The TV commercials that are shown during the Superbowl will put billions of eyes on whatever is shown. If you were paying close attention, there is a Jeep commercial where actor Bill Murray is riding a fatbike. I immediately wondered if it might be an ELECTRIC fatbike?
The commercial is for an Orange 4-door Jeep Gladiator, and it didn’t take long for me to find out that YES!…it was indeed an electric fatbike, so…lets take a look.
________________________________________________
“Groundhog Day” (1993)
The movie Groundhog Day is a movie that I can watch once a year for the rest of my life. Its a comedy with a heartwarming message about being human and finding a way to be happy.
Bill Murray and a groundhog portraying “Punxsutawney Phil”, the weather-predicting rodent.
Groundhogs are a plump cat-sized rodent who comes from the same family as squirrels, badgers, and marmots. They burrow into the ground to live in tunnels and dens, like prairie dogs and gophers. There’s a town in Pennsylvania called Punxsutawney, and many years ago they started a tradition of claiming they had a talented groundhog that could predict on February 2nd whether the winter would end soon, or if winter would hang on for a while longer.
He pokes his head out of his burrow, and if it’s sunny enough that he can see his shadow, there will be six more weeks of cold weather. If its cloudy on February 2nd, then spring will come early. It may sound silly, but it’s one way to get tourists to visit Punxsutawney, and who cares why they are having a winter festival? If everybody has a fun time, you really don’t need an excuse.
The movie “Groundhog Day” is a comedy about a TV special events reporter who is tasked with covering the Groundhog festival. Actor Bill Murray plays the reporter (Phil Connors), who is very bored, and can’t wait to finish up and go home.
Another shot of Bill and Phil, on the Jeep E-Fatbike from QuietKat
Phil is a very shallow and self-centered person, but he finds he is attracted to his producer Rita, played by Andie MacDowell. Rita is a kind-hearted person and is repelled by how much of a selfish jerk Phil is being. Then, something mystical happens.
Phil begins waking up to the same exact day over and over (Its been estimated by fans that for everything shown to happen, Phil did this for over 30 years). At one point, Phil gets the idea in his head that if he was to kidnap the groundhog, maybe that would break the curse, and he could go back to a normal life. This commercial is an imagined scene where Phil and the kidnapped groundhog are going on one of their adventures.
The curse is finally broken when Phil decides that he wants to become a better person, and after he begins helping others during his recurring day, he finally finds happiness, which leads to Rita becoming attracted to him, with true love ending the curse.
If you haven’t seen it, Groundhog Day is a fun movie, and I recommend it.
Jeep is listing their version as a 50-state legal 750W mid drive using 48V, which is laughable. Bafang conservatively rates this as a 1000W drive, and hot rodders have run it at 2500W. Of course, if you over-ride the stock controller to raise the amps, it will void the warranty, violate the law when riding it on the street, and may possibly overheat the motor if you are not careful.
This is how big the Bafang Ultra max is.
When using high power in a mid drive, you must exercise caution, and make sure you are in the proper gear. Starting from a standstill on a steep uphill when the bike is in top gear will make the controller and motor run hot. However, if you leave it at the stock 750W, it is unlikely to ever get hot.
________________________________________________
Conclusion?
I am typing this article during the Superbowl, because I just found out about this. I haven’t ridden a Jeep QuietKat, but I have test-ridden other ebikes with the Ultra Max, and I think anyone who is interested in getting an off-road full-suspension fat-tire ebike will be very happy with this version. Personally, I would void the warranty on the first day and rip a full 2500W through it.
No word yet on the price, and I suspect the number of deposits that will be rolling in this week will determine how much daily production the Chinese factory will ramp-up to.
The other day when I was out riding (and breaking) my ebikes in the snow I started trying to calculate how much it cost me for every ebike ride. In my head, I decided “Eh, it’s probably about $5 a ride”. That was a hopelessly optimistic number, when I started to really crunch the numbers it was about 10 times higher than that. I am something of an ebike horder, and I tend to purchase and repair my ebikes and bikes myself. After I wrote this article it suddenly became clear that ebikes were substantially more expensive than pedal-powered mountain bikes. I also came to realize that if I wasn’t so committed to fixing my ebikes myself, riding fatbikes with 2500W peak mid-drive motors in deep snow would quickly become financially untenable. (I’d actually have to actually start working to support my bad habits)
When compared with the ownership costs of cars, ebikes really shine (if only I could spend only $650 a year on ebikes)
How much does my not-so-electric-pedal-powered mountain biking sport cost me per ride?
For at least 8 months out of the year, I ride without a motor. The reasons for this are many and varied, but the biggest reason is that my wife won’t make love to me if I get fat. Although I don’t like slogging uphill without a motor, I actually prefer going out and riding a 25lb bike than riding a 60lb ebike. In the winter I don’t have any choice, if I want to ride in the snow, I just have to ride electric fatbikes or it’s just completely miserable.
I’m something of an ‘ebike traitor’ in that I still love to ride non-electric bikes for about 70% of the year
Here is a list of the mountain bikes I have bought in the last 20 years
Giant Marlin XXL $500 from Cayuga Ski and Cyclery in 2000
Full suspension Sette Ace $1000 from Pricepoint in 2009
Front suspension 22″ Sette Razzo $1200 from Pricepoint in 2010
Full suspension open box Carbon Prescott for $1300 from Lunacycles in 2018 (MSRP $3400)
That brings the grand total up to about $4000 plus lets tack another $2000 on top of that for repairs, taxes and upgrading parts over a 20-year span. Keep in mind that I am incredibly frugal, most of the people I ride with are on $4000+ bikes and think nothing of dropping thousands on new forks and carbon wheelsets.
Buying a carbon fiber full suspension mountain bike was one of the best purchases I have ever made (frame not compatible with the BBSxx drive units)
I try as hard as I can to ride every day, but realistically over the last 20 years, I have probably pushed pedals about 150 days a year on average. That means that I have about 3000 sessions in the last 20 years and those sessions cost me about $6000 so I paid out of pocket about $2 a ride. Most of those rides were about 2 hours long so that breaks down to about $1 an hour. This is about what I would have expected the costs to be.
Ridesharing costs broken down to average price per ride per mile
How much does my ebike habit cost per ride?
This number is a little harder to calculate because when I started out with ebikes the industry was at its infancy. I spent about $2000 on cheap Chinese batteries and hub motors that were quickly destroyed riding in the snow. I also experimented with Lipos, but found they were too difficult to deal with and didn’t last long enough to be worthwhile. I’m not going to include any of that expense in this article because that was just money I had to burn through to learn what really didn’t work. (Hub motors, LifePo4’s, and Lipos)
The Ludicrous BBSHD still beats the Ludicrous Ultra Max in super deep powder, but only just barely
My entire reality changed with the first BBS02 and 18650 battery I purchased. Using a higher power (1300W+ peak) mid-drive that was geared way down allowed me to use my cheap fat bikes in the deep snow. California Ebikes released an extra-wide BBS02 axle conversion that I ended up getting 3 of and converting cheap Chinese bought BBS02s with by myself. Here is a list of bikes I have bought and built into ebikes.
A Typical day out with the Christini AWD Fat-E Abominable 2XL
Keeping track of the batteries is a little more difficult, as I have bought and sold a lot of ebike batteries over the last 6 years. I have destroyed about $2000 worth of batteries in the last 6 years from abuse and neglect so I think that is an accurate number to add to the total.
This means the total amount I have spent on ebikes is around $22,375 + another $2000 in dead batteries putting the total at $24,375. In the wintertime, I go out and ride literally every day so a good estimate on riding days is about 100 days a year for the last 6 years. This breaks down to about $40 a ride, but does not take into account the cost of repairs and maintenance.
Heavy wet slush kills ebike components, but it can be awful fun to ride in if you’re not attached to being able to actually steer the ebike
Calculating the cost of repairing bike components is the hardest number to come up with. I would say on average I break a bike every 2-3 rides and the repair usually costs about $25 on average. This is to be expected when you are running 1500-2500W through an ebike drive train that is designed for less than 400W of power. It is compounded by the fact that I beat the living crap out of my ebikes. If we add another $25 for every 2.5 rides then we end up with an additional $6000 in ebike repairs over the last 6 years. It also adds another $10 to the costs of every single session bringing it up to a painful $50 per session. Since most of my rides are 2 hours long on average that means that it costs me about $25 an hour for my ebike habit.
I love this ‘window sticker’ for ebikes from Prodecotech.com
You can see how having to deal with paying your friendly local bike shop to fix your ebikes would quickly cause your snowbiking habit to escalate out of control. These repair numbers are also not indicative of any normal ebike usage, this is my usage which I regularly am riding in conditions that normal people would just not even attempt. On average I ride in 2-4 inches of snow, but sometimes it can be over 8 inches deep. Uphill. These conditions just destroy bicycle equipment, there is really no way around it.
There is only one ebike I have that really shines when it comes to reliability
As a side note, I’ll mention that the Christini Abominable Fat-E 2XL (available here for $6295) has been remarkably reliable for reasons I can’t really fathom. Adding the smaller custom chainring has really helped take the load off the motor and I think the AWD system tends to just work better with less effort on components like the rear freehub than a RWD system does.
The Christini features a one-of-a-kind custom fabricated mechanical AWD drive system
I’ve had problems with the crank bolts repeatedly falling off the Ultra Max and have had to replace them with longer M15 x 14mm Titanium bolts from ebay here (I couldn’t find the longer bolts in steel). Locktite the crap out of these bolts, and be aware that the stock Ultra Max crankbolts are just not long enough and can strip out easily. Also, the needle bearing on the man driveshaft got water and salt in it and started to seize up so I had to take it apart and lube the crap out of it. These issues are solidly Bafang’s shortcomings not Christini’s.
I have had no issues with the rest of the bike, and this is the ebike I always take out in the worst conditions, as the AWD system tracks amazing well in poor conditions. If I could only have one bike in my collection for snow riding, this is the ebike I would buy. Having AWD in snow makes it way more fun and safe than without and this ebike is shockingly reliable compared with the cheap Chinese Bikes Direct crap. I did a review of this ebike when I first got it here and there is also a BBSHD version available that I reviewed here. It should also be noted that the stock Ultra Max puts out about 1500W peak and I’ve been running it with the Ludicrous controller from Lunacycles which puts out 2500W peak. If I can’t seem to break this ebike properly running it at 2500W, then it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to break it with only 1500W.
The Sur Ron Light Bee is my electric ‘mule’
How does a Sur-Ron compare with ebikes on a cost per usage expense
So I wanted to keep the Sur-Ron Light Bee completely separate since I never trail ride with it, but I do use it on the farm several times a week. The Sur Ron I bought 3 years ago for $3300 from Lunacycle. I have added about $100 in fenders in front headlights, but other than that the bike is stock. Surprisingly the Sur Ron has need absolutely no repairs in the 3 years I have had it. I have had about 400 sessions in total with the bike, but rarely ride it for more than 15 minutes at a time. This breaks down to about $8.50 a ride, but since my average ride is only 15 minutes long it works out to about $34 an hour. The interesting thing to pay attention to is that while my ebikes are pretty well thrashed on, with several having broken frames and similar issues, the Sur Ron literally has no issues at all (except I really need to bleed the rear brake at some point, it’s more squishy than the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man). I think that it will likely last another 10 years as long as I take care of the battery and keep it inside in the winter and don’t abuse it. As I own the Sur Ron for longer, the cost per usage will continue to decrease very dramatically over time. Also to be clear, using the Sur-Ron for getting around the farm is a lot less abuse than riding singletrack and jumping with it. Your mileage will vary.
I built a removable crate system out of some aluminum scrap and a bunch of zipties in about an hour that will carry about 40 lbs of crap around with me on the farm
This whole article is an interesting experiment in evaluating the costs associated with doing what we love. I really enjoy riding electric fatbikes in the snow, so I can accept the costs that go along with it. If I had to do it all over again I would not buy anything but Ludicrous powered BBSHD and fatbikes that can support Snowshoe 2XL tires in the front and rear. I think having 2 bikes is probably enough for most people, as when one bike breaks you will have a backup and as long as you stay on top of doing your bike repairs in a timely fashion then you should always have something to ride. I have all 4 of my BBSHDs in rotation and most of the time I can find something to ride that isn’t broken.
Ride, Break, Fix, Eat, Sleep, Repeat.
Here’s hoping that my wife never reads this article, I’d never hear the end of it.
This 250W mid -drive is advertising itself as having an innovative and patented “Constantly Variable Transmission/CVT”. Let’s take a look at what little information is available…
From left-to-right, Antero Jalkane, Iiro Peltola, and Otto Chrons.
Normally, I would not be interested in a new 250W drive unit, but…this one advertised itself as having an innovative CVT transmission. By restricting the amount of input power that is allowed on “street-legal” ebikes for most European ebikes, some very smart engineers have spent a considerable amount of time and effort trying to figure out how to get the best possible wheel-torque from the modest allowable inputs…
The Revonte-ONE system impressed the Lavelle ebike company from the UK
Lavelle ebikes in the UK was impressed by the Revonte system, and they have contracted to use this clever mid-drive.
The Revonte-ONE system
Although Switzerland and Austria allow a spectacular 500W in a street legal ebike (Dankeshoen!), the majority of European ebikers must struggle along with a modest 250W of input. I don’t know whether I should be disappointed or angry, but…I have taken dumps that used more than 250W of energy…(I already use 1500W every time I ride, and I plan to upgrade to 2500W because I am a degenerate power-hungry addict)
I do not approve of ebikers who drive recklessly at high-speeds and endanger pedestrians, but…if you want to replace a car with an ebike, and you are carrying a child along with two bags of groceries…how much power should you be allowed to have when you tackle a steep uphill on your ebike? (if you ride safely, the correct answer is 2500W…or more)
The Revonte-ONE mid-drive. two motors, one planetary gear-set.
If this was just another weak 250W Euro ebike, I wouldn’t waste my time writing about it. However, their claim of using a CVT is intriguing. I have emailed the company, and they claim the system is so unique, it was patentable. I haven’t found the patent yet, but I will keep looking…
Here is a random graphic from the web of a planetary gear-set. The motor drives the “sun” gear in the center, then the three planet gears transfer power from the sun-gear to the “ring” gear . If you choose to have the ring-gear stationary, then the base-plate that holds the shafts of the three planetary gears can be the output.
What can we reasonably speculate about the Revonte CVT, from the small amount of information they have reluctantly revealed? They state that the heart of the CVT is a planetary gear-set. This is very believable, since planetaries are a compact and robust way to allow an electric motor to spin many times faster than the mid-drive output.
Most electric motor designs have efficiency curves that work well around 3,000-RPMs, but the rear wheel of a 26-inch ebike is traveling at 26-MPH when it is spinning at only 336-RPMs. That would require roughly a 9:1 reduction in RPM’s between the motor and the wheel. A planetary gearset is a robust, compact, and affordable way to accomplish this.
The Revonte system only allows a 250W input. In spite of that, they produce a respectable and impressive 90-Nm of output torque.
The Revonte-ONE mid drive
So…how do they accomplish having a “Constantly Variable Transmission”? I am a fan of mechanical devices, and I have seen crane transmissions that used two motors coupled by a planetary gear-set. One motor provided the best possible torque at the slower speeds, and the second motor provided a much higher speed when the crane needed to raise or lower the hook rapidly when it was un-loaded.
Revonte answered my emails but said they are not ready to reveal the details just yet. It is almost certain that the main motor drives the sun gear of the planetary gear-set (see the graphic above), so what does the secondary motor do? I believe it drives either the edge of the ring gear, or it drives they edge of the carrier plate that anchors the axles of the three planet-gears…either option would provide a variable output as it pertains to torque and speed.
Sooner or later, somebody will tear one apart and post pics on the web, and…with their permission, I will re-post them here. (along with a link to any patents)
I wish Revonte the best of luck. Providing 90-nM from only 250W is impressive, plus the variable transmission claim is intriguing. I want to know how they accomplished this, and I will post any discoveries here…
For a week I ended up at the wife’s house without any ebike to ride and I started to fall into a deep depression. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, all I knew is that it was getting really hard for me to just get up and do anything at all. During these times of Covid-19 lockdown I feel like if you’re not getting depressed, then you’re just not paying attention. I’ve decided that there is nothing more important in my life than my mental health so I started riding my X-1 pretty aggressively for over 2 hours a day every single day. Now I’m a happy camper again with a butt that is so sore I have a hard time sitting down and legs that are so stiff that it’s hard to move. This article is about how I rediscovered my love of ebiking and at the same time discovered over 10 miles of singletrack trails that someone else had created that was just a few hundred yards from the trails I made and was riding every day.
I always use MTBproject.com when I travel to find new trails, but I never thought to use it to find 10 miles of new singletrack trails in my own backyard
The X-1 is my ‘dream’ ebike in that it comes in a very large frame and it can produce up to 2000W peak power with a tiny motor. The battery is built into the downtube and for the casual observer, it looks like just a large carbon fiber downhill bike. As long as I shut off the motor when riding by other people on the trail no one has even noticed that I have an ebike (yet). My ebike is covered with mud which makes even better camouflage. Those people who feel like riding an ebike is cheating and you don’t get any exercise, I can tell you that is absolute BS. After 2 hours of riding my X-1 I can barely walk. I keep the PAS set at level 3 (out of 5) and I can ride much faster and much farther, but it sure feels like I’m still burning the same number of calories. When you start riding an ebike every day, switching back to pedal power makes you feel like everything is happening in Slo-mo. For me, the ebike cranks it ‘up to 11’ and allows me to ride at the edge of my ability level even though I’m currently pushing 48 (my birthday is today)! Happy birthday to me.
Mud and pine needles make excellent camouflage, keep that chain oiled though
I maintain several miles of trails that back up against the Morgan Hill state forest and when I go for a ride I literally am able to just leave right from the door of my wife’s house. The Land Trust is over 450 acres of land shared with about 17 people and there is a lot of hiking and skiing trails people have made through the property over the years. It’s a wonderful place to live, especially when you consider these uncertain times when the majority of Amercians seem to think stockpiling alcohol, guns, and toilet paper is the appropriate course of action. A few days ago we planted 1000 strawberries in one day and currently, our farm produces almost all the food we eat. We hope in a few years to be able to feed over 100 families with just 4 acres of trees, gardens and bushes.
I’m extremely happy with the front fork which has had no issues at all
I’ve been amazed at how far I can ride with the battery on the X-1, it’s good for about 2 hours of trail riding, and as the battery gets below 20% it really starts to be a dog. When it gets to about 10% I feel like it can barely produce any power at all. I have yet to hit the cut off where the battery cuts out yet. I tend to ride at PAS level 3 and just go till it says about 45% of power then turn around and head home. Usually, my butt runs out of juice before the battery does. I reviewed the X-1 on my blog here and after 6 months of ownership, I have to say this is the best ebike I’ve ever purchased hands down. The only issues I’ve had with the bike probably came about because I was riding it in below-freezing weather, which I don’t recommend for any suspension ebike. You can get the X-1 here for $3650 from Lunacycle, but don’t even consider getting it without the 2000W peak Ludicrous controller which adds another $300. The M600 Ludicrous version feels slightly more powerful than the 750W nominal BBS02 motor (which has a peak power of 1400W with a 52v pack).
