I don't know that I see anything revolutionary? The peak power seems maybe higher than Bosch CX at 850W vs 600 but continuous power is similar 250W. 800Wh max battery pack size is also not entirely out of the ordinary. The packaging seems nice, the battery seems quite slim and integrate well into ordinary-looking downtube on the Amflow bike - but don't see much otherwise. Weight seems on the high side.
More than 250W continuous is pointless in many countries because that's the limit for the most common e-bike class (i.e. even if the system can do more, you'd want to de-rate it to 250W).
Bosch makes excellent motors, but they're ripping people off on accessories (a dumb charger costs 89 EUR in the "compact" variant that can do 2A or around 80W and weighs 600g, needing over 10 hours to charge a large battery), and enabling this with aggressive DRM (which also means updates can only be done by a repair shop). They're also trying to make your bike a subscription, of course.
So even if all DJI does is become competitive, that's already a win. Bonus points if they actually let you tune (some) motor parameters yourself. The hard part seems to be reliability (a bike that gets mud, water and washing together with constant vibration is a pretty harsh environment) and many Chinese motor brands have a less than stellar reputation there, and because this is not something easily testable, building a reputation (and gathering the experience needed to actually build good products) takes time.
I assume price would be the major factor. Also, as someone who knows nothing about e-bikes, but who knows "DJI makes good cheap drones and gimbals", they'd be pretty high on my list of "probably makes an ok product" without searching.
I'd trust their intent to create a good product (rather than aiming for something that will look good enough for just long enough to get you to buy it), their general manufacturing, and even engineering, but with the forces and water/dirt involved, I am not confident they'll succeed in the first few iterations.
> but with the forces and water/dirt involved, I am not confident they'll succeed in the first few iterations.
Air isn't perfectly clean or dry, either. I would bet that DJI has some clue as to how to protect the most sensitive components in a way that can survive _lots_ of vibration.
I agree with GP here, even on a city bike the determination water, grease and fine grit have to ingress into totally inaccessible spaces and ruin them from within is relentless. And then it's 10x worse in a mountain bike scenario.
Clearly not unsolvable but I'd wait for some 1 year use reviews before even thinking about it.
> The peak power seems maybe higher than Bosch CX at 850W vs 600 but continuous power is similar 250W. 800Wh max battery pack size is also not entirely out of the ordinary.
e-bike power is limited by regulations. If they created a higher power system, it wouldn't be allowed to be called an e-bike. 250W continuous is the limit, and therefore the target.
Battery pack size is a weight versus range tradeoff. Again, not going to see much difference from competitors.
The difference would come from the efficiency, the GaN fast charging (mentioned in the article), the control unit, the display, the app, and other features.
Hardcore DIYers will turn their nose up at the other features and try to turn this into a specifications races, but people who don't want to DIY and fiddle with things all the time will appreciate the cohesive package.
I think adding Pinion, doubt they are dropping Bosch. Pinion has potentially a superior platform in that you have a fully integrated motor and gearbox, but this is a new item in the market. Bosch with Rholoff[0] is extremely well known as a platform, has high reliability and excellent efficiency across a wide shift range.
As a Bosch+Rholoff owner and a Pinion C.12 owner... I'd _loved_ it if R&M were doing Pinion in their cargo line. If something happens to your rear wheel you have to rebuild around your Rholoff. This might be hard to do on a tour compared to buying a new wheel if you had a Pinion. This assumes that your motor and electronics are not at risk of failing, which may be only reasonable if you're using Bosch...
I'm happy to see Pinion being picked up by R&M. I'd assume this is an excellent sign for Pinion as R&M's _schtick_ seems to be the customer experience (e.g. performance and reliability). This obviously signals that they are in some reasonable partnership to support this configuration for a long time. It would have been really nice to see Pinion offered in at-least one of their cargo platform though.
We just got a Load4 and I noticed that the Bosch+Rholoff dual battery configuration lagged in availability pretty significantly behind the other configurations. I presume this probably made R&M product management a bit irritated as the products form Bosch seem to be announced about a year before things are available. Anecdotally I believe I received 725wh batteries on my order when there is open discussion about how these batteries are not even in production by Bosch anymore as they've moved on to a higher density. Seems like with Bosch there is a big lag between announcement of a market disrupting product and when integrators get it on platform. Pinion may be faster?
