Amazon Pulls Hoverboards for the Second Time
Is this the end of hoverboards?
It really has been a crap month for hoverboards: First, both the U.S. government and Swagway warned consumers that the boards were unsafe, and today, Amazon has removed them from its site for the second time in two months.
While you can still buy plenty of skins and hoverboard accessories, the actual boards themselves appear to have been removed from the site. (The company temporarily took the boards off its site in December pending a safety review, and even offered to buy them back in January after so many spontaneously exploded.)
It’s unclear whether this is a permanent measure for Amazon, which would only be the third retailer this week to rid itself of the potential fire bombs after Target and Toys ‘R’ Us similarly tossed them over safety concerns.
The explosions mostly seem to be a case of cheap batteries, though Swagway insists its boards meet safety requirements.
Is this the end of hoverboards? Maybe. But some of us would like to think that it’s just a brief pause until we get versions that actually do hover to claim their rightful name.