The rear axle has loosened up a couple of times so if the back end feels waggy I make sure to tighten it up, the rear brakes are also getting pretty squishy probably from winter riding
I love the website MTBproject.com and for wandering nomads, with mountain bikes, it is one of the most important websites out there. They have collected trail information on thousands of singletrack trails all over America. You can zoom in and print out the maps to easily find the trailheads and parking areas. The trails are mapped by apps people load on their phones so you can see every twist and turn on the map exactly as it is in real life, which makes it extremely easy to see exactly where on the trail you are, even if you never got your orienteering merit badge in boy scouts like I did. I was obsessed with boy scouts when I was younger and went on every camping trip I could. It was an incredible experience in so many ways, mostly in the level of chaos we were able to create (we burned through a lot of Scout Masters).
The rear shock lost a bit of oil and lost a bunch of air from riding it in the cold, but I pumped it back up with my Fox shock pump and it’s been fine ever since
I had heard rumors that someone had created bike trails in Morgan Hill last year, but I never was able to take the time to go out and find them. The DEC is pretty strict about anyone cutting trails in their State forests without their permission ($25,000 fine) but someone actually got permission in 2017-2018 and has made some really nice trails. In NYS the DEC in their infinite wisdom also prohibits any ebike from riding in the state forests, so there is that to contend with as well. In the 20+ years I have lived near Shindagin Hollow and ridden almost every day I’ve seen the DEC rangers a grand total of 3 times. I’ve met a handful of people in the parking lots that have brought ebikes to ride, they are usually pretty bashful and when I tell them I blog about ebikes they get pretty excited. I’ve gotten to try a bunch of low power mid drives with Yamaha and Bosch motors and have been pretty under impressed with the state of the market right now. With a focus on 250-350W drive units, it feels like a race to the bottom with premium price points. The irony here is that when I ride at PAS level 3 I rarely use more power than that, but on steep hills, the power is there when I need it so the bike does not stall out.
I like to keep the ebike inside so I get maximum range on those very cold mornings, a cold battery has a lot less range than a warm one
If you want to beat the Covid-19 blues then stop reading the news and checking the John’s Hopkins website to see how many people are infected and dying and just go out and ride. I encourage everyone to ride responsibly and to keep their distance from other riders. Nothing is more important than your mental health and the best way to not go crazy during these crazy days is to spend a couple of hours in the woods every single day. It really doesn’t matter what you’re riding, as long as you take the time to just ride.
So far, about all I could find out is that it uses a 48V system (good, no wimpy 36V) and that it uses the Effigear transmission, so…let’s start with that.
The Effigear gearbox.
The Effigear system is listed as being able to house from seven to nine gears, but since it’s weight and cost are already going to be an issue for a lightweight upscale mountain bike, I suspect the most popular version will be the 7-speed.
I mention mountain bikes because the configuration that typically would make this appealing to an upscale customer is someone who takes big jumps and hits rapid-fire moguls and berms. In that situation, it’s beneficial to make the rear wheel as light as possible, so that a sophisticated spring and damper can keep the tire in contact with the ground for every split-second that is possible. So, you move the weight of the gearing and shifter to the center of the frame…
The Effigear Gearbox in a 9-speed configuration
If you’ve ever hit a hard bump and the rear swingarm was bounced up off of the ground, you can’t make effective inputs until the tire is touching the ground again. On a high-speed downhill run, a more effective suspension system can make the difference between an exhilarating “personal best” run, or a crash.
As you can see from the pictures above, the Effigear uses constant-mesh gears, similar to a cars manual transmission. Systems like this are sealed in a housing and run in an oil-bath. This means the transmission should last a very long time, even if the rider uses it for frequent aggressive downhill runs.
The Effigear Shifter
Of course I was curious how the shifter worked, and it uses a sliding gear selector that runs down the center of the primary gear-shaft. When you stop it at a certain gear selection, three radial “dogs” are lifted outwards, which is very similar to the well-known “Internal Gear Hub” (IGH) like the Nexus or Sturmey-Archer. The dogs connect the shaft to the particular gear-set you want.
In this way, all of the gears are always spinning and meshing, but the input shaft is not connected to any of the seven gears until a certain gears’ dogs are lifted. If such a system is well-designed and uses quality materials, it can be surprisingly strong. If you want to see more illustrations of a dog-actuated system, check out our article on IGH’s by clicking here.
The rear wheel on a Valeo drive ebike.
Im sure that most of the companies offering the Valeo drive on one of their frames has a chain as an option, but since this is going to be an upscale-priced product, most of the PR pics on the web show it with a Gates belt-drive. Although belts are more expensive to replace, they typically last three times longer. One performance benefit is that they squeeze-out the snow, mud, and debris that might clog a derailleur. To be fair, a belt and pulley can still get jammed-up, but…just not as often as a chain.
Of course I was curious about the other things that Valeo might be developing, and they have done some work on mild-hybrid car designs. They don’t make cars, but hope to market add-on systems to increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.
A Valeo Mild-Hybrid booster motor prototype installation
In Valeos version of a mild-hybrid system, a booster motor helps the car accelerate, which is the time when a gasoline engine is loaded the heaviest. When simply cruising along at a stable speed, gasoline engines (and especially diesel engines) can provide decent fuel economy and fairly low emissions. By only adding a booster motor, the motor doesn’t need to be very large, and the system doesn’t need a huge amount of watts. Also, the battery pack for a system like this does not need to be large or heavy.
For several years now, European auto manufacturers have been toying with the idea of raising the cars electrical system voltage to 48V. Doing this would allow the starter motor to be smaller and lighter, along ith several other benefits. In anticipation of this, the Valeo mild hybrid designs all use 48V, so far.
A Valeo full-sized hybrid motor.
Their most ambitious project involved making the booster motor larger and more integrated into the drivetrain. Although it is not powerful enough at its modest size (and using only 48V) to be the full-time power-lant at highway speeds, it is powerful enough to have an “electric only” range of 200 kilometers when driving at at city speeds. This was demonstrated in a small light commuter car, to cross all the way through Paris.
The Effigear transmission has been around for a while on pedal-only bicycles, but Valeo is the first to engineer a motor with it into an integrated housing.
A “Bakfiets” style cargo-ebike, with the Valeo drive system.
From the outside, the housing “suggests” that the motor has a reduction gear to allow it to spin at higher RPM’s than the driven pedal-shaft of the bike. This is good, and it allows a motor to run cooler while converting fewer of the batteries watts into waste-heat. It also appears to drive the pedal shaft (no doubt, through a one-way clutch-bearing). If that is true, its good because it gives the motor the use of the seven gears, and that provides great wheel-power from the smallest possible motor.
Of course the downside is that the transmission is loaded by the motor when power is applied. There are two IGH’s that are well-known to take a severe beating and survive, the similar 3-speeds from Nexus and Sturmey, and the 14-speed Rohloff 2X7. The 3-speeds accomplish their robust performance with beefy dogs, and the Rohloff accomplishes it with the strongest possible materials combined with a shear pin, so…the easily-replaced pin breaks before the gears or dogs.
A hardtail off-road frame with the Valeo drive.
I suspect the transmission from Effigear has been designed and manufactured with materials that will stand up to a motor driving it (instead of just two wimpy 200W human legs), but….only time will tell.
Sondors started out with a couple of stumbles a few years ago. Their first product was a simple rear hub fatbike, and once they got on their feet, everyone who ordered one got their product.
Sondors was an early adopter of shipping ebikes directly to the customers house, to avoid the cost of a brick-and-mortar store, and they were aggressive at passing the savings on to the customers. Their first ebike was under $1,000 which is pretty nuts, since thats the price of many ebike kits, not including the bike, plus the kit assembly.
It was no hot rod, but an entire industry has sprung up around upgrading them. Sondors provided a huge service to the ebike community, because many people who were interested in ebikes were also uncomfortable risking $2,000 for something that they might not even like. Once hundreds of people bought a less-expensive Sondors, they soon bought a more powerful ebike for a higher price from someone else.
Which brings us to today. Their business model is to wait and see what types of ebikes are on a steady sales curve, and then jump in with a high volume commitment. He now has credibility with customers and manufacturers, so he has a certain amount of “brand credit” when he says he is going to do something.
I’m going to start with the $2,000 step-through “Cruiser” model (The website says its $1,999…LOL) It uses 3.0 inch wide street tires, which are in fact my favorite street-tire size for a commuter.
Here’s what Sondors got right.
All three of these mid-drives have an aluminum frame.
All three use 48V and a 21-Ah battery pack.
All three use a well developed Bafang mid drive.
They are clearly going for the USA street-legal market with these 750W motors, but they do admit that these can be set to run as high as 1150W @ 25 amps (I assume for offroad use only). All three of these can run at the recent US rules of 28-MPH.
It can be handy to have all of your ebikes using the same voltage (all three of these are 48V), so if one charger goes out, you can use the other charger while you wait for the warranty claim on the bad unit. I also have a long history of encouraging the use of 48V / 52V packs because in an emergency, you can use these to run a 120V AC inverter.
Since the frame is aluminum, these integrated mid-drives can actually use the frame as a heat-sink, so using a modest 750W means they should never overheat. Since the motor has 7-speeds to choose from, even with a top-speed of 28-MPH it also means it will still have great hill-climbing when it’s in the lowest gear…
Available in Black and gray with white-wall tires, Platinum white and black with white-wall tires, and the two-tone red shown with black-wall tires.
Electra Lux Fat 7D, with a BBSHD and battery from Luna Cycles
The bike above is what I have been riding the most for the past five years. Its a $700 aluminum Electra Lux fat frame, and the 7D means it has a common derailler with 7-speed freewheel. I put a smaller 36T chainring from Luna on it and the 1500W BBSHD can climb any hill I have ever tried it on, without overheating…It is a climbing beast.
Other than the smaller chainring, my favorite additions have been a Suntour NCX suspension seat-post, which really smooths-out any potholes in my local streets. If you get one of these Sondors hardtails (like the Cruiser or LX hardtails listed here), I highly recommend a suspension seat-post.
I also added a leather handlebar bag and a left-side bar-end mirror to be able to see the cars that are trying to kill me from behind. Speaking of zombie-texting drivers, these three-inch tires I use are firmer on curves than a common 4-inch fat tire, but still cushy enough that twice (so far), I was forced to bonzai onto the street curb to get onto the sidewalk away from a car, and…even at full speed, it did not damage my rims.
I’m showing you what I have been riding for five years, so you can have confidence in my assessment of these particular Sondors models.
_________________________________________________
The Sondors Rockstar
I haven’t ridden the $2600 Rockstar, but…I have ridden several bikes that have similar components and specs when I was at the last Interbike (RIP, Interbike…).
Sondors Rockstar
The wheels are the popular 27.5-inch, and it has 3.0-inch tires, which are the current hotness for off-roaders.
I’m going to make some suggestions, which have absolutely no basis in a hands-on review, because my filthy hands have not touched this model even once. Sondors in the past has spec’d solid mid-range components. None of them have been accused of being “great” components, but they also haven’t hurt their brand by using crap components.
That being said, the most likely upgrade you can swap-in is…a more expensive rear shock. Every offroader I’ve talked to has said that’s the best bang-for-your-buck. Most riders should be happy with the stock forks, but that is another area where “some” riders choose an upgrade (then sell the stock ones).
Colors are Supernova yellow, Slate gray, and Matte Black.
_________________________________________________
The Sondors LX
The LX is the one that I think will sell the best for Sondors, out of these three. It’s the same $2,000 price as the near-identical Cruiser, but it has an elevated stay above the chain. You may never need to do any work on the chain yourself (I never hate on ebikers that use a bike shop mechanic). However, if you ever need to swap-in a new chain (as we all do eventually), the elevated stay makes it super easy.
Another important feature of an elevated stay is that it allows the option of switching to a belt-drive, which Sondors has done in the past, so…look for that to be an upgrade option in the future if you choose the LX.
Sondors LX
The tires are the massive 4.9-inch (26-inch fat rim). These are ideal for snow, sand, and potholes, but…if you want to run them on the street, I would keep speeds below 16-MPH. When the stock tires wear out, you might try seeing if the 3.0-inch tires would seat on these rims. I am certain they will, and 3.0-inch is more appropriate when taking a fast turn at 25-MPH on pavement.
Sondors LX
Another reason I really like the LX, is that it comes with a front suspension fork. It may be a basic mid-range model, but…I have hit unexpected potholes many times, and any suspension fork would have been welcome.
If you keep speeds modest, the stock brakes should be safe and adequate, but I occasionally ride faster to stay away from car traffic, so I am very happy with the larger 205mm front brake disks I upgraded to. The common brake upgrade kit I found uses a simple adapter to move the caliper farther away from the axle, so the stock caliper fits onto the bigger-diameter front disc.
As I mentioned before, a hardtail frame like this benefits greatly from a suspension seat-post. I loved my Thudbuster, but the Suntour NCX can sit slightly lower, and I like a low seat when I am at a stop in traffic. The low seat-tube on the LX here looks like either of the seat-posts I mentioned should work fine.
I also ended up getting handlebars that sit up higher so I didn’t have to lean forward when riding, and…be aware that doing that also means you have to get longer brake cables. Even so, that was easy and affordable.
Colors are Arctic white, Black, and the Aventador Blue shown…
Back in April of 2019, we wrote about an electric fatbike where the owner wanted the new powerful Bafang Ultra Max G510 drive, but…the few frames that came from the factory with it were either too expensive, or didn’t have the features he wanted. So, what’s a man with an angle grinder and a TIG welder supposed to do in that situation? Hack up a perfectly good frame, of course! (click here for that article).
Well, the factories in China that make ebikes with these drives have caught up with the production orders, and first-year exclusivity clauses in the contracts have expired, so now the factories are selling every frame they make direct to the public. One builder in Belgium decided to order a frame that would accept the Ultra Max, and fortunately for us he documented the process.
_____________________________________________
Titanium?
The builder is “Daxxie” in Belgium, and the ebike we are featuring just below is his 7th build. He wanted a titanium frame, so he went to a Chinese website that allowed him to chose the dimensions of the frame, and they built it to order. He bought it on Alibaba, which is the Chinese “Ebay”, so buyer beware. That being said, the factory he chose was BJCSTI (and there are other titanium frame factory options)
A custom-ordered titanium frame from China.
Dax: “Parts I ordered for the bike:
Magura MT5 + MT5e (I only want a brake sensor on the rear brake) 203mm and 180mm brake discs. I also found a nice “cheap” secondhand wheelset from DT-Swiss with Fatsno Pro-4 hubs. Sizes 150×15, and 197×12. The wheels came with 4.0-inch wide tires, and I ordered some 4.8’s…
…I borrowed the Bluto fork and SRAM X9 derailleur from my Scott fatbike, and later, I will find another Bluto fork in a different colour…”
Assembling the partsA lot of details on this electric fatbike are very eye-catching
OK, it’s time to start crawling down the rabbit hole and see where it leads…Why go to so much trouble to use the Bafang Ultra Max G510, you ask? When it comes to the amount of copper mass in the stator, the G510 is the reigning king of power potential (to see our article on the G510, click here). On top of that, Bafang included a smooth and sophisticated torque-sensing PAS (Pedal Assist Sensor). This allows you you program-in a seamless transition of power being added when you pedal.
Off-roaders really like this so they don’t need to manipulate a hand-throttle. There would be a more abrupt power-on pulse if they had used the less expensive “speed sensing” style of PAS (that’s the common type that’s found on most kits). Torque-sensing is an upscale feature when you are precariously tackling a difficult technical obstacle up on a mountain trail. This way, your hands are completely free of any throttle duties, so they can concentrate on braking and steering.
Pulling the side cover off
Take note in the pic above of the three fat Blue/Green/Yellow (BGY) motor phase wires.
Daxxie wanted the option to use 72V on this drive, so he pulled out the stock controller to see if he could fit something inside the case. If that didn’t work out, of course he could have mounted a controller on the outside, but in this case, he found a solution that worked for him.
The skinny-wire bundle. Red and black are the 5V positive and negative power wires to the Hall sensors, and the skinny Blue/Green/Yellow wires carry the signal from the three Hall sensors back to the controller. The sixth white wire is an auxiliary, which can be used as a tachometer signal or sometimes for a temperature sensor.
Dax was already familiar with the Phaserunner controller, so he wired it up to see if it ran with the Ultra Max, and it did.
You can’t really see it from this angle, but Dax had to trim a few millimeters off of the controller to get it to fit inside the Ultra Max case. He also had to grind away some of the aluminum in the case-body to be able to get the cover closed.
The Bafang Ultra Max G510 unit was purchased from Luna Cycles in Southern California, and the 72V Phaserunner controller is from Grin Tech in Canada.
_____________________________________________
The Battery
Daxxie wanted a 72V battery pack, and since he didn’t find anything that appealed to him, of course he decided to make his own. Below, you can see the 3D-printed side panel to the battery case that he designed and made.
The 3D-printed battery pack side-cover.
To get 72V, Dax is using 20 groups of lithium cells in series (20S), and the higher voltage means that he might be drawing fewer amps…if he can take it easy on the assist level!
I was surprised to see he went the “high volt / low amp” route, because one of the places where the G510 really shines is in how many amps it can take without overheating.
“…Been driving it for over a year now. I love the frame and the Bafang Ultra…”
_____________________________________________
Daxxie’s Ninth build
Based on his experience with the previous G510 frame, Daxxie decided that he wanted another one, and he decided that his next frame would be aluminum. He shopped around and ordered a frame from the brand Seroxat, based in Shenzhen, China. The retailer was salto-bike.com
It took a while to arrive straight from China to his driveway, but here it is, fresh out of the box
Dax received the frame, and immediately sent it off to be powder-coated a light gray color. Power-coating is a process that covers a given part with a very hard ceramic, and it comes in a wide variety of colors. I’m told it’s much tougher than paint.
Time to get started assembling3D-printed cell-holders
Dax was surprised at how cool the previous Ultra Max ran, so this time he decided to use 52V and six “high-amp” cells in parallel (6P). Using 52V is 14 cell-groups in series (14S)
Fully assembled and ready to go
“…Frame was $350 USD + $250 USD shipping (to Belgium) I ordered two frames for the same shipping price: $700 USD + $250 USD = $950 USD and then I sold one as soon as they arrived. So it cost me $475 USD…
…Changed the chainring to 46T, and I also got some shorter Miranda cranks.Officially it has 144mm rear travel if you use a 190/51mm damper. But, by installing a 200/57 damper you will get up to 160mm. I changed the air springs on the front shock. They are now also 160mm...
…I posted some pics in the Facebook group, and someone asked if it was for sale. I have some ideas for a new project, so I sold it…”
_____________________________________________
Dengfu E06 Carbon Fiber Frame
The first two Bafang Ultra frames were titanium and aluminum, so I looked around for a build using carbon fiber, and…I found one by forum member BeachRider2016, from North Carolina
The ultra-light carbon-fiber Dengfu E06
If you want to search for these, it’s E-Zero-Six, not E-Oh-Six (why do they do that?)