Above there is a comment about Bosch being a ripoff (e.g. high margins), certainly it is but they are likely the only company you can build a product off unless you're going into race to the bottom price range. Propel has an interesting post [1] about going Bosch only. Now there are major providers in Germany also providing solutions: Pinion, ZF. I believe propel also started a thing called bloom [2][3] where I bet the "after sales support" portion of starting an e-Bike business is often times a discussion of why Bosch is safe.
This is great for the e-bike sector - more competition, more innovation, more options.
There is of course a bunch of poo-pooing in an HN thread.
The problem with the e-bike sector is a misalignment:
what people say they want: a cargo bike, a fixie, a mountain bike, a folding bike, a... etc.
what people actually want: a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle
The audience for a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle is like 1,000,000x larger than the audience of a mountain bike; and the number of miles ridden per "moped that is emotionally a bicycle" will be like 10-100x greater than a mountain bike.
Nobody cares about mountain bikes, or grams saved, or whatever. That's like, some hobby. We might as well be comparing fine German violins. I know this is what is advertised, but who knows what they are thinking when they depict so and so bicycle in their press release.
I'm excited about this bike because it is basically a Stromer ST2: a semi truck of a bike that can sort of do everything. It's a moped with the emotional energy of a bicycle.
What is the ideal e-bike? It is basically a step through Pinion MGU, which Kettler makes. Unless there is more competition, such as with bespoke drive trains, that incredible bike will continue to cost $9,000.
There is a lot of confusion in the sector. VanMoof continues to experience significant financial difficulties, but in all other senses they are a colossal success: they were the first to deliver a moped that emotionally and aesthetically feels like a bike, and a ton of people bought it, and then those people put 10x-100x more miles on those bikes than any owner of any Sturmey Archer bicycle ever has, and VanMoof doesn't bite the bullet and recall for recurring issues like breaking boost buttons, and they run out of money ad-hoc fixing issues over and over again. Stromer also uses proprietary parts and they are reliable, it isn't so black and white. People here are talking about Bosch. Bosch motors break. People are abandoning them. They were put into bikes that were more and more frequently replacing cars, which meant people ride them 10x more than a mountain bike or whatever artisanal or hobby use they would otherwise put on their bikes, and suddenly, the things are breaking all the time.
Every time someone sells something that actually meets the real need for a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle, they either price it too high to reach a large enough audience used to prices 1/10th as high on Amazon for the same keywords, or they price it too low for the huge increase in failure due to the huge increase in miles. DJI gives me some confidence they will not misplay this.
> what people say they want: a cargo bike, a fixie, a mountain bike, a folding bike, a... etc.
> what people actually want: a moped that is emotionally and aesthetically a bicycle
what people get: must set up an account in china to enable your bike for riding, letting DJI map the rest of the world where the drones can't fly.
It's not "emotional", it's "regulation-evading" that people are looking for. They want a moped without registration, license, insurance and all other things that may accompany one depending on jurisdiction. As a result we now have 250 lb "cyclists" doing 25 mph on their 70 lb mopeds with miniscule brakes and tires on the bike-and-hike trails, imposing great danger on themselves and others.
Not to snipe but there does seem to be (as of this year) some folks doing cargo (e.g. longtail) with Bosch for USD ~4K.
The entire sector needs disruptive pricing on reliable sub-components. What it's been getting is disruptive pricing with unreliable products that fail silently/annoyingly (e.g. firmware) or catastrophically (e.g. fire).
> The integrated DJI Avinox electric power assist system leverages DJI's cutting-edge technologies in both software and hardware design, offering 850 W of peak power (250 W nominal power) in an ultra-light body of 19.2kg
This is most unimpressive. I have an 2019 3000w LunaCycle e-mountain bike (based on the Giant Anthem) with similar drive system weight specs, which includes the ginormous 40ah battery.
Why can't DJI compete with something nice from 5 years ago?
