5 ms·

DJI announces an electric mountain bike drive system

37 points by Logans_Run 2y ago

sandworm101 2y ago
20kg? Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving grams off their bikes. I think this is just another attempt to break e-bikes away from being a distinct product, to keep the "e" an optional upgrade to whatever bike the customer already owns.
- demondemidi 2y ago
  Actual trail riders mostly do not do this. Source: worked at a bike store. People with a lot of money that treat their bike as something to optimize and not something to ride do this. I'm not saying its wrong, its just another way of being a bike enthusiast, but this type rarely overlaps with serious riders. Training improves performance, not $3000 wheels that shave off 50 grams.
  - stavros 2y ago
    Isn't this about e-bikes? Do people generally train on e-bikes? It feels that these two would be distinct sets.
    - demondemidi 2y ago
      I don't think people with e-bikes even pedal into the orange zone. It's more of exercise theater, to borrow a term. HOwever, I do hope e-bikes start to overtake cars as modes of transportation in temperate climates.
  - slau 2y ago
    Agreed. For most people it would be more reasonable to lose the three-four kg in body fat and keep the aluminium frame rather than upgrading to carbon fibre.
    - plorkyeran 2y ago
      Unless you have found a way to spend a few thousand dollars to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no complications or effort, losing weight and spending more on a bike are not things you're choosing between.
      - unsigner 2y ago
        semaglutide comes pretty close to "a few thousand dollars to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no complications or effort"
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    At least in the pacific northwest, mounting biking isn't just about riding the bike any more than owning a motorcycle is just about riding a motorcycle. It's a culture or talking about and bragging about bike tech. Weight is bragging rights for mountain bikes as "aero" is for road bikes. Lots of people will pay to have the better toy. The running joke is that many bikes are worth more than the cars that bring them to the trailheads.
    - doix 2y ago
      I think your confusing regular mountain biking with ebikes. The people bragging about bike tech will most likely be looking down at people that ride ebikes on the trail.
  - newsclues 2y ago
    Other than pros most of the people spending lots of money to shave weight would be better served losing weight from their belly over the bike, but that’s harder to solve with a credit card.
    - 1attice 2y ago
      Again, semaglutide solves this pretty well with a credit card; not even that if you have The Good Coverage. Reorient yourself, the frame has shifted.
- plorkyeran 2y ago
  Approximately no one is paying thousands of dollars to shave grams off an eMTB. There is a small but visible group of people doing that for road bikes and a much smaller group of people doing that for non-electric mountain bikes. There's probably some weirdo out there doing it for an electric mountain bike but they're probably more of a "decorative expensive bike purchaser" than an "actual trail rider".
  - troyvit 2y ago
    That makes sense. If I'm already saying I need a motor to get myself up the trail I'm pretty far from worrying about shaving weight off my bike (or off of myself for that matter).
  - glohbalrob 2y ago
    There are carbon fiber E-bikes, perhaps it’s “few” but there are people paying to have a more light bike since the extra weight up and down hill isn’t as fun
    - plorkyeran 2y ago
      The weight difference between equivalent carbon and aluminum eMTBs is generally around a kg, but the argument for carbon MTBs has mostly shifted away from weight. While carbon fails more catastrophically than aluminum, it's harder to hit the failure point and it's less susceptible to stress fractures. It is also generally argued that carbon is both more dampening and stiffer in the places you want stiff, but it is very hard to tell how real that is.
- bluescrn 2y ago
  I don't think competitive e-biking is a thing. And if you're commuting or riding recreationally, you probably don't care much about weight. And this looks like a competitor for the Bosch systems that power many e-bikes, needing a similar frame design - and not a kit to install on non-electric bikes.
- Zigurd 2y ago
  20kg is fairly light for an e-mtb. I'd bet typical use is to climb the uphill paths on an mtb trail system, even though the bike they mention isn't a dedicated DH bike.
- SkyPuncher 2y ago
  While in amateur, I’ve been mountain biking a long, long time. Nobody cares about grams on a mountain bike. The environment you’re riding in is so hostile that you really can’t tell the difference.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving grams off their bikes. Spending hundreds to thousands to shave "grams" is not a thing among real trail riders. Actual trail riders are generally pretty smart about the tradeoffs. If they see a product that is "hundreds to thousands" more expensive and brings no benefit other than shaving a few grams, nobody will buy it.
- m463 2y ago