3D-printing cell holders
“OF course” BeachRider 2016 wanted to build a custom battery with cells that he had selected (for high amps), so the pic above and below are his 3D-printed cell holders.
14S / 52V and only 3P to keep it lightA beautiful beach scene in North Carolina.
This last year I’ve seen a boom in motorcycle conversions to electric drives, and after scanning the components used, it looks like the Quan Shun / QS cylindrical motors seemed to be popular, so let’s take a dig into what’s behind this trend.
______________________________________________
“Twin Spar” Frames
One of the reasons there are so many electric drive conversions for dirt bikes right now, is that a lot of them are getting to an age where they are showing up on the used market very cheap, with a worn engine that needs a rebuild.
Ten to fifteen years ago, there was a major shift in most frame designs that accidentally benefitted electric conversions. The biggest change is that the big frame designers evolved from a single back-bone top-tube, to a split top called a “twin spar”. The great thing about this change is that it makes the design of a large single battery pack MUCH easier.
Previously, I have seen custom battery packs used that were very oddly-shaped, or were made from two or three sections (click here) that were plugged together. Regardless of what construction configuration was used, it always ended up with the pack being smaller than would otherwise be possible.
A 2009 aluminum Honda CR250 frame with a top bar on the left, and the 2010 newer-style twin-spar on the right. Both have a large long-stroke shock mounted vertically just behind the engine bay.
This is no small consideration, since dirt bike E-conversions will never have super long range under the best conditions. In the pic below we wrote a feature on Jeremy Webbs Husqvarna conversion (click here), and the battery shape and size really impressed me. At the time, I thought a frame like this might be rare or hard to find, but I recently started digging around, and…all the big manufacturers are now using the twin spar design.
Jeremy Webbs Husqvarna 250 conversion. The tall monolithic block shape of the battery pack really caught my eye.
______________________________________________
QS Motors
When we first heard about the Quan Shun company, it was for their large hubmotors back in August of 2015 (click here). Their most popular model is the one that uses a stator that is 205mm in diameter, and 50mm wide. In China, the motors are measured on their side, and the “H” is the magnet “Height”. So it’s called the 205/50H. It is labeled as a “3000W” motor (*continuous), but hot rodders have often taken it to a 7,200W as a temporary peak (72V / 100A)
A 3000W Quan Shun hubmotor
The pic above is one of their scooter conversion hubs, which do not take spokes for a bicycle/motorcycle. This one mounts the rim directly to the hubmotor to seat a 10-inch ID scooter tire (click here). China has been cracking down on the pollution in their largest crowded cities, so there has been a tidal wave of electric conversions, instead of junking your vehicle and buying a new one. The QS web-catalogue can be found by clicking here.
______________________________________________
Why QS?
I occasionally get messages, and a frequent question has been “Which frame makes a good conversion?”, or “I have a brand-X frame, so what motor and controller would work?”. I have lots of hands-on experience with electric bicycles and kits, but…E-motorcycles are hard to find for a test ride.
The 48V Kuberg Freerider uses mountain bicycle components, and is very lightweight for younger riders. It can be ordered with 20-inch or 24″ MTB bicycle wheels.The 60V Sur-Ron has grown very popular this last year, and all of the components are motorcycle-grade. The US distributor is Luna, who also has high-amp controller upgrades, along with a 72V upgrade, with many other options to customize it.The Zero FX is a full-sized 293-lb off-roader. The $9,000 price tag gets you the power of 102V, and roughly 100 miles of range.
My previous reluctance to recommend any particular motorcycle frame or conversion kit wasn’t simply due to my lack of experience at that, it was also because of the limited choices of components, and the fact I haven’t seen any owners publishing the data since the last time I looked into this. I don’t want to say that something is popular, only to find out it has a lot of customer complaints. Sometimes a new product is selling well simply because it has no competition.
So…I recently started collecting data on motorcycle conversions. Which motor, controller, and battery types were the most common? There has been every possible motor you can imagine squeezed-in to whatever frame a builder could get for cheap. However…I noticed that recently, quite a few were using QS cylindrical motors. So far…the QS builders seem to be happy with them.
I typically recommend using the largest motor that would fit for a given conversion. For many builders, the sweet-spot for a small dirt bike is the QS 3000W (3kW) 138/70H V3 with a 45T/19T gear reduction built into the case (2.3:1 reduction).
The QS 3000W 138/70H V3 motor
The 3kW motor above is the popular 138/70H , and this motor is also available without a geared-reduction, using just the standard splined shaft. But if you want more torque, they also have the 138/90H motor, rated at 4kW continuous. However, the larger 90H does not yet have any optional reduction for it.
The 2.3:1 gear-reduction from the QS 138/70HHere you can see the gears are slightly helical, which helps them run quieter than the simple common spur gears.The removable end-cap, with robust bearingsThe QS 138/70H stator without the rotor or finned cover-platesThe QS 138/70H rotorThe QS 138/70H rotor, with a closeup of the magnet shape and placement.I thought I had seen that magnet layout before, and here is a pic of the “Interior Permanent Magnet” / IPM layout on the well-regarded Tesla Model-3 motor. Notice the V-shape in the placement of the flat bar magnets. The rotor body is made from a stack of very thin layers of silicon steel, called “laminations”. Pic courtesy of Munroe & AssociatesA 2018 Suzuki RM-Z450, with a QS 138/90H motor
According to the builder: “…It’s the first time I rode an electric bike and I am hooked! It so much fun…It hits very hard, maybe I will need to de-tune it a bit…weight is 255 lbs, but it feels way lighter than that when moving. Feels lighter than my KTM….I have a lot of tuning to do, but as of now it feels like a 125 but with lots more torque down low…“
The 4000W 138/90H
In the pic above, the 138/90H has a DIY chain reduction on the right side, which drives a jackshaft to the 13T final-drive sprocket on the left.
A QS 3000W 138/70H, with no gear reduction, mounted on a KTM 200 EXC, using a 12T sprocket
The 138/90H motors’ external dimensions are 217mm length, and a 162mm diameter (*8.5-inches long by 6.4). The shaft protrudes outwards an additional 14mm (1.4-inches). It’s unlikely that anyone would fit a larger motor onto a dirt bike frame, but…if you want to look that up, the next size up in the QS catalogue is the 8,000W 171/100H (these numbers are the rotor size in millimeters (diameter/length), and in theory the bigger motor would be roughly 33mm larger in diameter than the 138/90H, and 10mm longer).
______________________________________________
Controllers
On the QS website, they will sell you a 138/70H or 138/90H motor paired with any one of four controller brands. The APT, Kelly, Sabvoton, or…models from their partner Votol. Most builds I’ve seen use the Votol due to it’s affordable price, and they have two amp levels available that are tuned to work well with these two 138-series motors. The EM-150, and the EM-200.
For this controller series, the numbers in their name are the amps of continuous current, and the US retailer stated that the EM-200 can provide a temporary peak of 250A. The EM-150 is well-suited to the 138/70H, and the EM-200 is a good size for the 138/90H motor (although, some builders have used the 138/70H with the larger EM-200 controller).
The relative size difference between the EM-200 on the left, with the EM-150 on the rightThe Votol EM-200, pic courtesy of Silent Enduro in Ukraine
In the pic above, the EM-200 uses 24 MOSFET’s, which would be 8.4 continuous amps per FET. The dimensions of the baseplate are 285mm X 168mm, the thickness is 70mm (11.2 X 6.6 inches, 2.8 ” thick). The capacitors are maxed at 90V, and a 72V / 20S battery charged to 4.2V per cell is 84V, so there is a 6V safety margin for voltage spikes.
If you go to the Votol.net website, they also have controllers that are smaller, like the EM-30 / EM-50 / EM-100, and also…an even larger model, the EM-300
To be fair, I did find a video of a QS 138 motor being driven by a Kelly QS-KLS-8430H controller, seen here:
______________________________________________
Electro-Braap
When researching for more info on QS motors and their dirt bike conversions, I found several builds that had gotten their swap kit from “Electro and Company”, who goes by the web-avatar “Electro-Braap” on Facebook. They are located in Oakley, which is 51 miles east of San Francisco. You can get your questions answered on their Electro Braap facebook page (click here), or their Electro & Company website (click here).
Austin at Electro Braap verified that he keeps 10T and 11T sprockets in stock for #428 chain, on the motors they sell. They have recently ordered a large batch of #520 sprockets per customers request. Austin added that on the external jackshafts for the 90H, most builders have been using generic industrial components from McMaster-Carr.
______________________________________________
Whether you buy a turnkey dirt bike, or build an E-conversion, this last year has seen a huge bump in the number of people who have discovered electric dirt bikes. They are so quiet that they can be ridden anywhere, and their low-end torque numbers are phenomenal (don’t measure the electric motors’ power by the kW/horsepower, it doesn’t scale).
All that matters is the wheel-torque. To see what I mean, check out this video of a Kawasaki KX350 conversion with the QS 138/70H motor.
Riders of the popular Sur-Ron have said that it has the nimble lightness of a 125cc dirt bike, with the wheel-torque of a 250cc. The listed electric motorcycle horsepower numbers of all brands are ridiculously low for technical reasons, so the way to compare gassers to electrics is with the wheel-torque. That is the number one performance area where experienced riders say the E-motorcycles are clearly better.
When the flag drops, there is no clutch or shifting, and the electrics have full torque from the first RPM…Of course the low noise, and not needing a frequent top-end valve rebuild, clutch replacements, and oil changes is nice, too!
______________________________________________
How much can these motors do?
I found this youtube linked below, and at one point you can freeze the image and blow it up to see it’s a QS 138/70H “72V 3000W” with no gear reduction (he has small-diameter tires, so that’s OK). This isn’t a dirt bike, but I’m including this because he runs it at 96V and allows 250A peaks!
Brushless motors are very tolerant of a wide range of voltages, and the downside of adding more volts is finding the room to add more cells in series to raise the volts. The big amps using the Votol EM-200 have to be taken VERY carefully to ensure you don’t overheat the motor. In fact I would definitely pull the motor apart and add a heat sensor for a digital readout to warn me when I need to let things cool down a bit.
96V x 250A is 24,000W, which is a little nuts, but…an engineer from Zero told me that if you have enough power, the vehicle will accelerate so fast that you are not drawing max amps for very long.
A racing Kart converted to a QS 138/70H
The DIY battery pack is made from 26 BMW hybrid cells from a salvaged car wreck (26S). Full electric cars have a large pack so they can use cells that are optimized for long range, but a hybrid car has a gasoline engine along with a small battery pack, so the small pack must be able to provide full performance, which means hybrid cells are optimized for high amps without overheating.
The 96V of the pack is the nominal average voltage, and when fully charged to 4.1V per cell, its 107V, which is right at the edge of the voltage that the Votol controllers can use.
Back in March of 2017, we wrote about Denzel, and they were retailing electric bikes that are made by the Eastgem company in China. You might want to take a quick scan of that article before you move on to these new products (click here). Denzel is an unusual company in that they are fairly large, big enough that they have survived several years of ups and downs, but they do not have a large presence in North America.
This is the first time I have taken a look at them since the 2017 article, and the reason is their new “GB200” motor/gearbox/and clutch combination, shown in the header pic above. They do now have a US distributor, along with distributors in Australia, China, and Russia (Click here). I’ve contacted their Connecticut USA office to get more information, and I will report back when they reply.
_______________________________________________
Why a Transmission?
To lower the amps you need for a given speed.
This seems to be a perennial question that never goes away. When the Tesla EV car company was designing their first roadster prototype, it started it’s development as a single motor with a conventional 2-speed transmission. Halfway through the design process they changed the layout to a larger motor with no transmission, because a breakthrough in high-efficiency IGBT’s meant that their controllers could now flow more amps without overheating.
An IGBT is an “Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor”. It performs the same function as the FET/Field Effect Transistors in electric bike controllers. Transistors were named for “transfer” and “resistor”. It is a variable resistor, and as a variable electro-magnetic field is applied to the bridge material (like a capacitor), that substance becomes more conductive, allowing current to pass. FET’s and IGBT’s can be used in a variety of ways in electronic circuits, and here they are used as an on/off switch to send current to the coil-phases in the motor. FET’s are preferred in smaller devices and lower voltages and currents (along with very high switching cycles). There is some overlaps where one would be preferred over the other, but IGBT’s are for higher currents, higher voltages, and lower switching frequencies (click here for more babble like this). Be aware, I don’t really understand this, and I probably explained some of it wrong.
I am fortunate to have been able to discuss EV systems with Luke Workman (called “Live For Physics” on the web), and when he was a battery engineer for Zero electric motorcycles, he persuaded me that leaning towards lower volts and higher amps to arrive at a given power level is a viable option with distinct benefits. As an example, the current Zero motorcycles use 104V nominal (28S), and over 400A peaks. The Tesla Roadster uses about 375V and puts out over 900A, so they use a similar V/A ratio.
The “now defunct” Alta motorcycle company went the other direction. They used a ratio of high-volts to low-amps, with 350V nominal. “In theory”, you can get the same power either way, and as long as the “volts-times-amps” equals the same number of kilowatts, the results should be similar. Alta felt that there was a small benefit to their range and charging-speed due to the limited selection of available cells at the time, and also their lack of a battery cooling system. Tesla has a battery pack cooling system, and Zero uses the newest high-amp cells that don’t generate much heat in the first place.
I mention all these things because amps and “amp heat” are the main reasons mentioned in the past as to why someone would use a transmission on an electric motor. One example of using a transmission is Jack Knopf’s 1964 Chevelle (click here). Believe it or not, the EV drag-race governing body (NEDRA) has an EV class that is limited to using only 72V (among other classes). Back in 2006, Jack noticed that the times were slower than he expected, and wondered if he could capture a trophy. He found an old Chevelle, and stripped as much weight off of it as he could. It already came with a Powerglide 2-speed automatic transmission, which was part of the reason he chose this particular car.
Jack Knopf’s record-holding electric 1964 Chevelle
When using 72V and roughly 4,000-Amps (equaling 192-kW) his best 1/8th mile time is 13 seconds to reach 50-MPH. That may not sound very impressive, but the Chevelle weighed 3,600-lbs, and he was limited to 72V! He credited the transmission with a major portion of the improved performance in this limited class. For years I have pondered a 2-speed transmission to provide a dual off-road/street range for a dual-purpose electric motorcycle, and I still think it may have some merit, by using a compact and strong planetary gear-set, like the transmission for the Ford Model-T.
_______________________________________________
The Denzel Rush
It looks like…rather than develop the drive unit and then build an electric dirt bike around it, Denzel took an existing 200cc Chinese dirt bike and custom-modified the left side of the engine-case so that it held a 3000W motor. Having a mould made to die-cast half an engine-case can be expensive, but it’s actually not too difficult. Part of the reason I believe this…is because the transmission has 4-speeds, which is common on a gasoline dirt bike like this, and that is a lot more gears than you would ever really “need” if it was designed from scratch to be an electric dirt bike.
The Denzel “Rush”
Some electric “trials” riders have stated that they would actually prefer having a standard clutch, but none of them wanted any gears, opting instead for a speed-reduction on the motor, along with only a one speed drive-line to the rear wheel.
Here is an article we wrote about Rich Benoits EV hot rod (click here), and he used a manual 3-speed transmission. The trans was dirt cheap from the salvage yards, but as he expected, he ended up only using two of the three gears. First gear could easily provide smoky burnouts, but…for the fastest acceleration, he would start in 2nd gear rather than lose time by needing to shift twice instead of just once.
In fact, the 2020 AWD electric Porsche Taycan uses a 2-speed automatic transmission on the rear axle. So…at least somebody thinks there are still situations where the expense, bulk, and complexity of using two gears is worthwhile.
_______________________________________________
Alex Guliyants
Alex is the owner and chief designer for Denzel ebikes. Back in 2017 the pleasure of having an email-chat with him, in order to find out more information. He grew up in the beautiful region around the city of Kislovodsk, near the southern border of Russia, between the Black sea and the Caspian sea, and on the north slope of the Caucasus mountains. Once he got into designing and selling electric bikes, he moved to where the action was, in China.
Now, Alex is expanding his company into motorcycles, so lets take a look at this integrated 4-speed module.
The right side of the “engine case”, showing the conventional mass-produced clutch
The pic above is the right side of the drive case assembly, and it appears to be the same as you would expect from any mass-produced gasoline dirt-bike, and that further suggests that only the left side of the engine case had to have an optional electric version, to produce the Denzel Rush E-dirtbike.
Three hall sensors on the green round circuit-board, and the black magnetic disc for the rotor-position encoder.
In the pic above, this is the left side of the engine case, with the whole assembly flipped upside down. The motor drives an oil-bath reduction gear and the wet-clutch first, then the clutch drives the 4-speed gear-box and output sprocket.
The left side of the Denzel Rush engine case, with motor and 4-speed gearbox exposed.
In the pic above, we can see that the motor is an inrunner. Eight magnets on the rotor, and 12 stator-teeth. The magnets are “surface mount” instead of being inset slightly into the lamination stack, which is what the Zero motorcycles have done when they moved to “Interior Permanent Magnet / IPM” a few years ago. Moving to a more modern IPM rotor allows the magnets to run cooler, by moving them a bit farther away from the magnetic eddy-currents around the air-gap. This in turn allows the motor to use higher peak amps when accelerating, without fear that the temp sensor would limit the amps right when you want them the most.
This suggests that the stator and rotor are off-the-shelf mass-produced units, rather than using a brand new design. Doing this saves a LOT of development and production costs, allowing the product price to remain as low as possible. I can imagine that this also helps Denzel expand into motorcycles with much less risk.
Back in 2011, Brammo tried the same thing (click here) when they took a existing gasoline engine case and adapted an electric motor onto it with the stock clutch and 6-speed transmission. The designer felt that there were many motorcyclists that would feel more comfortable transitioning to an electric version if it had a familiar clutch and transmission “experience”. Brammo closed down due to low sales, but the transmssion did allow Brammo to use a smaller motor than the large Motenergy 75-7…which the successful Zero company is using with it’s one-speed drivetrain.
As a final note, the aluminum case and oil-bath would both help absorb heat from the motor during temporary high peak amp-loads, and then shed them to the outside air. Although it’s passive (no pump or radiator), this electric motor can be considered liquid-cooled. Although lube-oil is not common as the main coolant on a drivetrain, Suzuki did this with great success on several models of gasoline engine (click here).
_______________________________________________
Conclusion?
This is just my opinion, but…if the price is cheap enough, the Denzel “Rush” dirt bike will sell anywhere that other competitors can’t get product shipped to that location. That being said, Denzel is also selling the “engine case” as a separate DIY unit, which has been a common theme in Asia for converting gasoline vehicles to electric.
The one place where I would actually like this combination of a motor and 4-speed trans is…for a conversion of a mid-sized gasoline quad/ATV. There are millions of old ones in the USA from Honda/Yamaha/Kawasaki/etc. I live in Kansas, and as much as some teens use quads as a fun toy, the ranchers here use them as serious farm equipment. There are two ways in which an EV-quad can be better. First is that gasoline engines (especially old and worn ones) can be difficult to start and run when they are super cold in the winter. Electric vehicles in Scandinavia has shown that owners there appreciate this feature (although the battery pack must be insulated and have a small heating pad installed).