Legal limit in USA is 750 watts, legal limit in UK is 250 watts. Competition on power output is illegal. I have a BBSHD which can be trivially programmed to 1500w output (likely the same as your Luna cycle without a custom controller) and it’s great. It is widely regarded that there is no enforcement of power limits, but manufacturers can’t really advertise illegal power limits for sale.
Many high power ebike enthusiasts (for example “High Voltage DIY Electric Bikes” channel on YouTube) argue that these low legal power limits actually make e-bikes less safe, as you need a good 2-3kw to actually ride with the flow of traffic. At US or worse UK power limits, you don’t get enough of a boost for that and you’re more likely to get hit from behind.
In my case 1500 watts feels like a good low range of what I would want. Luckily for work I’ve been developing my own open source brushless motor controller for a few years now, and we’re finally maturing past the self-immolation phase of motor controller design. I’m going to try to outfit my bike with it eventually. Later on I would like to make a 72 volt version (84v peak, so 100 volt parts).
> Many high power ebike enthusiasts (for example “High Voltage DIY Electric Bikes” channel on YouTube) argue that these low legal power limits actually make e-bikes less safe, as you need a good 2-3kw to actually ride with the flow of traffic. At US or worse UK power limits, you don’t get enough of a boost for that and you’re more likely to get hit from behind.
Those "High power ebike enthusiasts" are actually "small electric motorcycle" enthusiasts.
The point of the regulations is to keep the power levels within the range of what's expected for a bike.
I'm fine with a separate class of regulations allowing higher power, but only if those vehicles are easily disallowed from bike trails. If the goal is to ride around with cars in traffic all day, it shouldn't be a problem to be banned from bike trails. There's a real problem of overpowered DIY or hacked e-bikes tearing up trails everywhere and getting out of control.
3kw is 4 horsepower. It's more than even the world record for peak human power output and far more than any human can sustain.
I think it's cool that people build these high power machines, but let's be honest about what they are: Electric motorcycles, not bikes.
Did you know lots of people can ride a road bike under 100% human power at 27MPH+ (45kph?)? Parent comment doesn't align with commonly observed reality.
Iron Man participants regularly ride at an average speed of 24mph+ continuously for 112 miles in extremely harsh conditions (Hawaiian heat).
Also, over the course of many thousands of miles I've never observed any cyclist riding past vulnerable children at these speeds. What is the problem exactly? People going "fast" on a 50lb bicycle with nobody else around? How is this a threat?
Most people aren't out to get you, especially bicyclists.
If you want to direct energy towards something, please send it towards the inconsiderate cars vectoring a 3ton+ vehicle at 25-75MPH even when they see a person in the road ahead. It's sad when a human is struck by a vehicle.
*I usually don't respond to comments like this one but after being hit by a car while I was in the bike lane on Veterans Blvd in Redwood City, CA in 2018, who didn't bother stop (or even notice they'd hit and knocked me down?), it's a bit of a sore spot. The difference between a car and a weapon is what, exactly? Even an overpowered e-bike is nothing compared to any of the tens of thousands of cars who kill and maim cyclists and pedestrians in the U.S.A. annually.
Thanks for the pile-on, but this is completely irrelevant to what I was posting about. The DJI kit is very heavy (in KG) to deliver a comparatively puny amount of power. That is the interesting point, not the legality of an e-bike I purchased 5 years ago and haven't had any trouble with. Just saying.. be cool.
P.s. parent has heavily edited their comment to not resemble the original comment. For whatever it's worth, I don't have any particular agenda except to share information. I'm logging off for the evening, because this is peak nonsense.
Maybe technically correct, but these are being sold as bicycles. I think the biggest distinction between most (but not all) high powered ebikes and electric motorcycles is that most of the ebikes can be powered by pedaling (except bikes like the Sur Ron).
We can make a legal category for "electric motorcycles with pedals" or we can call them high powered electric bicycles. I don't care so much what we call them as long as we recognize that this type of vehicle is extremely valuable in fighting climate change and building more walkable cities with less need for automobile infrastructure. If everyone could legally ride a 2kw ebike around town with some nice panniers or a rack for cargo space, so many automobile trips could be eliminated.
> I'm fine with a separate class of regulations allowing higher power, but only if those vehicles are easily disallowed from bike trails. If the goal is to ride around with cars in traffic all day, it shouldn't be a problem to be banned from bike trails.