  I've always laughed at that. Part weight in grams is just a marketing gimmick to differentiate products to charge higher prices. Even tour de france folks have a minimum weight they can't go under, and they frequently weigh several kg over anyway. For casual riders, you could save several $k equivalent on your super-lightweight-bike by just losing a few pounds or trading jeans for shorts. personally, I would love if all the bike lights had a standardized bus and connector so headlight/taillight/etc could power off the bike battery. (I know some bikes have an output but think more like a standard USB connector and maybe a dashboard setting, not running bare wires under the hood and using a proprietary app to set things up)
Temporary_31337 2y ago
It’s hardly state of the art at this point. There’s lighter and more efficient drivetrains from Shimano bosch and many others.
- reustle 2y ago
  Get into as many markets as possible so it becomes harder for the US to ban you outright.
sottol 2y ago
I don't know that I see anything revolutionary? The peak power seems maybe higher than Bosch CX at 850W vs 600 but continuous power is similar 250W. 800Wh max battery pack size is also not entirely out of the ordinary. The packaging seems nice, the battery seems quite slim and integrate well into ordinary-looking downtube on the Amflow bike - but don't see much otherwise. Weight seems on the high side.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
  More than 250W continuous is pointless in many countries because that's the limit for the most common e-bike class (i.e. even if the system can do more, you'd want to de-rate it to 250W). Bosch makes excellent motors, but they're ripping people off on accessories (a dumb charger costs 89 EUR in the "compact" variant that can do 2A or around 80W and weighs 600g, needing over 10 hours to charge a large battery), and enabling this with aggressive DRM (which also means updates can only be done by a repair shop). They're also trying to make your bike a subscription, of course. So even if all DJI does is become competitive, that's already a win. Bonus points if they actually let you tune (some) motor parameters yourself. The hard part seems to be reliability (a bike that gets mud, water and washing together with constant vibration is a pretty harsh environment) and many Chinese motor brands have a less than stellar reputation there, and because this is not something easily testable, building a reputation (and gathering the experience needed to actually build good products) takes time.
  - rdl 2y ago
    I assume price would be the major factor. Also, as someone who knows nothing about e-bikes, but who knows "DJI makes good cheap drones and gimbals", they'd be pretty high on my list of "probably makes an ok product" without searching.
    - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
      I'd trust their intent to create a good product (rather than aiming for something that will look good enough for just long enough to get you to buy it), their general manufacturing, and even engineering, but with the forces and water/dirt involved, I am not confident they'll succeed in the first few iterations.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nathancahill 2y ago
The product page has a lot more info and photos: https://www.dji.com/global/avinox https://www.dji.com/global/avinox The screen/computer part seems to be significantly nicer than competition.
metadat 2y ago
> The integrated DJI Avinox electric power assist system leverages DJI's cutting-edge technologies in both software and hardware design, offering 850 W of peak power (250 W nominal power) in an ultra-light body of 19.2kg This is most unimpressive. I have an 2019 3000w LunaCycle e-mountain bike (based on the Giant Anthem) with similar drive system weight specs, which includes the ginormous 40ah battery. Why can't DJI compete with something nice from 5 years ago?
- bagels 2y ago
  Is that a legal bike in your jurisdiction? In California you're riding an unregistered moped, illegally, most likely. I suspect DJI is aiming for legal bikes that established bicycle manufacturers can sell.
  - _zoltan_ 2y ago
    I can't imagine a 3kW bicycle to be legal anywhere. here in Europe you'd need an A1 license for it.
    - metadat 2y ago
      Fwiw you wouldn't ride around town at 3kw, that would be ridiculous and dangerous. The default power level is "1" (out of 5) which assists with around 180-250w. Fun trail bike though (helpful on the uphills, for someone who doesn't typically enjoy that part).
      - wolpoli 2y ago
        In BC, Canada, there is a maximum motor power limit of 500W for e-bikes. I am not sure if switching (or locking?) the e-bike to power assist level 1 would qualify.
  - metadat 2y ago
    The point is, if DJI's system is lower power, shouldn't it be significantly lighter?
_zoltan_ 2y ago
slightly OT, but I was surprised that Riese & Müller seems to have moved from Bosch to Pinion on their latest models. seems like more and more players popping up.
- storrgie 2y ago
