How to avoid buying a hoverboard that might explode

Hoverboards are easily the hottest toy of the holiday season, but getting one is, unfortunately, complex.

That's because the rapid social-media popularity of these two-wheeled misnomers led to a huge boom in manufacturing that's largely unregulated. A reporter with BuzzFeed visited Shenzhen, China, the city where hoverboards are made, to find hundreds of factories all cranking out a very similar product.

Western distributors purchase supplies of the boards, then deliver them to the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, often sourcing boards from various manufacturers. Hoverboards quite literally can't be made quickly enough, which may to have led to some cost-cutting on the part of manufacturers. Batteries have been the primary issue. Read more...