Ranchers tow stuff, like trailers with cargo, and also getting fallen trees out of the road. Yeah, I want a 4-speed for that.
An electric conversion of a Yamaha Quad/ATV. These are easier to convert than a motorcycle
The second way in which an electric Quad can be better, is that a 48V / 52V ebike battery can run a 110V/220V AC-inverter, plus an ATV conversion would have a fairly large battery pack. This transforms the ATV into a rolling mobile power station. There are dozens of youtubes about converting an ATV to electric, so this is not a new idea, and it is well-proven. I haven’t converted a motorcycle or ATV yet, but the ATV looks to be MUCH easier to adapt to an electric drivetrain.
_______________________________________________
Zero and Sur-Ron “Crate Engines”
If the whole conversion scene interests you, but you want a larger single-speed motor, you’re in luck. The Zero motorcycle company expanded a while back into selling matched motor/controller/battery kits for the DIY crowd, and I recently saw that Sur-Ron has made a single-motor kit, along with a dual-motor unit to increase copper mass, rather than retailing a larger motor.
The Sur-Ron SP180-C2 “dual motor” kit, designed to run on 60V, and up-gradable to 72V
If the Denzel GB200 “kit” with it’s motor, clutch, and 4-speed gearbox still interests you, Denzel recommends their 72V / 275A controller to run it. That equals 19,000W / 19-kW, but there’s no third-party testing data available yet as to how this combo handles 275A peaks…It might handle more, and it might handle less. I guess we’ll see.
_______________________________________________
The Denzel Cafe Racer
I’m just throwing this in for fun. There’s not enough info for it’s own article, but Denzel has made at least one prototype of a cool retro electric cafe racer, to test customer response.
Back in October of 2019, we saw that the “mini-bike” style of frame was really catching on, and we high-lighted 10 models so readers could see if one of them suited what they might want (to read that article, click here). A lot of riders began calling them “taco” bikes, because they are very popular near the beaches in Southern California, and it’s the kind of frame where you can cruise along the beach-front with a taco in one hand.
Most of them had a solid frame and fork to keep the initial price as affordable as possible. However, as soon as they began catching on, most companies offered a suspension fork as an upgrade, which is very easy to do. I wondered how long it would be until someone went to the time and effort to provide a rear suspension, which is much more involved and more expensive.
Speaking of the higher price, even if several companies offered a “full suspension” taco bike, we had no way of knowing if enough customers would pay the higher price for this option to survive in the manufacturers catalogue. Well, the news is finally in, and it’s all good news. Taco bikes are selling well enough that every possible option is selling briskly.
As of November 2021, you can’t buy one of these quite yet, and I’m putting it first because it’s a pretty good-looking example.
Sondors Madmods
Rather than only using the common round tubing to make the frame, Sondors is using hydroformed tubing, which allows the manufacturer to create interesting shapes in the tubing. The price is currently listed at $2700, but you have to deposit $300, and wait until they arrive…whenever that is…
We’ve been fans of Tora Harris over at Juiced Bikes for a long time. He jumped onto the Taco bike bandwagon like so many others, but…he then decided to offer an optional dual-battery set-up. The stock pack is 52V and 19.2-Ah of range, and with the dual pack option, it’s a massive 39.4-Ah of range
The Hyper Scrambler 2
The list price today is $2800 for the single battery model, and the dual pack is $3300. Concerning the cast wheels, some people love them and others don’t love them, but…one thing is undeniable, cast wheels mean you never have to worry about spokes getting loose and needing to be tightened and the wheels trued-up.
The Cirkit LV2 is very heavy-duty, and is made by “Le Bui”, in Indonesia (it’s a group of large tropical islands in South-East Asia). The base model shown below is a geared rear hubmotor, but they appear to have other motor options. They are most famous for their hot rod off-road ebike, the “911 Adventure”
The Circkut LV2, from Le Bui
An interesting feature of the Cirkit LV2 is that it has an idler sprocket built into the swingarm pivot. This eliminates the need for a chain tensioner, and is a very upscale feature. The bikes are built to order, and they can take as long as 90 days to arrive, but…so far, all customers who have bought one have received their ebike.
The Challenger is the latest addition to the Biktrix catalogue. It is one of the more affordable options at $1700
The Biktrix Challenger
This model provides the US-legal 750W in a light geared rear hubmotor. This price is for a “pre-sale”, and the first deliveries are scheduled for December 2021 (in one month from now).
The Ariel Rider company has two full suspension models with this frame. The “X-Class” has a single geared rear hubmotor, with either a 48V or 52V battery.
The one that really caught my eye was the “Dual Motor” AWD Grizzly. Whether it’s a sandy beach, a snow-covered field, or for off-road…AWD provides a capability that you just can’t get any other way. It also has the option for a dual-battery, to make sure you have an extra-long range available.
The Ariel-Rider Grizzly
These features come at a price. The 52V single-motor X-Class is currently $2200, and the dual-motor Grizzly is listed at $3100
The taco bikes shown before have handlebars with a small rise on them, which allows you to ride with a more relaxed upright posture. The Onyx comes stock with a lower handlebar set, and it looks a little like a “scrambler” style of motorcycle.
The Onyx RCR
If there is nothing else in the picture for scale, looks can be deceiving. The tires are 17-inch moped rubber, with a 2-3/4 wide tire. The 17-inch moped rims are heavy-duty, and are equivalent to 24-inch bicycle wheels. This places the size of the RCR at just a hair bigger than some of the other taco bikes here.
What the Onyx RCR really has going for it is…POWER. The rear hubmotor is a beefy direct-drive 205/50H from QS, and the power system feeds it 72V X 200A = 14,000W
If your sole criteria for a taco-bike frame is that it is a full-suspension, the Super-73 line has several models, from $3,000 to $4500, depending on options.
The Himiway escape looks similar to the Biktrix Challenger, but I haven’t ridden either one so I can’t say for sure. The Escape is currently listed as $1800. The pic below shows a portable charger, which is not included.
I had a gasoline “mini bike” with a lawn mower engine when I was a kid, and that was one of the most exciting memories I have from my childhood. When taco bikes first came out, they immediately caught my eye. Two thoughts immediately occurred to me. I don’t know if customers will like these enough for them to stay around, and…the upright posture could really use a rear suspension.
Having choices is a good thing, and I’m glad these are available. Ride safe, my friends, and…have fun!
So far, about all I could find out is that it uses a 48V system (good, no wimpy 36V) and that it uses the Effigear transmission, so…let’s start with that.
The Effigear gearbox.
The Effigear system is listed as being able to house from seven to nine gears, but since it’s weight and cost are already going to be an issue for a lightweight upscale mountain bike, I suspect the most popular version will be the 7-speed.
I mention mountain bikes because the configuration that typically would make this appealing to an upscale customer is someone who takes big jumps and hits rapid-fire moguls and berms. In that situation, it’s beneficial to make the rear wheel as light as possible, so that a sophisticated spring and damper can keep the tire in contact with the ground for every split-second that is possible. So, you move the weight of the gearing and shifter to the center of the frame…
The Effigear Gearbox in a 9-speed configuration
If you’ve ever hit a hard bump and the rear swingarm was bounced up off of the ground, you can’t make effective inputs until the tire is touching the ground again. On a high-speed downhill run, a more effective suspension system can make the difference between an exhilarating “personal best” run, or a crash.
As you can see from the pictures above, the Effigear uses constant-mesh gears, similar to a cars manual transmission. Systems like this are sealed in a housing and run in an oil-bath. This means the transmission should last a very long time, even if the rider uses it for frequent aggressive downhill runs.
The Effigear Shifter
Of course I was curious how the shifter worked, and it uses a sliding gear selector that runs down the center of the primary gear-shaft. When you stop it at a certain gear selection, three radial “dogs” are lifted outwards, which is very similar to the well-known “Internal Gear Hub” (IGH) like the Nexus or Sturmey-Archer. The dogs connect the shaft to the particular gear-set you want.
In this way, all of the gears are always spinning and meshing, but the input shaft is not connected to any of the seven gears until a certain gears’ dogs are lifted. If such a system is well-designed and uses quality materials, it can be surprisingly strong. If you want to see more illustrations of a dog-actuated system, check out our article on IGH’s by clicking here.
The rear wheel on a Valeo drive ebike.
Im sure that most of the companies offering the Valeo drive on one of their frames has a chain as an option, but since this is going to be an upscale-priced product, most of the PR pics on the web show it with a Gates belt-drive. Although belts are more expensive to replace, they typically last three times longer. One performance benefit is that they squeeze-out the snow, mud, and debris that might clog a derailleur. To be fair, a belt and pulley can still get jammed-up, but…just not as often as a chain.
Of course I was curious about the other things that Valeo might be developing, and they have done some work on mild-hybrid car designs. They don’t make cars, but hope to market add-on systems to increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.
A Valeo Mild-Hybrid booster motor prototype installation
In Valeos version of a mild-hybrid system, a booster motor helps the car accelerate, which is the time when a gasoline engine is loaded the heaviest. When simply cruising along at a stable speed, gasoline engines (and especially diesel engines) can provide decent fuel economy and fairly low emissions. By only adding a booster motor, the motor doesn’t need to be very large, and the system doesn’t need a huge amount of watts. Also, the battery pack for a system like this does not need to be large or heavy.
For several years now, European auto manufacturers have been toying with the idea of raising the cars electrical system voltage to 48V. Doing this would allow the starter motor to be smaller and lighter, along ith several other benefits. In anticipation of this, the Valeo mild hybrid designs all use 48V, so far.
A Valeo full-sized hybrid motor.
Their most ambitious project involved making the booster motor larger and more integrated into the drivetrain. Although it is not powerful enough (at its modest size and using only 48V) to be the full-time power-plant at highway speeds, it is powerful enough to have an “electric only” range of 200 kilometers when driving at at city speeds. This was demonstrated in a small light commuter car, to cross all the way through Paris.
The Effigear transmission has been around for a while on pedal-only bicycles, but Valeo is the first to engineer a motor with it into an integrated housing.
A “Bakfiets” style cargo-ebike, with the Valeo drive system.
From the outside, the housing “suggests” that the motor has a reduction gear to allow it to spin at higher RPM’s than the driven pedal-shaft of the bike. This is good, and it allows a motor to run cooler while converting fewer of the batteries watts into waste-heat. It also appears to drive the pedal shaft (no doubt, through a one-way clutch-bearing). If that is true, its good because it gives the motor the use of the seven gears, and that provides great wheel-power from the smallest possible motor.
Of course the downside is that the transmission is loaded by the motor when power is applied. There are two IGH’s that are well-known to take a severe beating and survive, the similar 3-speeds from Nexus and Sturmey, and the 14-speed Rohloff 2X7. The 3-speeds accomplish their robust performance with beefy dogs, and the Rohloff accomplishes it with the strongest possible materials combined with a shear pin, so…the easily-replaced pin breaks before the gears or dogs.
A hardtail off-road frame with the Valeo drive.
I suspect the transmission from Effigear has been designed and manufactured with materials that will stand up to a motor driving it (instead of just two wimpy 200W human legs), but….only time will tell.
Sondors started out with a couple of stumbles a few years ago. Their first product was a simple rear hub fatbike, and once they got on their feet, everyone who ordered one got their product.
Sondors was an early adopter of shipping ebikes directly to the customers house, to avoid the cost of a brick-and-mortar store, and they were aggressive at passing the savings on to the customers. Their first ebike was under $1,000 which is pretty nuts, since thats the price of many ebike kits, not including the bike, plus the kit assembly.
It was no hot rod, but an entire industry has sprung up around upgrading them. Sondors provided a huge service to the ebike community, because many people who were interested in ebikes were also uncomfortable risking $2,000 for something that they might not even like. Once hundreds of people bought a less-expensive Sondors, they soon bought a more powerful ebike for a higher price from someone else.
Which brings us to today. Their business model is to wait and see what types of ebikes are on a steady sales curve, and then jump in with a high volume commitment. He now has credibility with customers and manufacturers, so he has a certain amount of “brand credit” when he says he is going to do something.
I’m going to start with the $2,000 step-through “Cruiser” model (The website says its $1,999…LOL) It uses 3.0 inch wide street tires, which are in fact my favorite street-tire size for a commuter.
Here’s what Sondors got right.
All three of these mid-drives have an aluminum frame.
All three use 48V and a 21-Ah battery pack.
All three use a well developed Bafang mid drive.
They are clearly going for the USA street-legal market with these 750W motors, but they do admit that these can be set to run as high as 1150W @ 25 amps (I assume for offroad use only). All three of these can run at the recent US rules of 28-MPH.
It can be handy to have all of your ebikes using the same voltage (all three of these are 48V), so if one charger goes out, you can use the other charger while you wait for the warranty claim on the bad unit. I also have a long history of encouraging the use of 48V / 52V packs because in an emergency, you can use these to run a 120V AC inverter.
Since the frame is aluminum, these integrated mid-drives can actually use the frame as a heat-sink, so using a modest 750W means they should never overheat. Since the motor has 7-speeds to choose from, even with a top-speed of 28-MPH it also means it will still have great hill-climbing when it’s in the lowest gear…
Available in Black and gray with white-wall tires, Platinum white and black with white-wall tires, and the two-tone red shown with black-wall tires.
Electra Lux Fat 7D, with a BBSHD and battery from Luna Cycles
The bike above is what I have been riding the most for the past five years. Its a $700 aluminum Electra Lux fat frame, and the 7D means it has a common derailler with 7-speed freewheel. I put a smaller 36T chainring from Luna on it and the 1500W BBSHD can climb any hill I have ever tried it on, without overheating…It is a climbing beast.
Other than the smaller chainring, my favorite additions have been a Suntour NCX suspension seat-post, which really smooths-out any potholes in my local streets. If you get one of these Sondors hardtails (like the Cruiser or LX hardtails listed here), I highly recommend a suspension seat-post.
I also added a leather handlebar bag and a left-side bar-end mirror to be able to see the cars that are trying to kill me from behind. Speaking of zombie-texting drivers, these three-inch tires I use are firmer on curves than a common 4-inch fat tire, but still cushy enough that twice (so far), I was forced to bonzai onto the street curb to get onto the sidewalk away from a car, and…even at full speed, it did not damage my rims.
I’m showing you what I have been riding for five years, so you can have confidence in my assessment of these particular Sondors models.
_________________________________________________
The Sondors Rockstar
I haven’t ridden the $2600 Rockstar, but…I have ridden several bikes that have similar components and specs when I was at the last Interbike (RIP, Interbike…).
Sondors Rockstar
The wheels are the popular 27.5-inch, and it has 3.0-inch tires, which are the current hotness for off-roaders.
I’m going to make some suggestions, which have absolutely no basis in a hands-on review, because my filthy hands have not touched this model even once. Sondors in the past has spec’d solid mid-range components. None of them have been accused of being “great” components, but they also haven’t hurt their brand by using crap components.
That being said, the most likely upgrade you can swap-in is…a more expensive rear shock. Every offroader I’ve talked to has said that’s the best bang-for-your-buck. Most riders should be happy with the stock forks, but that is another area where “some” riders choose an upgrade (then sell the stock ones).
Colors are Supernova yellow, Slate gray, and Matte Black.
_________________________________________________
The Sondors LX
The LX is the one that I think will sell the best for Sondors, out of these three. It’s the same $2,000 price as the near-identical Cruiser, but it has an elevated stay above the chain. You may never need to do any work on the chain yourself (I never hate on ebikers that use a bike shop mechanic). However, if you ever need to swap-in a new chain (as we all do eventually), the elevated stay makes it super easy.
Another important feature of an elevated stay is that it allows the option of switching to a belt-drive, which Sondors has done in the past, so…look for that to be an upgrade option in the future if you choose the LX.
Sondors LX
The tires are the massive 4.9-inch (26-inch fat rim). These are ideal for snow, sand, and potholes, but…if you want to run them on the street, I would keep speeds below 16-MPH. When the stock tires wear out, you might try seeing if the 3.0-inch tires would seat on these rims. I am certain they will, and 3.0-inch is more appropriate when taking a fast turn at 25-MPH on pavement.
Sondors LX
Another reason I really like the LX, is that it comes with a front suspension fork. It may be a basic mid-range model, but…I have hit unexpected potholes many times, and any suspension fork would have been welcome.
If you keep speeds modest, the stock brakes should be safe and adequate, but I occasionally ride faster to stay away from car traffic, so I am very happy with the larger 205mm front brake disks I upgraded to. The common brake upgrade kit I found uses a simple adapter to move the caliper farther away from the axle, so the stock caliper fits onto the bigger-diameter front disc.
As I mentioned before, a hardtail frame like this benefits greatly from a suspension seat-post. I loved my Thudbuster, but the Suntour NCX can sit slightly lower, and I like a low seat when I am at a stop in traffic. The low seat-tube on the LX here looks like either of the seat-posts I mentioned should work fine.
I also ended up getting handlebars that sit up higher so I didn’t have to lean forward when riding, and…be aware that doing that also means you have to get longer brake cables. Even so, that was easy and affordable.
Colors are Arctic white, Black, and the Aventador Blue shown…
Back in April of 2019, we wrote about an electric fatbike where the owner wanted the new powerful Bafang Ultra Max G510 drive, but…the few frames that came from the factory with it were either too expensive, or didn’t have the features he wanted. So, what’s a man with an angle grinder and a TIG welder supposed to do in that situation? Hack up a perfectly good frame, of course! (click here for that article).
Well, the factories in China that make ebikes with these drives have caught up with the production orders, and first-year exclusivity clauses in the contracts have expired, so now the factories are selling every frame they make direct to the public. One builder in Belgium decided to order a frame that would accept the Ultra Max, and fortunately for us he documented the process.
_____________________________________________
Titanium?
The builder is “Daxxie” in Belgium, and the ebike we are featuring just below is his 7th build. He wanted a titanium frame, so he went to a Chinese website that allowed him to chose the dimensions of the frame, and they built it to order. He bought it on Alibaba, which is the Chinese “Ebay”, so buyer beware. That being said, the factory he chose was BJCSTI (and there are other titanium frame factory options)
A custom-ordered titanium frame from China.
Dax: “Parts I ordered for the bike:
Magura MT5 + MT5e (I only want a brake sensor on the rear brake) 203mm and 180mm brake discs. I also found a nice “cheap” secondhand wheelset from DT-Swiss with Fatsno Pro-4 hubs. Sizes 150×15, and 197×12. The wheels came with 4.0-inch wide tires, and I ordered some 4.8’s…
…I borrowed the Bluto fork and SRAM X9 derailleur from my Scott fatbike, and later, I will find another Bluto fork in a different colour…”
Assembling the partsA lot of details on this electric fatbike are very eye-catching
OK, it’s time to start crawling down the rabbit hole and see where it leads…Why go to so much trouble to use the Bafang Ultra Max G510, you ask? When it comes to the amount of copper mass in the stator, the G510 is the reigning king of power potential (to see our article on the G510, click here). On top of that, Bafang included a smooth and sophisticated torque-sensing PAS (Pedal Assist Sensor). This allows you you program-in a seamless transition of power being added when you pedal.