  I think adding Pinion, doubt they are dropping Bosch. Pinion has potentially a superior platform in that you have a fully integrated motor and gearbox, but this is a new item in the market. Bosch with Rholoff[0] is extremely well known as a platform, has high reliability and excellent efficiency across a wide shift range. As a Bosch+Rholoff owner and a Pinion C.12 owner... I'd _loved_ it if R&M were doing Pinion in their cargo line. If something happens to your rear wheel you have to rebuild around your Rholoff. This might be hard to do on a tour compared to buying a new wheel if you had a Pinion. This assumes that your motor and electronics are not at risk of failing, which may be only reasonable if you're using Bosch... I'm happy to see Pinion being picked up by R&M. I'd assume this is an excellent sign for Pinion as R&M's _schtick_ seems to be the customer experience (e.g. performance and reliability). This obviously signals that they are in some reasonable partnership to support this configuration for a long time. It would have been really nice to see Pinion offered in at-least one of their cargo platform though. We just got a Load4 and I noticed that the Bosch+Rholoff dual battery configuration lagged in availability pretty significantly behind the other configurations. I presume this probably made R&M product management a bit irritated as the products form Bosch seem to be announced about a year before things are available. Anecdotally I believe I received 725wh batteries on my order when there is open discussion about how these batteries are not even in production by Bosch anymore as they've moved on to a higher density. Seems like with Bosch there is a big lag between announcement of a market disrupting product and when integrators get it on platform. Pinion may be faster? Above there is a comment about Bosch being a ripoff (e.g. high margins), certainly it is but they are likely the only company you can build a product off unless you're going into race to the bottom price range. Propel has an interesting post [1] about going Bosch only. Now there are major providers in Germany also providing solutions: Pinion, ZF. I believe propel also started a thing called bloom [2][3] where I bet the "after sales support" portion of starting an e-Bike business is often times a discussion of why Bosch is safe. [0]: https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub [1]: https://propelbikes.com/bosch-only/ https://propelbikes.com/bosch-only/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlexoIDBN9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlexoIDBN9E [3]: https://togetherwebloom.us/ https://togetherwebloom.us/
doctorpangloss 2y ago
This is great for the e-bike sector - more competition, more innovation, more options. There is of course a bunch of poo-pooing in an HN thread. The problem with the e-bike sector is a misalignment: what people say they want: a cargo bike, a fixie, a mountain bike, a folding bike, a... etc. what people actually want: a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle The audience for a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle is like 1,000,000x larger than the audience of a mountain bike; and the number of miles ridden per "moped that is emotionally a bicycle" will be like 10-100x greater than a mountain bike. Nobody cares about mountain bikes, or grams saved, or whatever. That's like, some hobby. We might as well be comparing fine German violins. I know this is what is advertised, but who knows what they are thinking when they depict so and so bicycle in their press release. I'm excited about this bike because it is basically a Stromer ST2: a semi truck of a bike that can sort of do everything. It's a moped with the emotional energy of a bicycle. What is the ideal e-bike? It is basically a step through Pinion MGU, which Kettler makes. Unless there is more competition, such as with bespoke drive trains, that incredible bike will continue to cost $9,000. There is a lot of confusion in the sector. VanMoof continues to experience significant financial difficulties, but in all other senses they are a colossal success: they were the first to deliver a moped that emotionally and aesthetically feels like a bike, and a ton of people bought it, and then those people put 10x-100x more miles on those bikes than any owner of any Sturmey Archer bicycle ever has, and VanMoof doesn't bite the bullet and recall for recurring issues like breaking boost buttons, and they run out of money ad-hoc fixing issues over and over again. Stromer also uses proprietary parts and they are reliable, it isn't so black and white. People here are talking about Bosch. Bosch motors break. People are abandoning them. They were put into bikes that were more and more frequently replacing cars, which meant people ride them 10x more than a mountain bike or whatever artisanal or hobby use they would otherwise put on their bikes, and suddenly, the things are breaking all the time. Every time someone sells something that actually meets the real need for a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle, they either price it too high to reach a large enough audience used to prices 1/10th as high on Amazon for the same keywords, or they price it too low for the huge increase in failure due to the huge increase in miles. DJI gives me some confidence they will not misplay this.
- storrgie 2y ago
ra 2y ago
I would really like to see a universal retrofit replacement for the big brand motors. Shimano are particularly hostile to repair and I'm loathe to give them thousands of dollars to replace a motor just because they deliberately made it unservicable.