When you say trails, I could agree on dirt trails where erosion and environmental damage is an issue. But as we build out better bicycle infrastructure around the country, we have more and more dedicated paved bike paths. It would be absurd to me if bikes like my 1.5kw ebike were barred from paved bike paths. And note, it already is! Most of the paved bike paths around Oakland and Berkeley are legally restricted to class 2 ebikes. My bike is beyond class 3, and so illegal both generally and on these paths. But I don't think it should be! I have been bicycling for almost 40 years, so I am extremely respectful of other people and I don't want to blow past anyone. Maybe there need to be more fine grained laws around etiquitte, or maybe we need to expand our notion of bike paths to include 3kw ebikes. There must be some middle ground between surface streets with 4000lb vehicles and bike paths that are only for low powered or human powered bicycles.
But my broad point is, these vehicles are extremely important to a world with reduced carbon emissions. They are much more useful than a regular bike (which I also ride quite a lot) for transportation purposes, and so better as a car replacement. They take less resources and emissions to produce, they use less energy to move a person, they are safer for pedestrians than automobiles, appropriate infrastructure takes up less space, etc etc etc.
The attitude of "that's a motorcycle! you had better keep that as far away from me as possible" is a negative-focused view on what can be an extremely transformative technology.
I know there are assholes and irresponsible people, and actually a good friend of mine broke their leg in an ebike-on-ebike collision in the UK on a legal 250w ebike, so I understand that injuries can still happen. And I absolutely do not want assholes blowing past old ladies or parents walking their kids in strollers.
But we MUST consider the real value this new type of machine has to offer, and genuinely take time to consider how they should be used. The knee-jerk claim that it is just a motorcycle is missing that in reality they are a new class of vehicle. Similar to a bicycle and similar to a motorcycle, but lighter than one, easier to handle, and I would argue much more useful.
So sure, let us create regulations around them. But let us make sure we allow them on appropriate bike paths, and build the right infrastructure to take advantage of such a useful new type of machine.
These are popular with a subset of DIY builders because the laws aren't really enforced, so they can get a small electric motorcycle that passes as an e-bike while not adhering to the requirements for a vehicle that powerful.
Some will try to claim that if you set the bike to the lowest power then it's legal, but of course they'll quietly switch the power to whatever they want when riding.
Fwiw you wouldn't ride around town at 3kw, that would be ridiculous and dangerous. The default power level is "1" (out of 5) which assists with around 180-250w.
Fun trail bike though (helpful on the uphills, for someone who doesn't typically enjoy that part).
In BC, Canada, there is a maximum motor power limit of 500W for e-bikes. I am not sure if switching (or locking?) the e-bike to power assist level 1 would qualify.
Depends on the engineering requirements of each system. Maybe? Price point, materials, durability, manufacturing volume, size and other factors definitely affect the weight.
It seems quite shortsighted, weight makes a huge difference. My brother recently bought some 75-80lb steel-framed e-bike with small diamerer wide wheels, and couldn't even make it 30 miles with pedal-assist before it died. The last 10 miles his speed plummeted from 15-17mph to 4-6mph at most, and this is for a very strong (but out of bicycling shape) guy. On unpowered bikes he is much faster than me, and I'm not a slouch.
I tried riding the steel thing with no battery and it was not pleasant at all. Compare that to my LunaCycle, even at 50lbs total it's not that bad to ride with no power.
Is it mostly clueless people (like my bro) falling for "It has a battery so heavy bike weight will not matter"?
The Amflow PL bikes lists in the press release as 43lb which isn't "revolutionary" but 850W and 600Wh battery is way more than the other really light MTBs. And those other ones are really expensive.
I'm looking forward to seeing price. I wish they had shared some specs regarding noise, it sounds like they have put some effort into optimizing that as well.
I like my 1500W LunaCycle, but would eagerly trade for a bike that weighs 2/3 as much and is a bit quieter
It's a little under 50lbs in total I think. Something like 48-52lbs if memory serves. By the way, it wasn't easy standing on a scale holding the bike, but when it was I felt this to be very necessary, haha.
But the numbers make sense, without the battery and motor, the bike should be around 15 pounds, which leaves ~35 lbs of battery + motor.