Off-roaders really like this so they don’t need to manipulate a hand-throttle. There would be a more abrupt power-on pulse if they had used the less expensive “speed sensing” style of PAS (that’s the common type that’s found on most kits). Torque-sensing is an upscale feature when you are precariously tackling a difficult technical obstacle up on a mountain trail. This way, your hands are completely free of any throttle duties, so they can concentrate on braking and steering.
Pulling the side cover off
Take note in the pic above of the three fat Blue/Green/Yellow (BGY) motor phase wires.
Daxxie wanted the option to use 72V on this drive, so he pulled out the stock controller to see if he could fit something inside the case. If that didn’t work out, of course he could have mounted a controller on the outside, but in this case, he found a solution that worked for him.
The skinny-wire bundle. Red and black are the 5V positive and negative power wires to the Hall sensors, and the skinny Blue/Green/Yellow wires carry the signal from the three Hall sensors back to the controller. The sixth white wire is an auxiliary, which can be used as a tachometer signal or sometimes for a temperature sensor.
Dax was already familiar with the Phaserunner controller, so he wired it up to see if it ran with the Ultra Max, and it did.
You can’t really see it from this angle, but Dax had to trim a few millimeters off of the controller to get it to fit inside the Ultra Max case. He also had to grind away some of the aluminum in the case-body to be able to get the cover closed.
The Bafang Ultra Max G510 unit was purchased from Luna Cycles in Southern California, and the 72V Phaserunner controller is from Grin Tech in Canada.
_____________________________________________
The Battery
Daxxie wanted a 72V battery pack, and since he didn’t find anything that appealed to him, of course he decided to make his own. Below, you can see the 3D-printed side panel to the battery case that he designed and made.
The 3D-printed battery pack side-cover.
To get 72V, Dax is using 20 groups of lithium cells in series (20S), and the higher voltage means that he might be drawing fewer amps…if he can take it easy on the assist level!
I was surprised to see he went the “high volt / low amp” route, because one of the places where the G510 really shines is in how many amps it can take without overheating.
“…Been driving it for over a year now. I love the frame and the Bafang Ultra…”
_____________________________________________
Daxxie’s Ninth build
Based on his experience with the previous G510 frame, Daxxie decided that he wanted another one, and he decided that his next frame would be aluminum. He shopped around and ordered a frame from the brand Seroxat, based in Shenzhen, China. The retailer was salto-bike.com
It took a while to arrive straight from China to his driveway, but here it is, fresh out of the box
Dax received the frame, and immediately sent it off to be powder-coated a light gray color. Power-coating is a process that covers a given part with a very hard ceramic, and it comes in a wide variety of colors. I’m told it’s much tougher than paint.
Time to get started assembling3D-printed cell-holders
Dax was surprised at how cool the previous Ultra Max ran, so this time he decided to use 52V and six “high-amp” cells in parallel (6P). Using 52V is 14 cell-groups in series (14S)
Fully assembled and ready to go
“…Frame was $350 USD + $250 USD shipping (to Belgium) I ordered two frames for the same shipping price: $700 USD + $250 USD = $950 USD and then I sold one as soon as they arrived. So it cost me $475 USD…
…Changed the chainring to 46T, and I also got some shorter Miranda cranks.Officially it has 144mm rear travel if you use a 190/51mm damper. But, by installing a 200/57 damper you will get up to 160mm. I changed the air springs on the front shock. They are now also 160mm...
…I posted some pics in the Facebook group, and someone asked if it was for sale. I have some ideas for a new project, so I sold it…”
_____________________________________________
Dengfu E06 Carbon Fiber Frame
The first two Bafang Ultra frames were titanium and aluminum, so I looked around for a build using carbon fiber, and…I found one by forum member BeachRider2016, from North Carolina
The ultra-light carbon-fiber Dengfu E06
If you want to search for these, it’s E-Zero-Six, not E-Oh-Six (why do they do that?)
3D-printing cell holders
“OF course” BeachRider 2016 wanted to build a custom battery with cells that he had selected (for high amps), so the pic above and below are his 3D-printed cell holders.
14S / 52V and only 3P to keep it lightA beautiful beach scene in North Carolina.
This last year I’ve seen a boom in motorcycle conversions to electric drives, and after scanning the components used, it looks like the Quan Shun / QS cylindrical motors seemed to be popular, so let’s take a dig into what’s behind this trend.
______________________________________________
“Twin Spar” Frames
One of the reasons there are so many electric drive conversions for dirt bikes right now, is that a lot of them are getting to an age where they are showing up on the used market very cheap, with a worn engine that needs a rebuild.
Ten to fifteen years ago, there was a major shift in most frame designs that accidentally benefitted electric conversions. The biggest change is that the big frame designers evolved from a single back-bone top-tube, to a split top called a “twin spar”. The great thing about this change is that it makes the design of a large single battery pack MUCH easier.
Previously, I have seen custom battery packs used that were very oddly-shaped, or were made from two or three sections (click here) that were plugged together. Regardless of what construction configuration was used, it always ended up with the pack being smaller than would otherwise be possible.
A 2009 aluminum Honda CR250 frame with a top bar on the left, and the 2010 newer-style twin-spar on the right. Both have a large long-stroke shock mounted vertically just behind the engine bay.
This is no small consideration, since dirt bike E-conversions will never have super long range under the best conditions. In the pic below we wrote a feature on Jeremy Webbs Husqvarna conversion (click here), and the battery shape and size really impressed me. At the time, I thought a frame like this might be rare or hard to find, but I recently started digging around, and…all the big manufacturers are now using the twin spar design.
Jeremy Webbs Husqvarna 250 conversion. The tall monolithic block shape of the battery pack really caught my eye.
______________________________________________
QS Motors
When we first heard about the Quan Shun company, it was for their large hubmotors back in August of 2015 (click here). Their most popular model is the one that uses a stator that is 205mm in diameter, and 50mm wide. In China, the motors are measured on their side, and the “H” is the magnet “Height”. So it’s called the 205/50H. It is labeled as a “3000W” motor (*continuous), but hot rodders have often taken it to a 7,200W as a temporary peak (72V / 100A)
A 3000W Quan Shun hubmotor
The pic above is one of their scooter conversion hubs, which do not take spokes for a bicycle/motorcycle. This one mounts the rim directly to the hubmotor to seat a 10-inch ID scooter tire (click here). China has been cracking down on the pollution in their largest crowded cities, so there has been a tidal wave of electric conversions, instead of junking your vehicle and buying a new one. The QS web-catalogue can be found by clicking here.
______________________________________________
Why QS?
I occasionally get messages, and a frequent question has been “Which frame makes a good conversion?”, or “I have a brand-X frame, so what motor and controller would work?”. I have lots of hands-on experience with electric bicycles and kits, but…E-motorcycles are hard to find for a test ride.
The 48V Kuberg Freerider uses mountain bicycle components, and is very lightweight for younger riders. It can be ordered with 20-inch or 24″ MTB bicycle wheels.The 60V Sur-Ron has grown very popular this last year, and all of the components are motorcycle-grade. The US distributor is Luna, who also has high-amp controller upgrades, along with a 72V upgrade, with many other options to customize it.The Zero FX is a full-sized 293-lb off-roader. The $9,000 price tag gets you the power of 102V, and roughly 100 miles of range.
My previous reluctance to recommend any particular motorcycle frame or conversion kit wasn’t simply due to my lack of experience at that, it was also because of the limited choices of components, and the fact I haven’t seen any owners publishing the data since the last time I looked into this. I don’t want to say that something is popular, only to find out it has a lot of customer complaints. Sometimes a new product is selling well simply because it has no competition.
So…I recently started collecting data on motorcycle conversions. Which motor, controller, and battery types were the most common? There has been every possible motor you can imagine squeezed-in to whatever frame a builder could get for cheap. However…I noticed that recently, quite a few were using QS cylindrical motors. So far…the QS builders seem to be happy with them.
I typically recommend using the largest motor that would fit for a given conversion. For many builders, the sweet-spot for a small dirt bike is the QS 3000W (3kW) 138/70H V3 with a 45T/19T gear reduction built into the case (2.3:1 reduction).
The QS 3000W 138/70H V3 motor
The 3kW motor above is the popular 138/70H , and this motor is also available without a geared-reduction, using just the standard splined shaft. But if you want more torque, they also have the 138/90H motor, rated at 4kW continuous. However, the larger 90H does not yet have any optional reduction for it.
The 2.3:1 gear-reduction from the QS 138/70HHere you can see the gears are slightly helical, which helps them run quieter than the simple common spur gears.The removable end-cap, with robust bearingsThe QS 138/70H stator without the rotor or finned cover-platesThe QS 138/70H rotorThe QS 138/70H rotor, with a closeup of the magnet shape and placement.I thought I had seen that magnet layout before, and here is a pic of the “Interior Permanent Magnet” / IPM layout on the well-regarded Tesla Model-3 motor. Notice the V-shape in the placement of the flat bar magnets. The rotor body is made from a stack of very thin layers of silicon steel, called “laminations”. Pic courtesy of Munroe & AssociatesA 2018 Suzuki RM-Z450, with a QS 138/90H motor
According to the builder: “…It’s the first time I rode an electric bike and I am hooked! It so much fun…It hits very hard, maybe I will need to de-tune it a bit…weight is 255 lbs, but it feels way lighter than that when moving. Feels lighter than my KTM….I have a lot of tuning to do, but as of now it feels like a 125 but with lots more torque down low…“
The 4000W 138/90H
In the pic above, the 138/90H has a DIY chain reduction on the right side, which drives a jackshaft to the 13T final-drive sprocket on the left.
A QS 3000W 138/70H, with no gear reduction, mounted on a KTM 200 EXC, using a 12T sprocket
The 138/90H motors’ external dimensions are 217mm length, and a 162mm diameter (*8.5-inches long by 6.4). The shaft protrudes outwards an additional 14mm (1.4-inches). It’s unlikely that anyone would fit a larger motor onto a dirt bike frame, but…if you want to look that up, the next size up in the QS catalogue is the 8,000W 171/100H (these numbers are the rotor size in millimeters (diameter/length), and in theory the bigger motor would be roughly 33mm larger in diameter than the 138/90H, and 10mm longer).
______________________________________________
Controllers
On the QS website, they will sell you a 138/70H or 138/90H motor paired with any one of four controller brands. The APT, Kelly, Sabvoton, or…models from their partner Votol. Most builds I’ve seen use the Votol due to it’s affordable price, and they have two amp levels available that are tuned to work well with these two 138-series motors. The EM-150, and the EM-200.
For this controller series, the numbers in their name are the amps of continuous current, and the US retailer stated that the EM-200 can provide a temporary peak of 250A. The EM-150 is well-suited to the 138/70H, and the EM-200 is a good size for the 138/90H motor (although, some builders have used the 138/70H with the larger EM-200 controller).
The relative size difference between the EM-200 on the left, with the EM-150 on the rightThe Votol EM-200, pic courtesy of Silent Enduro in Ukraine
In the pic above, the EM-200 uses 24 MOSFET’s, which would be 8.4 continuous amps per FET. The dimensions of the baseplate are 285mm X 168mm, the thickness is 70mm (11.2 X 6.6 inches, 2.8 ” thick). The capacitors are maxed at 90V, and a 72V / 20S battery charged to 4.2V per cell is 84V, so there is a 6V safety margin for voltage spikes.
If you go to the Votol.net website, they also have controllers that are smaller, like the EM-30 / EM-50 / EM-100, and also…an even larger model, the EM-300
To be fair, I did find a video of a QS 138 motor being driven by a Kelly QS-KLS-8430H controller, seen here:
______________________________________________
Electro-Braap
When researching for more info on QS motors and their dirt bike conversions, I found several builds that had gotten their swap kit from “Electro and Company”, who goes by the web-avatar “Electro-Braap” on Facebook. They are located in Oakley, which is 51 miles east of San Francisco. You can get your questions answered on their Electro Braap facebook page (click here), or their Electro & Company website (click here).
Austin at Electro Braap verified that he keeps 10T and 11T sprockets in stock for #428 chain, on the motors they sell. They have recently ordered a large batch of #520 sprockets per customers request. Austin added that on the external jackshafts for the 90H, most builders have been using generic industrial components from McMaster-Carr.
______________________________________________
Whether you buy a turnkey dirt bike, or build an E-conversion, this last year has seen a huge bump in the number of people who have discovered electric dirt bikes. They are so quiet that they can be ridden anywhere, and their low-end torque numbers are phenomenal (don’t measure the electric motors’ power by the kW/horsepower, it doesn’t scale).
All that matters is the wheel-torque. To see what I mean, check out this video of a Kawasaki KX350 conversion with the QS 138/70H motor.
Riders of the popular Sur-Ron have said that it has the nimble lightness of a 125cc dirt bike, with the wheel-torque of a 250cc. The listed electric motorcycle horsepower numbers of all brands are ridiculously low for technical reasons, so the way to compare gassers to electrics is with the wheel-torque. That is the number one performance area where experienced riders say the E-motorcycles are clearly better.
When the flag drops, there is no clutch or shifting, and the electrics have full torque from the first RPM…Of course the low noise, and not needing a frequent top-end valve rebuild, clutch replacements, and oil changes is nice, too!
______________________________________________
How much can these motors do?
I found this youtube linked below, and at one point you can freeze the image and blow it up to see it’s a QS 138/70H “72V 3000W” with no gear reduction (he has small-diameter tires, so that’s OK). This isn’t a dirt bike, but I’m including this because he runs it at 96V and allows 250A peaks!
Brushless motors are very tolerant of a wide range of voltages, and the downside of adding more volts is finding the room to add more cells in series to raise the volts. The big amps using the Votol EM-200 have to be taken VERY carefully to ensure you don’t overheat the motor. In fact I would definitely pull the motor apart and add a heat sensor for a digital readout to warn me when I need to let things cool down a bit.
96V x 250A is 24,000W, which is a little nuts, but…an engineer from Zero told me that if you have enough power, the vehicle will accelerate so fast that you are not drawing max amps for very long.
A racing Kart converted to a QS 138/70H
The DIY battery pack is made from 26 BMW hybrid cells from a salvaged car wreck (26S). Full electric cars have a large pack so they can use cells that are optimized for long range, but a hybrid car has a gasoline engine along with a small battery pack, so the small pack must be able to provide full performance, which means hybrid cells are optimized for high amps without overheating.
The 96V of the pack is the nominal average voltage, and when fully charged to 4.1V per cell, its 107V, which is right at the edge of the voltage that the Votol controllers can use.
Back in March of 2017, we wrote about Denzel, and they were retailing electric bikes that are made by the Eastgem company in China. You might want to take a quick scan of that article before you move on to these new products (click here). Denzel is an unusual company in that they are fairly large, and big enough that they have survived several years of ups and downs, but they do not have a large presence in North America.
This is the first time I have taken a look at them since the 2017 article, and the reason is their new “GB200” motor/gearbox/and clutch combination, shown in the header pic above. They do now have a US distributor, along with distributors in Australia, China, and Russia (Click here). I’ve contacted their Connecticut USA office to get more information, and I will report back when they reply.
_______________________________________________
Why a Transmission?
Here’s why. To lower the amps you need for a given speed, and possibly reduce the size of the motor needed to accomplish the job
This seems to be a perennial question that never goes away. When the Tesla EV car company was designing their first roadster prototype, it started it’s development as a single motor with a conventional 2-speed automatic transmission. Halfway through the design process they changed the layout to a larger motor with no transmission, because a breakthrough in high-efficiency IGBT’s meant that their controllers could now flow more amps without overheating.
An IGBT is an “Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistor”. It performs the same function as the FET/Field Effect Transistors in electric bike controllers. Transistors were named for “transfer” and “resistor”. It is a variable resistor, and as you begin to apply a variable electro-magnetic field to the bridge material (like a capacitor), that substance becomes more conductive, allowing current to pass. FET’s and IGBT’s can be used in a variety of ways in electronic circuits, and here they are used as an on/off switch to send current to the coil-phases in the motor. FET’s are preferred in smaller devices and lower voltages and currents (along with very high switching cycles). There is some overlaps where one would be preferred over the other, but IGBT’s are for higher currents, higher voltages, and lower switching frequencies (click here for more babble like this). Be aware, I don’t really understand this, and I probably explained some of it wrong.
I am fortunate to have been able to discuss EV systems with Luke Workman (called “Live For Physics” on the web), and when he was a battery engineer for Zero electric motorcycles, he persuaded me that leaning towards lower volts and higher amps to arrive at a given power level is a viable option with distinct benefits. As an example, the current Zero motorcycles use only 104V nominal (28S), and over 400A peaks. The Tesla Roadster uses about 375V and puts out over 900A, so they use a similar V/A ratio.
The “now defunct” Alta motorcycle company went the other direction. They used a ratio of high-volts to low-amps, with a 350V nominal battery. “In theory”, you can get the same power either way, and as long as the “volts-times-amps” equals the same number of kilowatts, the results should be similar. Alta felt that there was a small benefit to their range and charging-speed due to the limited selection of available cells at the time, and also their lack of a battery cooling system. Tesla has a battery pack cooling system, and Zero uses the newest high-amp cells that don’t generate much heat in the first place.
I mention all these things because amps and “amp heat” are the main reasons mentioned in the past as to why someone would use a transmission on an electric motor. One example of using a transmission is Jack Knopf’s 1964 Chevelle (click here). Believe it or not, the EV drag-race governing body (NEDRA) has an EV class that is limited to using only 72V (among other classes). Back in 2006, Jack noticed that the times he saw posted were slower than he expected, and wondered if he could capture a trophy. He found an old Chevelle, and stripped as much weight off of it as he could. It already came with a Powerglide 2-speed automatic transmission, which was part of the reason he chose this particular car.
Jack Knopf’s record-holding electric 1964 Chevelle
When using 72V and roughly 4,000-Amps (equaling 192-kW) his best 1/8th mile time is 13 seconds to reach 50-MPH. That may not sound very impressive, but that Chevelle weighs 3,600-lbs, and he was limited to 72V! He credited the transmission with a major portion of the improved performance in this limited class. For years I have pondered a 2-speed transmission to provide a dual off-road/street range for a dual-purpose electric motorcycle, and I still think it may have some merit, by using a compact and strong 2-speed planetary gear-set, like the transmission for the Ford Model-T.
_______________________________________________
The Denzel Rush
It looks like…rather than develop the drive unit and then build an electric dirt bike around it, Denzel took an existing 200cc Chinese dirt bike and custom-modified the left side of the engine-case so that it could hold an electric motor. Having a mould made to die-cast half an engine-case can be expensive, but it’s actually not too difficult. Part of the reason I believe this is…because the transmission has 4-speeds, which is common on a gasoline dirt bike like this, and that is a lot more gears than you would ever really “need” if it was designed from the ground up to be an electric dirt bike.
The Denzel “Rush”
Some electric “trials” riders have stated that they would actually prefer having a standard clutch, but none of them wanted any gears, opting instead for a speed-reduction on the motor, along with only a one speed drive-line to the rear wheel.