37 points by Logans_Run 2y ago

20kg? Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving grams off their bikes. I think this is just another attempt to break e-bikes away from being a distinct product, to keep the "e" an optional upgrade to whatever bike the customer already owns.

demondemidi 2y ago
Actual trail riders mostly do not do this. Source: worked at a bike store. People with a lot of money that treat their bike as something to optimize and not something to ride do this. I'm not saying its wrong, its just another way of being a bike enthusiast, but this type rarely overlaps with serious riders. Training improves performance, not $3000 wheels that shave off 50 grams.
- stavros 2y ago
  Isn't this about e-bikes? Do people generally train on e-bikes? It feels that these two would be distinct sets.
  - demondemidi 2y ago
    I don't think people with e-bikes even pedal into the orange zone. It's more of exercise theater, to borrow a term. HOwever, I do hope e-bikes start to overtake cars as modes of transportation in temperate climates.
- slau 2y ago
  Agreed. For most people it would be more reasonable to lose the three-four kg in body fat and keep the aluminium frame rather than upgrading to carbon fibre.
  - plorkyeran 2y ago
    Unless you have found a way to spend a few thousand dollars to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no complications or effort, losing weight and spending more on a bike are not things you're choosing between.
    - unsigner 2y ago
      semaglutide comes pretty close to "a few thousand dollars to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no complications or effort"
- sandworm101 2y ago
  At least in the pacific northwest, mounting biking isn't just about riding the bike any more than owning a motorcycle is just about riding a motorcycle. It's a culture or talking about and bragging about bike tech. Weight is bragging rights for mountain bikes as "aero" is for road bikes. Lots of people will pay to have the better toy. The running joke is that many bikes are worth more than the cars that bring them to the trailheads.
  - doix 2y ago
    I think your confusing regular mountain biking with ebikes. The people bragging about bike tech will most likely be looking down at people that ride ebikes on the trail.
- newsclues 2y ago
  Other than pros most of the people spending lots of money to shave weight would be better served losing weight from their belly over the bike, but that’s harder to solve with a credit card.
  - 1attice 2y ago
    Again, semaglutide solves this pretty well with a credit card; not even that if you have The Good Coverage. Reorient yourself, the frame has shifted.
plorkyeran 2y ago
Approximately no one is paying thousands of dollars to shave grams off an eMTB. There is a small but visible group of people doing that for road bikes and a much smaller group of people doing that for non-electric mountain bikes. There's probably some weirdo out there doing it for an electric mountain bike but they're probably more of a "decorative expensive bike purchaser" than an "actual trail rider".
- troyvit 2y ago
  That makes sense. If I'm already saying I need a motor to get myself up the trail I'm pretty far from worrying about shaving weight off my bike (or off of myself for that matter).
- glohbalrob 2y ago
  There are carbon fiber E-bikes, perhaps it’s “few” but there are people paying to have a more light bike since the extra weight up and down hill isn’t as fun
  - plorkyeran 2y ago
    The weight difference between equivalent carbon and aluminum eMTBs is generally around a kg, but the argument for carbon MTBs has mostly shifted away from weight. While carbon fails more catastrophically than aluminum, it's harder to hit the failure point and it's less susceptible to stress fractures. It is also generally argued that carbon is both more dampening and stiffer in the places you want stiff, but it is very hard to tell how real that is.
bluescrn 2y ago
I don't think competitive e-biking is a thing. And if you're commuting or riding recreationally, you probably don't care much about weight. And this looks like a competitor for the Bosch systems that power many e-bikes, needing a similar frame design - and not a kit to install on non-electric bikes.
Zigurd 2y ago
20kg is fairly light for an e-mtb. I'd bet typical use is to climb the uphill paths on an mtb trail system, even though the bike they mention isn't a dedicated DH bike.
SkyPuncher 2y ago
While in amateur, I’ve been mountain biking a long, long time. Nobody cares about grams on a mountain bike. The environment you’re riding in is so hostile that you really can’t tell the difference.
Aurornis 2y ago
> Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving grams off their bikes. Spending hundreds to thousands to shave "grams" is not a thing among real trail riders. Actual trail riders are generally pretty smart about the tradeoffs. If they see a product that is "hundreds to thousands" more expensive and brings no benefit other than shaving a few grams, nobody will buy it.
m463 2y ago
I've always laughed at that. Part weight in grams is just a marketing gimmick to differentiate products to charge higher prices. Even tour de france folks have a minimum weight they can't go under, and they frequently weigh several kg over anyway. For casual riders, you could save several $k equivalent on your super-lightweight-bike by just losing a few pounds or trading jeans for shorts. personally, I would love if all the bike lights had a standardized bus and connector so headlight/taillight/etc could power off the bike battery. (I know some bikes have an output but think more like a standard USB connector and maybe a dashboard setting, not running bare wires under the hood and using a proprietary app to set things up)