*p.s. Apparently I was mistaken up in the thread - the battery pack is only 21AH, not 40.
I would really like to see a universal retrofit replacement for the big brand motors. Shimano are particularly hostile to repair and I'm loathe to give them thousands of dollars to replace a motor just because they deliberately made it unservicable.
20kg? Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving grams off their bikes. I think this is just another attempt to break e-bikes away from being a distinct product, to keep the "e" an optional upgrade to whatever bike the customer already owns.
Approximately no one is paying thousands of dollars to shave grams off an eMTB. There is a small but visible group of people doing that for road bikes and a much smaller group of people doing that for non-electric mountain bikes. There's probably some weirdo out there doing it for an electric mountain bike but they're probably more of a "decorative expensive bike purchaser" than an "actual trail rider".
That makes sense. If I'm already saying I need a motor to get myself up the trail I'm pretty far from worrying about shaving weight off my bike (or off of myself for that matter).
There are carbon fiber E-bikes, perhaps it’s “few” but there are people paying to have a more light bike since the extra weight up and down hill isn’t as fun
The weight difference between equivalent carbon and aluminum eMTBs is generally around a kg, but the argument for carbon MTBs has mostly shifted away from weight. While carbon fails more catastrophically than aluminum, it's harder to hit the failure point and it's less susceptible to stress fractures. It is also generally argued that carbon is both more dampening and stiffer in the places you want stiff, but it is very hard to tell how real that is.
Actual trail riders mostly do not do this. Source: worked at a bike store. People with a lot of money that treat their bike as something to optimize and not something to ride do this. I'm not saying its wrong, its just another way of being a bike enthusiast, but this type rarely overlaps with serious riders. Training improves performance, not $3000 wheels that shave off 50 grams.
At least in the pacific northwest, mounting biking isn't just about riding the bike any more than owning a motorcycle is just about riding a motorcycle. It's a culture or talking about and bragging about bike tech. Weight is bragging rights for mountain bikes as "aero" is for road bikes. Lots of people will pay to have the better toy. The running joke is that many bikes are worth more than the cars that bring them to the trailheads.
I think your confusing regular mountain biking with ebikes. The people bragging about bike tech will most likely be looking down at people that ride ebikes on the trail.
Agreed. For most people it would be more reasonable to lose the three-four kg in body fat and keep the aluminium frame rather than upgrading to carbon fibre.
Unless you have found a way to spend a few thousand dollars to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no complications or effort, losing weight and spending more on a bike are not things you're choosing between.
Other than pros most of the people spending lots of money to shave weight would be better served losing weight from their belly over the bike, but that’s harder to solve with a credit card.
I don't think people with e-bikes even pedal into the orange zone. It's more of exercise theater, to borrow a term. HOwever, I do hope e-bikes start to overtake cars as modes of transportation in temperate climates.
I don't think competitive e-biking is a thing. And if you're commuting or riding recreationally, you probably don't care much about weight.
And this looks like a competitor for the Bosch systems that power many e-bikes, needing a similar frame design - and not a kit to install on non-electric bikes.
I've always laughed at that. Part weight in grams is just a marketing gimmick to differentiate products to charge higher prices.
Even tour de france folks have a minimum weight they can't go under, and they frequently weigh several kg over anyway.
For casual riders, you could save several $k equivalent on your super-lightweight-bike by just losing a few pounds or trading jeans for shorts.
personally, I would love if all the bike lights had a standardized bus and connector so headlight/taillight/etc could power off the bike battery. (I know some bikes have an output but think more like a standard USB connector and maybe a dashboard setting, not running bare wires under the hood and using a proprietary app to set things up)
> Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving grams off their bikes.
Spending hundreds to thousands to shave "grams" is not a thing among real trail riders.
Actual trail riders are generally pretty smart about the tradeoffs. If they see a product that is "hundreds to thousands" more expensive and brings no benefit other than shaving a few grams, nobody will buy it.
20kg is fairly light for an e-mtb. I'd bet typical use is to climb the uphill paths on an mtb trail system, even though the bike they mention isn't a dedicated DH bike.
The screen/computer part seems to be significantly nicer than competition.
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