CPx costs peanuts to run. Electricity costs work out as little as a penny a mile, VED is completely free, and the lack of any oil, coolant, spark plugs, valves, chains or belts means maintenance is minimal. However, all of this is also true for most rival electric commuter scooters.

In its one-battery guise, the nearest electric rival to the CPx’s £3654 pricetag is probably the Niu NQi GTS Pro. Despite costing similar money the Niu comes with two batteries, giving a greater range. The Niu is smaller and lighter than the Super Soco and feels peppier pulling away, though with a top speed of just 44mph it won’t keep with a CPx on the open road.

The two-battery version of the CPx (£4754) is slightly cheaper than a Silence S01. The Silence might be a little heavier but it accelerates much more eagerly (its 0-30mph time is 4 seconds), while its speed and performance stays much more consistent as the battery charge falls. However, Silence doesn’t yet have an established dealer network, like Super Soco does.

But look beyond electric vehicles and the CPx’s main two-wheeled rival is Honda’s best-selling PCX 125. With a 2021 price of just £3169, a PCX costs less than the CPx even in its single-battery guise. The Honda’s also quicker, goes further, boasts both ABS and traction control, and holds 30 litres of underseat storage.

The LCD dash displays your speed large and clear. However, it also shows the battery status in a slightly unintuitive way when two batteries are fitted. The display always gives the state of the healthier battery, so for the first 20-40 miles (while it’s using battery one), the readout permanently shows ‘100%’. That’s not much help.

There is a single USB charging socket, found near a phone-sized glovebox. But that’s your only storage – there’s no additional space under the seat as it’s taken up with batteries. Going for the single-battery version of the CPx frees up a small amount of space, but not enough to hold a lid.

The CPx’s ignition can be turned on remotely by pressing a button on the keyfob. However, you still need the physical key to undo the steering lock. There is an alarm too, but it’s extremely quiet.