Yep. It is an awesome drive. To be honest, I think they are all great, I have not met too many ebike’s I didn't like. I tried a lot of them in Europe last year, they are all really fun.
But, Really? I feel confident that a good # of people, certainly myself, don’t make all buying decisions exclusively on who has the best marketing or who has the best price. Sure a lot do…oh well, that’s their loss. If that were the case I’d only drink Coke and only eat Fast Food. Many people make very educated decisions, regardless of what the masses are doing. So speak for yourself, marketing buzz and perception obviously didn’t mean much to me.
It is however understandable that you share the common misconception of all hub drives as being "rear heavy and overheats on hills." You are right about being wrong, that statement is incorrect, especially relatively speaking. The motor is 7 lbs. / 3.5 kg. I can’t find anything lighter or physically smaller that provides 30 Nm continuous and 50 Nm peak torque.
It’s funny you mention overheating though. The reason hub motors generally heat up at higher speeds and/or torque is because they are operating at very low efficiency = high heat losses while dumping current out of your battery. Every electric motor has an “efficiency curve” and can theoretically hit a “peak” at some point on the curve, however it’s the shape and slope of that efficiency curve that really matters, specifically where you fall on the curve when riding most of the time.
I read a similar comment in a Hub motor vs. Middrive article recently in one of the e-bike magazines about a month ago. I can’t remember if it was in Electric bike action or E-Mountainbike. …but if I recall correctly, the article also stated something about how hub motors suffer from cogging torque when not powered and something to the effect that they don’t like high speeds or hills because they get hot in the “disadvantages” section.… that probably is true for most, makes perfect sense to me really, but not true for this maxon. The first reason is that it won’t ever overheat. You can’t overheat it if you try. Again because generated heat is the exact same thing as poor efficiency when it comes to an electric motor. If you look at maxon’s bikedrive website and the European press releases, they claim 85% typical efficiency (not peak), that’s pretty amazing, which means it’s not generating a lot of heat at typical continuous output power.
Also from their web site;
“The hub motor delivers 25 - 30 Nm continuously. The peak torque is 50 Nm. The brushless DC motor has an efficiency of 85%. Even on upward grades at 15 km/h and 30 Nm, the efficiency is still 75%.”
To confirm that from personal experience, there is a temperature LED on the control grip that tells me the motor temperature at any given time while riding. 90% of the time I am riding, regardless of the terrain or speed, it’s Blue (cool) or green (slightly warm). It rarely goes to orange (warm) or red (hot) unless I really try to push it by using the turbo boost as much as possible or climb a very steep grade for a very long time at very low speed, like < 5 mph. That pretty much never happens for me but in that very rare case, I suspect most conventional mid-drives are going to be technically better from a motor design and heat point of view, primarily because they will run near their highest efficiency in that particular senerio. But that’s pretty much where I personally see any advantages of a mid-drive in comparison ending. Generally with this maxon, the faster I go, the better, the sweet spot seems to be anywhere from 7 mph to 20 mph at it’s cut off – it just purrs. But even if this motor does get hot, the controller won’t let it overheat, it just cuts back the current until it cools off, which generally doesn’t take very long.
So about "Bad at high speeds"? And Cogging torque?
Industry “experts” still have that 1% wrong. This motor, like the overwhelming majority of maxon motors is ironless core, which means there is no magnetic detent. There is no back iron, which is why it’s got very high power density and relatively low weight, and operates at very high efficiency. The rotor inertia is entirely different, which is why it accelerates so quickly, etc…
I remain somewhat shocked but also incredibly pleased that maxon has entered the market. Just my 2 cents. To each his own.
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