Temporary_31337 2y ago

It’s hardly state of the art at this point. There’s lighter and more efficient drivetrains from Shimano bosch and many others.

reustle 2y ago
Get into as many markets as possible so it becomes harder for the US to ban you outright.

sottol 2y ago

I don't know that I see anything revolutionary? The peak power seems maybe higher than Bosch CX at 850W vs 600 but continuous power is similar 250W. 800Wh max battery pack size is also not entirely out of the ordinary. The packaging seems nice, the battery seems quite slim and integrate well into ordinary-looking downtube on the Amflow bike - but don't see much otherwise. Weight seems on the high side.

tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
More than 250W continuous is pointless in many countries because that's the limit for the most common e-bike class (i.e. even if the system can do more, you'd want to de-rate it to 250W). Bosch makes excellent motors, but they're ripping people off on accessories (a dumb charger costs 89 EUR in the "compact" variant that can do 2A or around 80W and weighs 600g, needing over 10 hours to charge a large battery), and enabling this with aggressive DRM (which also means updates can only be done by a repair shop). They're also trying to make your bike a subscription, of course. So even if all DJI does is become competitive, that's already a win. Bonus points if they actually let you tune (some) motor parameters yourself. The hard part seems to be reliability (a bike that gets mud, water and washing together with constant vibration is a pretty harsh environment) and many Chinese motor brands have a less than stellar reputation there, and because this is not something easily testable, building a reputation (and gathering the experience needed to actually build good products) takes time.
- rdl 2y ago
  I assume price would be the major factor. Also, as someone who knows nothing about e-bikes, but who knows "DJI makes good cheap drones and gimbals", they'd be pretty high on my list of "probably makes an ok product" without searching.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 2y ago
    I'd trust their intent to create a good product (rather than aiming for something that will look good enough for just long enough to get you to buy it), their general manufacturing, and even engineering, but with the forces and water/dirt involved, I am not confident they'll succeed in the first few iterations.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nathancahill 2y ago

The product page has a lot more info and photos: https://www.dji.com/global/avinox https://www.dji.com/global/avinox The screen/computer part seems to be significantly nicer than competition.

metadat 2y ago

> The integrated DJI Avinox electric power assist system leverages DJI's cutting-edge technologies in both software and hardware design, offering 850 W of peak power (250 W nominal power) in an ultra-light body of 19.2kg This is most unimpressive. I have an 2019 3000w LunaCycle e-mountain bike (based on the Giant Anthem) with similar drive system weight specs, which includes the ginormous 40ah battery. Why can't DJI compete with something nice from 5 years ago?

bagels 2y ago
Is that a legal bike in your jurisdiction? In California you're riding an unregistered moped, illegally, most likely. I suspect DJI is aiming for legal bikes that established bicycle manufacturers can sell.
- _zoltan_ 2y ago
  I can't imagine a 3kW bicycle to be legal anywhere. here in Europe you'd need an A1 license for it.
  - metadat 2y ago
    Fwiw you wouldn't ride around town at 3kw, that would be ridiculous and dangerous. The default power level is "1" (out of 5) which assists with around 180-250w. Fun trail bike though (helpful on the uphills, for someone who doesn't typically enjoy that part).
    - wolpoli 2y ago
      In BC, Canada, there is a maximum motor power limit of 500W for e-bikes. I am not sure if switching (or locking?) the e-bike to power assist level 1 would qualify.
- metadat 2y ago
  The point is, if DJI's system is lower power, shouldn't it be significantly lighter?