Here is an article we wrote about Rich Benoits EV hot rod (click here), and he used a manual 3-speed transmission. The trans was dirt cheap from the salvage yards, but as he expected, he ended up only using two of the three gears. The first gear could easily provide smoky burnouts, but…for the fastest acceleration, he would start in 2nd gear rather than lose time by needing to shift twice instead of just once.
In fact, the 2020 AWD electric Porsche Taycan uses a 2-speed automatic transmission on the rear axle. So…somebody out there thinks there are still situations where the expense, bulk, and complexity of using two gears is worthwhile. Click on the short video below to see how the GB200 system performs…
_______________________________________________
Alex Guliyants
Alex is the owner and chief designer for Denzel ebikes. Back in 2017, I had the pleasure of having an text-chat with him, in order to find out more information. He grew up in the beautiful region around the city of Kislovodsk, near the southern border of Russia, between the Black sea and the Caspian sea, and on the north slope of the Caucasus mountains. Once he got into designing and selling electric bikes, he moved to where the action was, in China.
Now, Alex is expanding his company into motorcycles, so lets take a look at this integrated 4-speed module.
The right side of the “engine case”, showing the conventional mass-produced clutch
The pic above is the right side of the drive case assembly, and it appears to be the same as you would expect from any mass-produced gasoline dirt-bike, and that further suggests that only the left side of the engine case had to have an optional electric version, to produce the Denzel Rush E-dirtbike.
Three hall sensors on the green round circuit-board, and the black magnetic disc held by his fingers for the rotor-position encoder.
In the pic above, this is the left side of the engine case, with the whole assembly flipped upside down. The motor drives an oil-bath reduction gear and the wet-clutch first, then the clutch drives the 4-speed gear-box and output sprocket.
The left side of the Denzel Rush engine case, with motor and 4-speed gearbox exposed.
In the pic above, we can see that the motor is an inrunner. Eight magnets on the rotor, and 12 stator-teeth. The magnets are “surface mount” instead of being inset slightly into the lamination stack. Zero motorcycles moved to a “Interior Permanent Magnet / IPM” arrangement a few years ago. Moving to a more modern IPM rotor allows the magnets to run cooler, by moving them a bit farther away from the magnetic eddy-currents around the air-gap between the rotor and stator. This in turn allows the motor to use higher peak amps when accelerating, without fear that the temp sensor would limit the amps right when you want them the most.
This suggests that the stator and rotor are off-the-shelf mass-produced units, rather than using a brand new motor design. Doing this saves a LOT of development and production costs, allowing the product price to remain as low as possible. I can imagine that this also helps Denzel expand into motorcycles with much less risk.
Back in 2011, Brammo tried the same thing (click here) when they took a existing gasoline engine case and adapted an electric motor onto it with the stock clutch and 6-speed transmission. The designer felt that there were many motorcyclists that would feel more comfortable transitioning to an electric version if it had a familiar clutch and transmission “experience”. Brammo was bought-out by Harley Davidson, but the 6-speed transmssion did allow Brammo to use a smaller motor than the large Motenergy 75-7…which the successful Zero company is currently using with it’s one-speed drivetrain.
As a final note, the aluminum case and oil-bath would both help to absorb heat from the motor during temporary high peak amp-loads, and then shed that heat to the outside air. Although it’s passive (no pump or radiator), this electric motor can be considered liquid-cooled. Although lube-oil is not common as the main coolant on most drivetrains, Suzuki did this with great success on several models of gasoline engine (click here). So using lube-oil as coolant does work.
_______________________________________________
Conclusion?
This is just my opinion, but…if the price is cheap enough, the Denzel “Rush” dirt bike will sell just fine anywhere that other competitors can’t get product shipped to them in that location. That being said, Denzel is also selling the “engine case” with it’s clutch and 4-speed as a separate DIY unit, which has been a common theme in Asia for converting gasoline vehicles to electric.
The one place where I would actually like this combination of a motor and 4-speed trans is…for a conversion of a mid-sized gasoline quad/ATV. There are millions of old ones in the USA from Honda/Yamaha/Kawasaki/etc. I live in Kansas, and as much as some of the local teens use quads as a fun toy, the ranchers here use them as a serious piece of farm equipment. There are two ways in which an EV-quad can be better than gas. First is that gasoline engines (especially old and worn ones) can be difficult to start and run when they are super cold in the winter. Electric vehicles in Scandinavia have shown that owners there appreciate this easy-start feature (although the battery pack must be insulated and have a small heating pad installed).
Ranchers often tow stuff, like trailers with cargo, and also getting fallen trees out of the road. Yeah, I want a 4-speed for that.
An electric conversion of a Yamaha Quad/ATV. These are easier to convert than a motorcycle
The second way in which an electric Quad can be better, is that a 48V / 52V ebike battery can run a 110V/220V AC-inverter, plus an ATV conversion would have a fairly large battery pack. This transforms the ATV into a rolling mobile power station. There are dozens of youtubes about converting an ATV to electric, so this is not a new idea, and it is well-proven. I haven’t converted a motorcycle or ATV yet, but the ATV looks like it would be MUCH easier to adapt to an electric drivetrain, compared to a motorcycle.
_______________________________________________
Zero and Sur-Ron “Crate Engines”
If the conversion scene interests you, but you want a larger single-speed motor with no transmission, you’re in luck. The Zero motorcycle company expanded a while back into selling matched motor/controller/battery kits for the DIY crowd, and I recently saw that Sur-Ron has also made a single-motor kit, along with a dual-motor unit to increase copper mass, rather than retailing a larger motor.
The Sur-Ron SP180-C2 “dual motor” kit, designed to run on 60V, and up-gradable to 72V
If the Denzel GB200 “kit” with it’s motor, clutch, and 4-speed gearbox still interests you, Denzel recommends their 72V / 275A controller to run it. That equals 19,000W / 19-kW, but there’s no third-party testing data available yet as to how this combo handles 275A peaks…It might handle more, and it might handle less. I guess we’ll see.
_______________________________________________
The Denzel Cafe Racer
I’m just throwing this in for fun. There’s not enough info for it’s own article, but Denzel has made at least one prototype of a cool retro electric cafe racer, to test customer response. I like it, and if anyone gave me the opportunity, I’d definitely want to take it on a road trip…
Back in October of 2019, we saw that the “mini-bike” style of frame was really catching on, and we high-lighted 10 models so readers could see if one of them suited what they might want (to read that article, click here). A lot of riders began calling them “taco” bikes, because they are very popular near the beaches in Southern California, and it’s the kind of frame where you can cruise along the beach-front with a taco in one hand.
Most of them had a solid frame and fork to keep the initial price as affordable as possible. However, as soon as they began catching on, most companies offered a suspension fork as an upgrade, which is very easy to do. I wondered how long it would be until someone went to the time and effort to provide a rear suspension, which is much more involved and more expensive.
Speaking of the higher price, even if several companies offered a “full suspension” taco bike, we had no way of knowing if enough customers would pay the higher price for this option to survive in the manufacturers catalogue. Well, the news is finally in, and it’s all good news. Taco bikes are selling well enough that every possible option is selling briskly.
As of November 2021, you can’t buy one of these quite yet, and I’m putting it first because it’s a pretty good-looking example.
Sondors Madmods
Rather than only using the common round tubing to make the frame, Sondors is using hydroformed tubing, which allows the manufacturer to create interesting shapes in the tubing. The price is currently listed at $2700, but you have to deposit $300, and wait until they arrive…whenever that is…
We’ve been fans of Tora Harris over at Juiced Bikes for a long time. He jumped onto the Taco bike bandwagon like so many others, but…he then decided to offer an optional dual-battery set-up. The stock pack is 52V and 19.2-Ah of range, and with the dual pack option, it’s a massive 39.4-Ah of range
The Hyper Scrambler 2
The list price today is $2800 for the single battery model, and the dual pack is $3300. Concerning the cast wheels, some people love them and others don’t love them, but…one thing is undeniable, cast wheels mean you never have to worry about spokes getting loose and needing to be tightened and the wheels trued-up.
The Cirkit LV2 is very heavy-duty, and is made by “Le Bui”, in Indonesia (it’s a group of large tropical islands in South-East Asia). The base model shown below is a geared rear hubmotor, but they appear to have other motor options. They are most famous for their hot rod off-road ebike, the “911 Adventure”
The Circkut LV2, from Le Bui
An interesting feature of the Cirkit LV2 is that it has an idler sprocket built into the swingarm pivot. This eliminates the need for a chain tensioner, and it’s a very upscale feature. The bikes are built to order, and they can take as long as 90 days to arrive, but…so far, all customers who have bought one have received their ebike.
The Cirkut LV2 from Le Bui, ebike shown has the large DD 5,000W motor option. Pic courtesy of Ed Vining
I’m giving these guys two pics in this article because they are total bad-asses and they deserve some recognition.
The Challenger is the latest addition to the Biktrix catalogue. It is one of the more affordable options at $1700
The Biktrix Challenger
This model provides the US-legal 750W in a light geared rear hubmotor. This price is for a “pre-sale”, and the first deliveries are scheduled for December 2021 (in one month from now).
The Ariel Rider company has two full suspension models with this frame. The “X-Class” has a single geared rear hubmotor, with either a 48V or 52V battery.
The one that really caught my eye was the “Dual Motor” AWD Grizzly. Whether it’s a sandy beach, a snow-covered field, or for off-road…AWD provides a capability that you just can’t get any other way. It also has the option for a dual-battery, to make sure you have an extra-long range available.
The Ariel-Rider Grizzly
These features come at a price. The 52V single-motor X-Class is currently $2200, and the dual-motor Grizzly is listed at $3100
The taco bikes shown before have handlebars with a small rise on them, which allows you to ride with a more relaxed upright posture. The Onyx comes stock with a lower handlebar set, and it looks a little like a “scrambler” style of motorcycle.
The Onyx RCR
If there is nothing else in the picture for scale, looks can be deceiving. The tires are 17-inch moped rubber, with a 2-3/4 wide tire. The 17-inch moped rims are heavy-duty, and are equivalent to 24-inch bicycle wheels. This places the size of the RCR at just a hair bigger than some of the other taco bikes here.
What the Onyx RCR really has going for it is…POWER. The rear hubmotor is a beefy direct-drive 205/50H from QS, and the power system feeds it 72V X 200A = 14,000W
If your sole criteria for a taco-bike frame is that it is a full-suspension, the Super-73 line has several models, from $3,000 to $4500, depending on options.
Coast Cycles has a “pedal only” version (acoustic?) called the Buzzraw, and the Buzzraw-X is their electric line. It has a very wide range of options and accessories. If you just want the bare full-sus frame for a custom build, it listed at $1470, and the turn-key electric bikes with this frame are $3600-$4200, depending on the options you choose (hubmotor or BBS02 mid-drive…250W/750W/1,000W).
I had a gasoline “mini bike” with a lawn mower engine when I was a kid, and that was one of the most exciting memories I have from my childhood. When taco bikes first came out, they immediately caught my eye. Two thoughts immediately occurred to me. I don’t know if customers will like these enough for them to stay around, and…the upright posture could really use a rear suspension.
Having choices is a good thing, and I’m glad these are available. Ride safe, my friends, and…have fun!
Leafbike has been producing a direct drive hubmotor that has earned a place of respect with electric bike enthusiasts, and I decided it’s time to explain why it keeps beating the competition in this size range. So, lets take a look…
The thing that makes this model special is the extra-thin 0.35mm laminations in the stator-core, and I’ll get to that in just a bit. But first…I’d like to talk a little about the popularity of direct drive hubmotors in this size range. The most affordable ebike kits are the so-called 1000W direct drive hubmotors. They typically have a stator using the common 205mm diameter laminations, and then then hubmotor manufacturers stack them to make the motor wider if you want more power. There are common hubmotors advertised as 1000W, 1500W, and 3000W which all share the same laminations. This commonality of parts makes these laminations more affordable due to mass production.
Once the width of the lamination stack is assembled, the manufacturer wraps copper wires around each lamination stack “tooth” to make the electromagnets that are turned on and off to spin the motor. The popularity of the 1500W size is due to the fact it is the widest hubmotor that still allows a common bike frame with 135mm wide dropouts to use a common and affordable 7-speed freewheel.
This also means that the 1500W size looks almost identical to the common 1000W size externally. The really fat monster QS 205/50H only leaves enough room for a single-speed sprocket, which makes it’s powerful width even more conspicuous.
The cheapest hubmotors labelled “1000W” typically have a 28mm wide stator. Most Chinese DD hubs that are labeled 1500W have a stator and magnets that are roughly 35mm wide. Pic courtesy of Neptronix.
Years ago, when someone who was new to ebikes bought a cheap 1,000W direct drive (DD) hubmotor, they often fell in love with it, but…they wanted more power. Simply adding a more powerful controller and battery usually ended up with a fried motor. So…they went back to the internet and bought a larger Crystalyte H35. The “35” in the name is because the rotor magnets have a “Height” of 35mm, and as a result, the matching lamination stack is also 35mm wide. The 1000W hubmotors typically only had a 28mm wide stator.
These 35mm wide stator-motors performed just fine when you limited them to the nominal 1500W, but…their performance was outstanding if you doubled that for a few seconds for a burst of acceleration using 3,000W.
_________________________________________________
Thin Laminations
The real magic is in the thin laminations. It sounds odd that a slightly thinner lamination could have a big effect, but it does. What’s even stranger is that it costs less than $10 per motor to switch from the common 0.50mm laminations to the thinner 0.35mm ones, and yet…they are not as common as you might imagine.
Here, you can see the copper windings around the stator teeth, and the thin steel sheets that are called laminations. Pic courtesy of Neptronix
This affects a phenomenon called “eddy currents”. When a magnet passes over a ferrous material (like the iron in the steel laminations), some of the electrons in the iron molecules are pulled and shoved around by the magnetic field of the magnets. After the electromagnets are tuned off and the permanent magnets have passed over, those loose electrons go back to any nearby imbalanced iron molecules. The longer a distance that they travel back and forth, the more heat they generate. Using thinner laminations limits how far the eddy currents can travel.
This graphic shows the “Eddy Current” path of loose electrons when a magnetic field is induced to temporarily convert the steel to an electromagnet. A stack of thin sheets runs cooler than a solid bar.
Because of this, the Leafbike hubmotors are listed as having a 90.5% efficiency, which is better than average. Years ago, I though a few more percentage points of efficiency meant that a given motor might provide a little more range from the same battery, so…I didn’t really care about that. Then, I found out that those few percentage points of efficiency meant that the less efficient motor was converting more battery watts into waste-heat. As a result, fewer of your battery watts were converted into work. The Leafbike 1500W hubmotor being able to take high power while producing less waste-heat is where the magic is.
So, how much power can the Leafbike 1500W really take? Electric bike kits from China are frequently found to have wildly inaccurate power ratings. Some are down-rated to make a powerful component seem legal, and others are over-rated to impress buyers with how powerful they are. Based on several years of ebike hot-rodders using this hubmotor, I can confidently say that 50V X 30A is it’s constant rating, meaning that…if you load it down enough to continuously draw 1500W, it will not burn up.
If you’ve read many of the articles we’ve written in the past, you’ll know that a hubmotor’s temporary peak rating is usually twice the continuous power level. This means I’m rating this motor as being capable of 3,000W for quite a bit of time before you have to let off the power and let it cool down some. That’s pretty nuts for a hubmotor that’s not very large or heavy. It gets even crazier if you read the next section below on heat shedding mods…
_________________________________________________
Getting Rid of the Heat
Somewhere around 3,000W @ 60A, this motor reaches saturation. This means that if you add more amps above that, you will get a little more power, but no where as much as when you are using a lower power level. The amount of copper mass in a 35mm wide stator can take 30A all day, but somewhere around 60A the heat really starts to increase a lot per additional amp. If you occasionally hit this motor with 60A, you might not want to do that for very long. It will drain your battery fast, and it will “heat soak” the stator windings, because you are also exceeding this motors ability to shed heat.
Here is an example of ventilated side plates on a Crystalyte H35. The stator is red because it’s been sealed with a preservative to prevent rust. Pic courtesy of GCinDC.
A few years ago there were a lot of experiments about how to help these hubmotors shed more heat. The most simple and obvious method was to cut large holes in the side-plates. If you added a temp sensor to the stator (highly recommended for all hot-rodded hubmotors), That would tell you when you were approaching a danger zone where the heat might damage the stator. This kind of modification allowed you to use 60A more frequently, and for longer amounts of time for each time that you hit it.
However, cutting large holes in the side-plates allows dirt to get into the inside of the motor, which can damage the axle bearings, among other things. Doing this still works for a short-term race, but it’s not a solution I recommend for long-term commuting. If you want to keep the hubmotor shell sealed-up, the remaining options are…adding ATF, upgrading to a cast aluminum stator core, or adding ferro-fluid (FF).
_________________________________________________
ATF, Cast Aluminum Core, or Ferro-Fluid?
Although the sideplates of a DD hubmotor are aluminum (which is known to absorb and shed heat well), there is an air-gap between the hot electromagnets in the stationary stator and the spinning permanent-magnet rotor. If you add about a small coffee-cups worth of synthetic Automatic Transmission Fluid (ATF) to the inside of the hubmotor, this fluid spreads out as soon as the motor starts spinning, and it fills that air-gap. This provides a path to speed up the heat in the stator reaching the aluminum side-plates, so the heat can be shed to the outside air.
This is good for high-amp performance, but it comes at a price. No matter how well you try to seal up the side-plates, the ATF will occasionally leak out and drip, or worse it will be flung onto the rear brakes. Testing has even verified that when the core of the motor is heating up and cooling off it causes the motor to “breathe” through tiny air-gaps in the copper wire strands in the motor phase wires, so…you must also add a small vent to a side-plate to prevent pressure differences. Adding ATF is like the ventilation-holes we talked about before…good for a race, but not worth it for a long-term street-fighter.
Here’s a hubmotor with the cast aluminum support. These cost more, and they are heavier than the common stamped-steel support. This is a MXUS 3000W, with a 45mm wide stator
And this brings us to the option of using a cast aluminum stator core instead of a thin steel stamped plate. Of course the cores of the individual stator electromagnets are still stacks of this laminated steel sheets, but between the axle and the electromagnets there needs to be some support structure. I bought a hubmotor once with a cast aluminum core, and it worked as advertised. The thick aluminum mass absorbed heat-spikes from temporary high amps, and then shed that heat over time when I was cruising along at my top speed. Hard acceleration draws high amps, but maintaining speed actually draws very few amps by comparison.
So, why isn’t that what I’m recommending? It works and there’s nothing wrong with it. The cast aluminum core was first seen on the large motorcycle hubmotors, like the QS 205/50H. Due to popular demand, even the mid-sized hubmotors have had this option added to their catalog. The MXUS 3000W can be purchased either way, with a core of stamped steel or cast aluminum. The bottom line is that the cast aluminum stator core is more expensive, and heavier.
Here is an unspoked Leafbike 1500W 205/35H motor at 7.4kg (16.3 lbs). Pic courtesy of briangv99
When an electric motorcycle is using 8,000W or more, a few extra pounds or kilos of weight in the motor isn’t that noticeable, but…the Leafbike 1500W really shines when its used in a fairly light downhill bicycle frame due to its reasonable weight, and exceptional power.
