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What Chinese electric bike is worth buying? Electric bike review seems to point to Western brands costing several thousand dollars. Any recommendations on wher

by acover 8y ago

What Chinese electric bike is worth buying? Electric bike review seems to point to Western brands costing several thousand dollars. Any recommendations on where to start looking?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
davidgould 8y ago
I don't have a brand recommendation, but if you are handy, it is possible to convert an existing bike by adding a motor and batteries. For a bike like experience (as opposed to a light electric motorcycle experience) the components can be had for between $500 to $800 depending on how much battery you need. Some resources: - ebikes.ca - Informative website, sell high quality items with a lot of the problems worked out and with support. Prices are fair given the added value. Motor and trip simulators for calculating speeds and feeds etc. - bmsbattery.com - Chinese vendor of cheap but mostly functional components. Not much support and shipping will add 30% to prices, but very inexpensive if you can make it work. - lunacycle.com (US), e3emv.com(China) - Sell high quality battery packs - endless-sphere.com - massive discussion board full of good information leavened with the usual opinionated know nothings, but mostly civil. Assuming you need to go less than 25 miles and don't need to climb long steep hills and intend to pedal lightly I'd say you are looking for a small front geared hub motor rated for 250-350 watts and a small controller rated for 20A or less along with a 48v battery between 350-600 watt hours capacity. Target speed should be around 18 to 20 mph. Start with a nice used practical commuter bike, older mountain and road bikes and hybrids will all work. Get something that started out as a decent bike, not big-box store "bike shaped object". I've built a few now and am pretty happy with the process and results.
- acover 8y ago
  Thanks for the reply. I'm considering the BBS02 but I really like the torque sensors. I was hoping that there was some mass produced Chinese model T but couldn't find it.

by acover 8y ago

What Chinese electric bike is worth buying? Electric bike review seems to point to Western brands costing several thousand dollars. Any recommendations on where to start looking?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

davidgould 8y ago

I don't have a brand recommendation, but if you are handy, it is possible to convert an existing bike by adding a motor and batteries. For a bike like experience (as opposed to a light electric motorcycle experience) the components can be had for between $500 to $800 depending on how much battery you need. Some resources: - ebikes.ca - Informative website, sell high quality items with a lot of the problems worked out and with support. Prices are fair given the added value. Motor and trip simulators for calculating speeds and feeds etc. - bmsbattery.com - Chinese vendor of cheap but mostly functional components. Not much support and shipping will add 30% to prices, but very inexpensive if you can make it work. - lunacycle.com (US), e3emv.com(China) - Sell high quality battery packs - endless-sphere.com - massive discussion board full of good information leavened with the usual opinionated know nothings, but mostly civil. Assuming you need to go less than 25 miles and don't need to climb long steep hills and intend to pedal lightly I'd say you are looking for a small front geared hub motor rated for 250-350 watts and a small controller rated for 20A or less along with a 48v battery between 350-600 watt hours capacity. Target speed should be around 18 to 20 mph. Start with a nice used practical commuter bike, older mountain and road bikes and hybrids will all work. Get something that started out as a decent bike, not big-box store "bike shaped object". I've built a few now and am pretty happy with the process and results.

acover 8y ago
Thanks for the reply. I'm considering the BBS02 but I really like the torque sensors. I was hoping that there was some mass produced Chinese model T but couldn't find it.