_zoltan_ 2y ago

slightly OT, but I was surprised that Riese & Müller seems to have moved from Bosch to Pinion on their latest models. seems like more and more players popping up.

storrgie 2y ago
I think adding Pinion, doubt they are dropping Bosch. Pinion has potentially a superior platform in that you have a fully integrated motor and gearbox, but this is a new item in the market. Bosch with Rholoff[0] is extremely well known as a platform, has high reliability and excellent efficiency across a wide shift range. As a Bosch+Rholoff owner and a Pinion C.12 owner... I'd _loved_ it if R&M were doing Pinion in their cargo line. If something happens to your rear wheel you have to rebuild around your Rholoff. This might be hard to do on a tour compared to buying a new wheel if you had a Pinion. This assumes that your motor and electronics are not at risk of failing, which may be only reasonable if you're using Bosch... I'm happy to see Pinion being picked up by R&M. I'd assume this is an excellent sign for Pinion as R&M's _schtick_ seems to be the customer experience (e.g. performance and reliability). This obviously signals that they are in some reasonable partnership to support this configuration for a long time. It would have been really nice to see Pinion offered in at-least one of their cargo platform though. We just got a Load4 and I noticed that the Bosch+Rholoff dual battery configuration lagged in availability pretty significantly behind the other configurations. I presume this probably made R&M product management a bit irritated as the products form Bosch seem to be announced about a year before things are available. Anecdotally I believe I received 725wh batteries on my order when there is open discussion about how these batteries are not even in production by Bosch anymore as they've moved on to a higher density. Seems like with Bosch there is a big lag between announcement of a market disrupting product and when integrators get it on platform. Pinion may be faster? Above there is a comment about Bosch being a ripoff (e.g. high margins), certainly it is but they are likely the only company you can build a product off unless you're going into race to the bottom price range. Propel has an interesting post [1] about going Bosch only. Now there are major providers in Germany also providing solutions: Pinion, ZF. I believe propel also started a thing called bloom [2][3] where I bet the "after sales support" portion of starting an e-Bike business is often times a discussion of why Bosch is safe. [0]: https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub https://www.rohloff.de/en/products/speedhub [1]: https://propelbikes.com/bosch-only/ https://propelbikes.com/bosch-only/ [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlexoIDBN9E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlexoIDBN9E [3]: https://togetherwebloom.us/ https://togetherwebloom.us/

doctorpangloss 2y ago

This is great for the e-bike sector - more competition, more innovation, more options. There is of course a bunch of poo-pooing in an HN thread. The problem with the e-bike sector is a misalignment: what people say they want: a cargo bike, a fixie, a mountain bike, a folding bike, a... etc. what people actually want: a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle The audience for a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle is like 1,000,000x larger than the audience of a mountain bike; and the number of miles ridden per "moped that is emotionally a bicycle" will be like 10-100x greater than a mountain bike. Nobody cares about mountain bikes, or grams saved, or whatever. That's like, some hobby. We might as well be comparing fine German violins. I know this is what is advertised, but who knows what they are thinking when they depict so and so bicycle in their press release. I'm excited about this bike because it is basically a Stromer ST2: a semi truck of a bike that can sort of do everything. It's a moped with the emotional energy of a bicycle. What is the ideal e-bike? It is basically a step through Pinion MGU, which Kettler makes. Unless there is more competition, such as with bespoke drive trains, that incredible bike will continue to cost $9,000. There is a lot of confusion in the sector. VanMoof continues to experience significant financial difficulties, but in all other senses they are a colossal success: they were the first to deliver a moped that emotionally and aesthetically feels like a bike, and a ton of people bought it, and then those people put 10x-100x more miles on those bikes than any owner of any Sturmey Archer bicycle ever has, and VanMoof doesn't bite the bullet and recall for recurring issues like breaking boost buttons, and they run out of money ad-hoc fixing issues over and over again. Stromer also uses proprietary parts and they are reliable, it isn't so black and white. People here are talking about Bosch. Bosch motors break. People are abandoning them. They were put into bikes that were more and more frequently replacing cars, which meant people ride them 10x more than a mountain bike or whatever artisanal or hobby use they would otherwise put on their bikes, and suddenly, the things are breaking all the time. Every time someone sells something that actually meets the real need for a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle, they either price it too high to reach a large enough audience used to prices 1/10th as high on Amazon for the same keywords, or they price it too low for the huge increase in failure due to the huge increase in miles. DJI gives me some confidence they will not misplay this.

storrgie 2y ago

ra 2y ago

I would really like to see a universal retrofit replacement for the big brand motors. Shimano are particularly hostile to repair and I'm loathe to give them thousands of dollars to replace a motor just because they deliberately made it unservicable.