And this brings us to the final option, which is the one I recommend. Adding Ferro-Fluid (FF) means that you have dramatically improved this motors heat-shedding ability, and that means you can use 3,000W or 60A very frequently, and for surprisingly long stretches.
_________________________________________________
Ferro-Fluid and the Leafbike hubmotor
FF was developed to help the magnets in high-performance music speakers to shed heat, which allowed smaller speakers to be driven to a louder sound level. It doesn’t run out through tiny gaps in hubmotors because it sticks to magnets, like the permanent magnets in the rotor of an ebike hubmotor.
This is Ferro-Fluid. Notice how it’s sticking to the magnets, instead of running off. Pic by spinningmagnets. And yes, I could have been a glamorous hand-model, but I have have given up fame and fortune so I can write articles for you guys.
We wrote about FF in 2017 (to see that article, click here), and after several years of hot-rodders using it, no downsides have been discovered. This stuff works. It was so popular, we also wrote an installation guide in 2018 (to see that article, click here). Using FF means you can have the lighter version of a hubmotor, while still having the high peak power potential.
_________________________________________________
Why not 72V?
Running the Leafbike motor at 72V can be done (20 cells in Series / 20S), and that does provide more power with no additional heat. However I am a big fan of 48V or 52V for ebikes. This is a much safer voltage range to work with, the batteries are cheaper, and there is a better selection of batteries.
On a side-note, if you ever have a power outage, the inverters that are labeled as 48V-input will accept both 13S and 14S battery packs for the input (48V and 52V). This means that these large electric bike batteries can power an inverter to provide 120V AC in an emergency.
If you read our article on understanding motor terms (to read that article, click here), this size of motor can have the option of several different windings, called a motors “Kv”. This affects how many RPM’s you will get per volt that you apply to the motor.
Since all these different Kv options use the same stators, they all have the same amount of airspace around each stator-tooth. This means that the coils can be made from many wraps of thinner wire, or fewer wraps of thicker wire. Since the faster Kv motors (lower turn-count) use fatter wire, they have less resistance, even if you only use half of their higher speed potential. Listed below are the turn-counts available from Leafbike. I recommend the 4-Turn, even if you don’t actually travel at that high of a top-speed. The top road-speeds listed below are for a 26-inch wheel and a 2-inch tire.
Leafbike calls the 4T model their “45 MPH” Kv winding, but that speed is with the motor unloaded and spinning in the air.
_________________________________________________
A Cargobike Proposal
I occasionally get asked what about what type of system is the most reliable. My favorite ebike is a mid-drive, but I have to admit that the simplicity of a DD hubmotor is hard to beat. And one more way that you could make it climb hills better with less heat is to lace it to a smaller rim, like a strong 20-inch BMX rim. This lowers the top-speed, and increases the wheel torque, without any other changes.
This is an Extracycle Edgerunner, a longtail cargobike with a 20-inch rear wheel that would be perfect for a Leafbike 1500W hubmotor. The Yuba Sweet Curry frame is also similar with a 20-inch rear wheel.
_________________________________________________
What Controller?
If you are a longtime hot-rodder, you don’t need any advice from me about controllers. However, if you are fairly new to the ebike game, I would definitely recommend that you stick with the factory controller and throttle for your first time around (also, get a spare throttle for troubleshooting, they are cheap). This guarantees that the components are all plug and play. A sine-wave controller would cost slightly more, but would run nearly silent. The affordable stock controllers use a “trapezoidal wave” which is sometimes called a square-wave, and they have a slight buzzing noise when accelerating.
I have found the Leafbike website to be a bit awkward to navigate, but the standard controller for the Leafbike 1500W kit is a 40A unit using 12-FETs, but…they do stock an 18-FET controller that is rated for 55A. If you want the larger controller, search for:
Here’s how a spoked hubmotor arrives. Pic courtesy of Allex, in Sweden
In the pic below, we can see the Leafbike uses the common size and shape of lamination with 51 stator teeth. It’s 3-phase, so 17 electromagnets per phase. The rotor has 46 neodymium permanent-magnets, so when programming a custom controller you would input 23 “pole pairs” (they alternate the north and south facing the stator). A radial outrunner with three Hall sensors so the controller knows the position of the rotor as it spins. A beefy thick axle.
The black plate in the center is the thin stamped-steel stator support. The phase wires are a thick 3mm-squared in cross-section area. It actually “looks like” dozens of other hubmotor models, but this pic doesn’t show that the laminations are 0.35mm thick, instead of the common thicker 0.50mm. That is where the efficiency and low heat come from.
As far as the battery, if you don’t have a preference, I recommend the 52V Luna Cycles Wolf pack. If you like this option, specify the power version that can put out 50A.
The Luna Cycle Wolf Pack is potted in resin for the best waterproofing and impact-resistance. You can get it in clear resin or black.
I went to the Interbike convention back in 2015 (to see that article, click here), and that was the first year I saw manufacturers advertising fat tires in a variety of sizes, including 20-inch. Until then, there had only been 26 x 4-inch tires for a while, and everyone was still wondering if they were going to catch on, or just be another fad that died out.
_______________________________________________
Back in 2019, we wrote about the “Taco Bike” Phenomenon (to see that article, click here), and then we updated the info on that scene when we listed new taco bikes with full suspension (to see that article, click here). One feature that these designs share is the small-diameter fat tire. I’d like to think I’m pretty good at identifying new trends that are about the gain popularity, but I have to confess that I thought American ebike buyers would not be interested in ebikes with these 20-inch fatties.
That doesn’t mean I didn’t like them, I do! It’s just that businesses have to be careful about risking large blocks of capital on buying 100 units, and then they only sell two or three of them.
For instance, in China, there is a style of ebike that is very popular. It “looks like” a moped, and it uses lead-acid batteries. Every time they have been tried in the US, they have failed. Even though they have pedals, they look like a light motorcycle with a step-through frame, and they get hassled by the police (click here for an example).
The Luna Cycle Banana ebike, with a BBSHD mid drive
I have to confess that I also didn’t foresee the Taco bikes catching on as well as they did, but they have proven to be very popular. I’ve been informally polling ebikers every chance I get, and one trend I have seen in common with taco ebike owners is that many of them were not previously “bicycle people” or even previous ebike owners.
For years, the first ebikes I saw being marketed in the US were already being produced for the European market. They were low-powered 250W ebikes that “looked like” a pedal bicycle, and I must also add that they clearly made efforts to hide the fact that they were an ebike at all. It was as if their governments had conceded to allow the public to add a small boost for hills, but “not too much”. Plus the governments and also the ebikers wanted to blend-in, instead of stand out.
The federal legal power limit in the US for street ebikes was 750W (roughly one horsepower) and I was disappointed at how long it took for US retailers to sell an ebike that was actually capable of 750W. When using 750W, it’s not horrible to use a hubmotor for flat land, but for hills you really need either more power, or you need to give the motor the use of the bikes gears, and this was the driving reason behind the early popularity of the BBS02 in 2015
At the time I clearly remember thinking how insane it was to be trying to sell 36V hubmotors that had 500W, and were overheating on hills…when mid-drives existed and could be run at 48V for a true 750W.
I’m getting a little off on a tangent, but I said those things in order to say this…a lot of customers who don’t have a history with ebikes or pedal-bicycles are coming into the ebike world now, and they simply don’t care if the ebike they buy looks like a lightweight pedal bicycle (with a hidden motor to blend-in) and, they don’t care if it has “normal sized” tires. Many of them don’t already have friends with an ebike, and they are feeling no peer pressure to buy an ebike that “fits in” with their group.
_______________________________________________
Pedego Element
The first pic I’m posting here is the Pedego Element, simply because they have a great picture on their website that shows the uncommon proportions of an adult on a small ebike with fat 20-inch tires. It uses a Bafang 750W 48V geared hubmotor.
The Pedego Element
If you add suspension components, it can make the ebike heavier and more expensive, so…a solid frame that is made from aluminum can be compact, light, and affordable. A fat tire is not a proper “suspension” but…when you run it at medium pressures, it can really soften the ride and soak up the irregularities on the road. My favorite personal ebike uses 3-inch tires (mid-fat?). I must caution the readers that if you run a fat tire with the pressure too low, it can make the handling very “squishy” on turns, and I have wiped out once on a curve because of it.
A 20-inch fat tire and wheel are lighter than they look, and they are certainly much lighter and more compact that a full-sized 26 x 4-inch wide tire and wheel.
If the solid frame of a Pedego Element appeals to you, I can highly recommend a suspension seat-post to absorb shocks from unexpected potholes. (to read our article on those, click here). I have owned a Thudbuster and also a Suntour NCX, and I can enthusiastically recommend either one of them as a big benefit to the comfort of a ride on bumpy streets.
_______________________________________________
Juiced Rip Racer
We have been fans of Tora Harris and his company “Juiced Bikes” for a long time. Several ebike companies in the US have closed their doors over the last decade, and we are happy that he survived.
The Juiced Bikes Rip Racer
Juiced also offers a different shape of frame with 20-inch fat tires called the Hyper Scorpion, but that’s in the Taco Bike article listed earlier. They also use a popular Bafang geared hubmotor at 750W, using 48V.
_______________________________________________
Luna CyclesEclipse
Luna Cycle is located in Southern California, and they always seem to be one step ahead of the trends that end up being popular across the US. They were an early promoter of powerful ebikes, and lowering the prices on the most popular features. Their “Taco Bike” is the popular Luna Banana, and their newest 20-inch wheeled ebike with fat tires that is “not a Taco bike” is the Luna Eclipse.
The Luna Eclipse, a folding ebike with 20-inch fat tires.
Luna has decided to add a couple of features to their offering. They chose a folding frame, and full suspension too. I can see this ebike becoming very popular with RV owners, aircraft, boats, and also 18-wheel truck drivers. This model is offered with a black frame, or the clear-coat aluminum shown above. This may even prove to be popular for apartment-dwellers who can’t leave their ebike outside, and don’t have a garage…
Another reason I believe this model will be popular with owners is that is uses a Gates belt-drive, instead of a chain. Chains need to be adjusted as they wear, plus they really do need to be oiled occasionally. The Gates belt is initially more expensive than a chain, but it lasts many times longer than the several chains you would have to buy without the belt. You also might not think that the lack of an oily chain would be a big deal, but many customers are really responding to the convenience and lack of oil-stains of the Gates belt.
This will sound like an advertisement, but Luna is marketing this at only $1,395, which is a good price for any reliable ebike, that doesn’t even have these features, which is an exceptional deal.
_______________________________________________
Rad Power RadRunner Plus
Rad Power’s headquarters are located in Seattle, Washington. They are going with a generic style of step-through frame, but I am happy to see that they are using a fully-welded cargo rack, instead of something that was clamped on as an optional accessory.
The Rad Power RadRunner
Rad Power is committing to stocking a wide variety of accessories for this cargobike, and I think that will work well for them. It was a very successful strategy for the full-sized Yuba Mundo cargobike, but the RadRunner is shorter and lighter than the Yuba, so I am certain it will find quite a few buyers.
_______________________________________________
KBO Ranger
I recently stumbled across the KBO Ranger, and they look like they will likely do OK with the American public. They have optional floorboards and various other cargobike accessories that can be added to customise it. They are using the popular Bafang 750W 48V system (I’m starting to see a trend here). Their website can be found by clicking here.
The KBO Ranger
I remain a fan of the Yuba Mundo, but it is definitely a “full sized” cargobike. These mid-length cargobikes retain the functionality of having a well designed child-seat and other popular accessories, but they are shorter and lighter than the “Big Momma’s”.
_______________________________________________
Himiway Escape pro
It’s hard to find out information about Himiway. Their US headquarters are in Brea, southern California. They have been around just long enough that I feel OK adding them to this list. They have a warehouse in the US (El Monte, So California), Canada, (Aurora, Ontario), and one in Germany for the EU market. That being said, you can order an ebike on their website, and they ship it direct to your house.
The “California Scooter Company” decided to jump on the 20-inch fat tire bandwagon, and the frame they chose is the classic BMX shape, and they are including a front suspension.
The CSC XP750-20
_______________________________________________
As I mentioned before, I like these smaller fat tires. They do seem to be very polarizing, because the pedal bicyclists who never liked electric bicycles in the first place will sneer at these even worse, claiming they are heavy and inefficient to pedal. That being said, I have had a crash on more than one occasion from the skinny front tire on my bicycle slipping on angled railroad tracks that crossed a street I was on, or a sewage grate that had slots which ran the same direction as my wheel. Of course, fat tires just glide over these kinds of traps.
This is not a comprehensive list, it’s just some info so that if these kinds of wheels and tires appeal to you, I want you to know that you are not alone, and there is a growing selection of frames and features that are available.
Karl from electric-fatbike.com had an article on how he found a fat tire frame he really liked (26 x 4-inch) for his hooning around the countryside when it was snowing, and he discovered he could simply swap the wheels for a 29’r set with 2.5-inch tires, which worked better for his summer riding down single-track trails. I don’t know what parts would allow that on these 20-inch fattie frames, but…I can see the benefit of a 2WD fat tire set in the winter, and instead of buying a second completely different frame and battery to ride in the summer, you could swap-in a more appropriate set for summer riding.
If I see anyone who has done that, I’ll post the pics and details here. Have fun, and ride safe…
Harley Davidson decided to commission a line of electric bicycles a while ago, and I decided it was about time to write about them. A few years ago, they designed an electric motorcycle that they called the “Live Wire” and it was styled as a heavy road cruiser, similar to their main product line. I’m sure they felt they understood that market, but they have also behaved in a way that revealed they understood that they would be fighting an uphill battle when it comes to EV’s.
Everything in their research data showed that most of their customers are older, and that for them to grow over the next decade or two, they would need to appeal to a younger audience. They had previously designed a gasser sportbike called the V-Rod, with an engine designed by Porsche, to address the concerns that Harleys are not nimble or quick. It “did” appeal to some younger riders, but it has not sold in the numbers they wanted, to reach their goals.
Harley spent a ton of money promoting their new electric motorcycle called the “Live Wire”, and yet, it too did not sell well, or to a younger set of riders. The styling appealed to the older set, but the older riders generally wanted to stick with Harley’s gas engines. This year, they dramatically changed the styling of the Live Wire, and also changed the physical design.
The first version had a longish cylindrical motor at the bottom of the frame, running length-wise. It drove a 90-degree gearbox to convert the shaft to driving a belt that ran back to the rear wheel. In the pic below, you can see the new model has switched to a traverse motor-shaft, and a direct belt from the motor to the wheel.
The 2022 Live Wire, from Harley Davidson
I’m going through some background to help our readers understand some of Harley’s ebike choices. The goal for them is to show 20-somethings that a Harley ebike or electric motorcycle is something they should consider. Something Harley has been successful at in the past is marketing the Harley “lifestyle”, but…they have only been successful marketing to men in their 40’s and 50’s. It remains to be seen if they can convince young adults to pay a premium for the Harley name.
_______________________________________________
Serial-1 Ebikes
Harley is still trying to figure out how “connected” they want to be to their electric bikes. They don’t want to alienate their older core customers, because serving them has been very profitable. But somehow, they want to figure out how to also appeal to 20-somethings…
This reminds me of a time when the Toyota brand name was highly respected among middle-class car buyers, but their luxury models were not selling to their intended potential customers. Toyota created a new brand, called “Lexus”. The advertising and marketing were directed at upscale buyers, and it was a success. Harley is trying out the same trick, by forming a new “independent” company for electric bikes called “Serial 1”.
One piece of good news is that these bikes are manufactured in Taiwan, which can be considered the “not communist” Chinese. They are made by Giant, who is a respected manufacturer, and known for producing a quality product. That being said, many Harley Davidson fans are heavily invested in the “Made in America” mantra.
In this next block, I’ll cover the items that are common to all of the four models. These are all “pedal assist” which means there is no hand throttle. This is a very European feature, and it leaves your hands completely free to concentrate on steering and operating the front and rear brakes. To be clear, if you want to get any power, you have to pedal.
These four models all use the well-known Gates belt drive. These run very quietly, and when moving the bike around, you won’t get any oil on your leg, the way you would with a chain. If you ride a lot, the chain would wear, and need to be replaced. I mention this because the belt system will initially cost more, but it lasts much longer. The cost of several chains over time would eventually equal having a belt. However, these ebikes are being marketed at upscale prices, so this is a feature that these types of customers would expect.
The frames are hydroformed aluminum, along with an aluminum fork. This has a major impact on keeping the weight of the bike low, which is a recurring theme as we’ll see below. The hydroforming allows attractive and creative shapes, instead of just using cylindrical tubing, and I like it. Style-wise, I would have preferred for the top-tube and the seat-stays to follow a single curve, like the cruiser-bicycles that are often found at beaches. Even so, they look good.
The rear brake cable and shifter cables run through the inside of the frame. I’m sure that is a pain for the manufacturers, but I like it, and if I was paying premium prices, I’d want that included.
The kick-stand is mounted near the rear, which I like. Its a small preference, but when I need to walk an ebike backwards in the garage, some drivetrains force the pedals to move, and with the kickstand moved back a little, there is no interference with the pedals hitting the kickstand.
The brakes are 4-piston calipers from TRP (Tektro). Both of them are large 203mm diameter discs. I highly approve of the front discs being these impressive units, but I would actually prefer the rear discs being a little smaller, maybe 180mm. When braking, the riders weight and the weight of the bike will lean forward, and this reduces the traction on the rear tire. This means that the rear tire is the one that is most likely to skid and begin sliding sideways.
The possibility exists that the caliper on the back is down-sized to even-out that reaction, but the PR spec-data doesn’t detail that. The brake “feel” at the handle is a hard thing to quantify, and I haven’t ridden these yet.
The locking storage on the Serial-1 ebikes
Serial-1 has included an in-frame storage compartment on all of these models. It is specifically shaped and sized to fit a common model of ABUS lock. Even if you use a different lock, it’s always nice to see a lockable storage compartment.
In the pic below, all of these models come with an “Elevated Stay” where the chain-stay passes above the drive-belt. I like this, and I’m glad to see more frames using it. Doing this avoids needing to include a “frame break” to allow the one-piece belt to be installed and taken off. However, even if I was managing a fleet of chain-driven rental ebikes, I would still want an elevated stay to make life easier on the mechanics.
The elevated chain stay. The color is “Peacock Blue”, found on the Rush City / Speed
The wheels are all the 27.5 size, with a variety of tires listed below.
They all use the respected German “Brose” (BRO-suh) mid-drive, but I’ll get into that near the end.
_______________________________________________
Bash MTN
You can ignore the “Mountain” implication in the MTN name. This is a capable model, but it doesn’t have a front suspension fork for downhill, and it doesn’t have a rear suspension for jumps. Doing this keeps the bike lighter and simpler. The bars are narrow and flat, so I suppose this could be used as a gravel-bike, with the “semi offroad” tires that are 2.6 inches wide (mid fat?).
