Sorry for the late post, you were talking about the"right gear" on starting out on a mid-drive. On a "medium-duty" single axle Dumptruck( the old 5x2 variety) if you had a 2spd axle that was stuck in high range or a driver that didn't shift into low range with a loaded truck starting out-it was easy to snap an axle when the motor was twisting in the mounts and "buck jumping" these axles were not that small either, The torquey engine and zero road speed were not compatible, you have to match power and load, the inertia tries to hold you in place, while the force"torque" is trying to overcome inertia. These mid drives do not have a friction clutch and flywheel or torque converter, the moment of stress on the chain often exceeds the" tensile strength" of the chain itself, for a fraction of a second anyway. If you had some sort of "torque converter in the driveline you could be off to a slow less, driveline stressing takeoff up to the point the gearing would be so high it would not even move( guess thats what a flywheel is for, many trucks would start to move a heavy load only to "choke out" if the motor power and torque multiplication was not enough to move the load and overcome inertia, the Drivers that didn't know what "granny gear" was for were the ones always breaking some part in the driveline.
Its true the electric motor can serve as a sort of transmission in itself as long as Rpm and "torque rise" are working in harmony, the problem lies in the fact the little middrive motors can throw a lot of torque from 'stall' while on the older hub motors generally, the torque rise is a bit gentler. Its very possible to have enough"feedback sensors" in the driveline to work with a controller that would limit starting torque and be easier on the driveline, however with a little technique its not necessary.
I remember watching a naturally aspirated vs a turbo charged "formulae car" the naturally aspirated car had more torque at low RPM vs the higher peaky torque of the "supercharged" car, the NA car would leave the supercharged car sitting on exiting a turn, while at the end of the stretch the supercharged car had caught up with this car. Gearing and torque rise are important for performance and sheer pleasure, while top speed gratifies some, others like the rush of high G acceleration. Its difficult to have the "max" of both Worlds and try to keep the price somewhat affordable.
I predict "supercapacitors" as well as integral motor transmission units for the future of "EBiking" while I would watch out for the integrated wheel and motor combo. All this new tech will ultimately lower the price and increase the performance of the high end stuff. I would watch Justine of "Grin Tech" for some real improvements in the years to come.
You may say " We already have wheel and motor combo", true- the thing is thats not what I am referring to,( linear induction perhaps?) we will see.