The Serial-1 Bash MTN, shown in Yucca Tan
Gravel bikes are a phenomenon that started in the mid-west, where the terrain is relatively flat, but in order to limit to spread of a wild-fire, the counties have created a pattern of gravel roads that cross the countryside. The tread on this ebike is just smooth enough to be usable on streets, but it also just knobby enough to allow light off-road use.
Since none of these have a suspension, it’s interesting that this is the one model that they added a Suntour NCX seatpost to it. I have had a Thudbuster and also a Suntour NCX, and I can enthusiastically endorse either one. To see our article on suspension seat-posts, click here.
Using fattish tires and adding a suspension seatpost, does not create a proper “suspension”. However…that is what I have on my most-often used ebike, and I like it. One thing I like about the tires in this thickness range is that when a car tries to kill me, I can bail out over the street curb to get to the sidewalk, and it doesn’t damage the rim. My NCX seatpost also helps to take the jolts out of an unexpected pothole or an emergency curb-jump.
This model is a single-speed, and the drive unit provides a lot of wheel-torque up to 20-MPH, which is surprisingly modest, since the street limit is 28-MPH in the US, and there is no power limit when off-road on private property. However, there is an ongoing struggle between pedal-bicyclists and electric mountain-bikers concerning public trails, and the 20-MPH limit does address that for “future proofing” this model.
This model is available in four frame sizes, called S, M, L, and XL (no size numbers in inches or millimeters are published yet, so you’d need to test-ride one at a dealer to see what fits…which is what they want)
The drive unit is the “Brose S Mag”, and the published torque is a respectable 90-Nm/66 ft. lb. It is advertised as 250W continuous (which normally would be pathetic) but it actually not too bad, with the reasons for that being listed near the bottom of this article.
The retail price is listed as $3,999. Whether or not it is worth that to have the Harley Davidson name, is a question that only you can answer.
_______________________________________________
Rush City / Speed
Right up front I want to say that this is the model I would pick if you were paying for it, and I got it for free. The Brose “TF” model provides decent wheel-torque all the way up to 28-MPH, which is the legal street limit in the US, where I live.
The Serial-1 Rush City / Speed
Upscale ebikes have a lot of details that are not obvious to the casual eye. Look at the head-badge in the picture above. The head-badge lights up, which is cool. The head-badge doesn’t provide much light to the trail, so there is an adequate headlight included on the handlebars. Lights are very important on a street ebike in order to be seen by car drivers, and any upscale ebike should have good lights that are cool looking, and integrated into the main battery.
The Serial-1 Rush City / Speed, with Enviolo CVT hub
In the pic above, you can clearly see the tail-lights. I’d like it if they also added a single bright tail-light near the seat for better visibility. It would not be difficult to add one, and I’m surprised they didn’t.
There are two “Rush City” models (The step-thru is below), and they are the Serial-1 ebikes that have gears. The rear hub is the smooth-shifting Enviolo Automatiq “intelligent” auto-shifting CVT hub. The Intelligent part is that it has an app that allows you to use your smart-phone to tell you the gear-range you are in, your speed, etc…also, it senses speed and load and then selects the gear for you.
The Rush City / Speed has the larger 703 Watt-Hour battery (compared to 529-WH), so the range would be longer, but be aware that both battery sizes are interchangeable. The way to tell them apart is that the smaller one is “banana-shaped” to follow the curve of the frame, and the larger one has a bump on it to house the extra cells.
The Schwalbe street tires are a comfortable 2.4-inches wide for a smooth roll, and I approve of these. The price is an eye-opening $5,599 retail, you would need to really want the Harley name on your ebike pretty bad, since this is the Stromer ST2 ebike price range. More expensive than the ST1, but cheaper than the ST3.
_______________________________________________
Rush City Step-Thru
A step-thru frame is typically marketed to women, and since this model is only available in the three smaller sizes listed (S, M, L), then this one looks to be no exception. The colors that this model is available in are Serene Blue with a black under-trim, or Black on Black.
The Serial-1 Rush City Step-Thru
Other than the lack of a top-tube on the frame and the color options, the differences between the Rush City Step-Thru and the previous Rush City / Speed are that…this one comes stock with the smaller battery at 529-WH, it has the motor drive that caps added power at 20-MPH, and as a result, the price is $500 less than the Rush City / Speed at $4999.
_______________________________________________
Mosh City
The features of this model are a mix of the previously-seen features.
The Serial-1 Mosh City
The color options are “Rowdy Blue” with black under-trim, or the black-on-black shown above. It uses the single-speed rear wheel like the Bash MTN, with the smaller 529-WH battery (lighter and less expensive).
It uses the fattest tires on any Serial-1 ebike at 2.8-inches, using a smooth-rolling street tread, and the drive unit caps the added power at 20-MPH.
To clarify, you can pedal as fast as you want, even past 30-MPH, but…if you want electric-assist power, this drive unit stops helping at 20. On the one hand, this does mean that using the pedal-assist-only system along with the speed cap will force you to have very good range, but…on the other hand…
This drive unit will make accelerating from a green light very easy, and it will help you tackle fairly steep hills as long as you pedal along. This is the most affordable of these four models at $3,799
_______________________________________________
Brose Drive Unit
Both of the Brose models used here have a magnesium housing for light weight. The difference between the TF and the S units is the top-speed, either 28-MPH for the TF, or 20-MPH for the S. Brose units with an aluminum housing were available, but Series-1 chose the more expensive magnesium shell to save weight.
They both provide a respectable 90-Nm/66 ft-lb of torque, which is very surprising since its advertised at a very modest 250W continuous. The way those clever Germans accomplished this was to make the rotor on this motor to spin at incredibly high RPM’s, and then find some way to package a gear reduction with a huge ratio.
The Brose mid-drive power unit.
There are two things about the pic above that I want you to take note of first. The motor configuration is an inrunner (the magnetic spinning rotor is in the center), with the hot outer stator being physically connected to the housing. This allows the housing to be a heat-sink, pulling the heat away from the motor and shedding it to the frame and the outside air.
The second thing to notice is that the side of the green circuit board of the controller that is facing us, has six shiny metal pads that would touch the inside of the housing once it it sealed up. You can’t see from this angle, but those are the mounts for the FETs on the other side, which control the motor. They are the hot part of a controller, and heat-sinking them to the housing is how it should be done. To see our article on understanding these 3-phase motors, click here.
Now, in the pic above, you can see that the motor drives a white plastic planetary gearset as the primary reduction. The gear-teeth are helical (angled) to help it run with less noise, and then the output of the planetaries drives a secondary reduction with a belt, seen below.
The right side of the Brose mid-drive power unit
I don’t know the ratio of the planetary reduction, but the pulley teeth are 65T : 22T for a ratio of 2.95 : 1
Inside the larger pulley of the secondary reduction, the engineers located the freewheel for the unit. It is a more complex and expensive sprag-clutch, instead of the more common pawls. This makes it more expensive, but it also runs smoother and quieter.
The pedal mounts on the spindle uses ISIS splines, instead of the cheaper tapered square shanks. This is also an upscale feature, that allows stronger mountain-bike cranks to be used.
I’m glad to see from the tear-down video linked below that the rotor uses the Interior Permanent Magnet / IPM configuration. This allows the rotor to spin to VERY high RPM’s, while avoiding any risk of the magnets coming loose, or the magnets overheating due to eddy-currents (see our motor article by clicking here)
Here is a mechanic’s tear-down tutorial for overhauling a Brose motor
Here is a one-minute animation of the drive unit’s internals
_______________________________________________
Battery
None of the Serial-1 literature specifies the voltage of the battery, but the well-known Specialized Turbo Levo also uses this drive unit, and it runs at 48V (typically 13 cells in series or “13S”). If that’s true I approve. In the early days of ebikes, some manufacturers tried to save some money by using 36V, but…the more volts you use, the fewer amps you need to use in order to reach your specified power level. The amps are where the heat is generated, and heat is the enemy.
The Series-1 battery cover with a water-proof on/off button and four LED level indicators. The frame color is Peacock Blue
The Serial-1 battery pack comes in two sizes, and the one shown above is the larger 706 Watt-Hour. You can tell that by the bump in the center, instead of the housing being shaped like a banana to follow the curve of the frame.
If we divide 703 and 529 Watt-Hours by 48V, then the amp-hours end up at 14.6-Ah, and 11.0-Ah, which is respectable. The interior details are not provided, but…since this drive can provide high-torque from low input watts, the cells are likely high-capacity cells so the packs can be as small as possible.
_______________________________________________
Conclusion
These ebikes are not bad, so lets compare it to the most powerful available. We wrote about the Bafang Ultra Max drive unit in 2019 (to see that article, click here), which puts out 160 Newton-meters of torque, and…it can draw 1500W watts to accomplish that, and it also uses a heavier motor. The Brose provides 90 Nm (70-Nm less), BUT…it accomplishes that at only a tiny 250W continuous. This efficiency helps these ebikes get a pretty good range on batteries that are fairly small and light.
The most popular mid drive in Europe is the Bosch unit, and it also provides 90-Nm at roughly 250W, so the Brose unit is designed to equal the current state-of-the-art expectations of European ebike riders.
These ebikes are good-looking and the name of Harley Davidson does hold some prestige for certain consumers. I’ve been waiting for reviews of test-rides from someone I trust, and I haven’t found any yet, but…I recently came across enough information that I felt it was time to write something down. If I find out anything more, I’ll post it here.
For anyone who is curious if I know anything about motorcycles, I got my M1 license in 1976.
I spend a lot of time on car blog sites which are frequented with comments like “I’ll never buy an electric car because it costs a bunch of money to put a charger in my home” or some such crap. I bought a Chevy Bolt for about 1/2 price in Jan of 2001 without any way to charge it at my wife’s house which is over an hour away from everything. This article is about how I dealt with having an electric car without ever installing a home charger and how more than 1/2 of the electricity I’ve put into it over the last 18 months has come from free sources (not my house). What does this have to do with ebikes? Pretty much nothing except I already wrote a long article on Anarchistic’s Guerrilla ebike charging about 6 years ago here. Things with electric cars are quite a bit different hence the new article and this article is for Gentlemen not Anarchists. Yup, you know who you are.
I love driving by the gas stations and not ever stopping
Quit whining about the price of gas and do something about it
First off I want to talk about my cost savings. Since I have solar panels at my house and I get electricity wherever I can get it for free I save about 33 cents a mile for every mile that I don’t have to drive my Tundra assuming gas is $5\gal. At 15mpg with gas at $5/gal : 5/15 = 33.33333 cents a mile. The average American drives 14,263 miles a year so that would be a savings of $4,754.33333333 a year for your average oversized truck the size of a Sherman tank that you probably really don’t need. Now we are actually talking about real money here so pay attention kids.
This is the Level 1 charger I got with my Bolt which I pretty much never use
There are three ways to charge electric cars, level 1, level 2 and Level 3. Level 1 adapter that came free with my Bolt gets me about 4 miles of range per hour at 12 Amps and 3 miles of range at 8 amps. Since many cheap 15 amp outlets will actually melt if you try to charge at 12 amps continuously and because 3 miles of range per hour sucks I’m going to say here that guerrilla charging at 120v/8amps is a total waste of time. Unless you find a spot that is near a place that you live and sleep it’s almost certainly not worth it (maybe a neighbor you don’t really like). Level 3 is DC fast charging which always costs money so I’m not going to discuss it here because I’m cheap and don’t like to pay money for anything.
Don’t waste your money installing a home charger, get a Level 2 charging cable instead
People think a home charger has to cost between $600-2000 + several thousand dollars for an electrician to install it. Honestly I think this is totally nuts. I installed a 30 amp 240v plug from Lowes that cost me about $12 with a scrap of 2′ 10 AWG copper wire that I had kicking around in about 10 minutes. I was so lazy I didn’t even mount the outlet properly and it sort of tilts at a janky angle which I sort of like (although the electrical inspectors don’t find it quite as endearing). Instead of buying and installing a car charger I just bought a 30 Amp charging cable from Amazon for $299 here (side note: Most car chargers are just a charging cable with a fancy box you don’t need and some pretty blinking lights, the charger is inside your car). This plugs into a standard 30 amp dryer plug that you might already even have somewhere in your garage or utility room. Go ahead, look around.
Here is my adapter for using with 50 amp plugs found in most parks and campsites
You might want to consider getting a 50 amp adapter (that will only charge at 40 amps continuous vs 24 amps continuous for the 30 amp adapter) which will charge about 66% faster than the 30 amp adapter I got but realize that doing that will make it more difficult to use 30 amp plugs. There are adapters that will allow you to plug in a 50 amp charger to a 30 amp plug, but you’d have to make sure to set the charger to charge at 24 Amps (not 40) before you plug it into your car and blow their breaker so that setup is really not recommended. If you forgot to set it to the lower charge rate and the breaker didn’t trip then the wiring could melt and cause a fire (fire=bad). Please note as well that a 50 amp circuit can only charge at 40 Amps continuous and a 30 amp circuit can only charge for 24 Amps continuous. If you buy a 50 amp charger and a 30 amp plug adapter and then set the charge rate to 30 Amps (instead of the correct 24 Amps) then the wires will overheat without tripping the circuit breaker and will probably melt and cause a lot of problems and expense for the owner of the plug.
The other side of my $12 50 amp adapter, you can plug a lower amperage charger into a higher amperage plug without any issues (it gets tricky doing it the other way around)
Now just get a 50 amp adapter, and maybe another TT-30 amp adapter
For about $12 you can get a high quality NEMA adapter, I got mine on ebay and the description read “50Amp NEMA 14-50P to NEMA 10-30R Power Plug Cord Adapter” (go find your own). I can plug my 30 amp charger into the 50 amp adapter and charge at about 24 Amps out of any NEMA 14-50 plug (these are pretty standard at parks and RV areas). The most common 30 amp plug at campgrounds is the NEMA TT-30 so if you want to use those plugs as well you will need another $12 ebay adapter that goes from NEMA TT-30 Male to NEMA 10-30R Female. For around $325 you can now charge at NEMA 10-30R, NEMA TT-30 and NEMA 14-50P which are by far the most common 240v plugs in the US. Keep the charger and the adapters in your car everywhere you go and start looking for free places to charge.
This is the Tesla Tap I bought on ebay and proceeded to never ever use
Consider a Tesla Adapter
A Tesla Tap gets you access to 4,500+ Destination chargers in the US, most of which are FREE (they are level 2 , the adapter won’t work with superchargers). You can get the Tesla Tap for $159 here although there are also a bunch of clones out there for about the same price. The forums make it sound like the Tesla Tap is the way to go, although honestly I have never used mine so I really have no opinion. Seems like a lot of money for a little adapter, I like my $12 ones better. A Tesla Destination charger will add between 30 and 44 miles of range per hour which makes them about equivalent to a 50 amp charging cable.
This shows just how many free Tesla Destination chargers there are in NYS alone, check and see if there are ones near you here
Extension cords, if you’re going to get one, get the right one
Although they sell J1772 Extension cords for electric car charging you should not get them because getting a NEMA 10-30R extension cord is about 1/2 the price. It costs about $75 for a good quality 25 foot cable and $125 for a 50′ cable. I think it’s unwise to get longer than a 50′ cable. The charging cable is 25′ which for me has always been plenty long enough. With a 50′ extension that means you only have to get your electric car within 75′ of a 240v outlet. There is a spot under the trunk of the Bolt where a spare would go if the car shipped with a spare (it doesn’t). Instead there is a large block of foam where the spare should be (crash protection? mouse prefab housing?), that would be a great place to store your 30 amp extension cord. I keep my charging cable behind the passenger seat since I pull it out frequently when I need to charge.
Also note that every electric car charger I have ever seen says implicitly in the manual to not use an extension cord. I have done it and not had issues, but if you use an extension cord that has a gauge of wire that will not support your load then that cable will melt the insulation and at best blow the breaker and at worst start a fire.(fire=bad) You have been warned.
Going longer than 50 ft on a 30 amp extension cord is really pushing your luck
Shame the people you love into installing a NEMA plug for you
I told my dad that I was getting an electric car and I wanted to charge it in his garage with a 30 amp NEMA plug. I was shocked and amazed when he showed me that he had already wired a plug there for his emergency generator. To think I didn’t even have to pull the ‘if you really love me dad you’ll let me install this plug in your garage with my questionable wiring skills’. If there is a place that you go frequently that is far away consider installing a $12 NEMA 10-30R surface mount receptacle like this one here.
This bad boy takes about 10 minutes or less to install or your money back
Ask before you charge, generally you will find people don’t mind as much as you’d think
This is America, everyone has guns and is pretty territorial. I always ask before I plug in and make sure the person I am getting electricity from has a good idea of how much it’s going to cost them. The best way to approach it is to tell them how much it costs per hour of being plugged in and then how long you want to charge. In NY electricity is about 14 cents a kWh. The charger goes at 24Amps x 240v = 5.7Kw per hour x $.14 = 80 cents an hour. What does 80 cents an hour of someone else’s money get you? For me it’s about 25 miles of range which makes it well worth the trouble (think about how much it would cost in gas to go that 25 miles in your big beautiful truck, about 10x as much). A good way to start the conversation is to offer to pay for the electricity you plan to use. You will find that most places will refuse to take your money (especially if you are patronizing their business) but won’t mind you using their outlets.
I have gotten permission to charge at the park that I always kiteboard at (they are looking into installing EV chargers at my urging) as well as my home and my parents house. All of these things are over an hour away from each other. I spend 50% of my time slaving away at my wife’s house which is also an hour away from all 3 of those things and I have no place to charge my car at my wife’s house. With the Bolt recall I can’t charge over 80% and I loath to let the car get below 40% because of the risk of it bursting into flames. I know it sounds like I am exaggerating but I’m really not, this is what GM recommends. I actually like driving a car that could burst into flames at any moment, sort of feels like how I live my life, just a little on the edge. It’s not for everyone of course, and for those scaredy cats out there you can always do the Bolt buyback program. I’ll never sign up. You can pry my electric car from my cold dead hands.
Pretty typical hookups at a park or RV site, this has both the 50 amp plug and the TT-30 plug
Finding 30 or 50 amp 240v plugs
These things are everywhere if you know where to look. Most commonly they are used for dryers but also I’ve seen them just preinstalled into garages, basements or utility rooms not plugged into anything and sometimes installed for a generator hookup. The best 240v outlet to use is one you already have, so if you have a different 30 or 50 amp outlet then buy the car charger that goes with the NEMA outlet you already have and then purchase the adapters you need as you find other plugs to charge at. For lots of money they sell auto-switchers for 30 amp plugs which will allow you to share your electric car charging with your dryer. To me that is a waste of money, just unplug your dryer and plug in your charger when you need it or wire up another dedicated breaker for your car charger. It only takes about 10 minutes to do.
If you don’t know how to wire up a new outlet to your home, then you should either hire a licensed electrician (the smart thing to do) or just watch a bunch of youtube videos and do it yourself (what I always do). Probably not legal in whatever nice state you live in, but still legal here in beautiful rural NY.
Most parks with any kind of campgrounds, marinas or anyplace that allows for plugging in large RVs or Boats will often have 30 or 50 amp plugs that are close to places you can park. Once you start looking for high voltage plugs you’ll be amazed at how many you can find.
