I'll make it easy on myself and simply repeat post #8 and refer each of you to same. Before doing so, a quick recent (true) story which relates:
A colleague of mine stood up at a company-wide meeting which included higher management. His complaint was
not being the 'dinosaur' that he self-admittedly was but for being passed over for promotion/pay raises
due to the fact that he could easily test out much better than any younger person in his unit using just about every mechanical or common sense matrix applicable to their jobs. He was immediately told that all such centuries old concepts had been discontinued and would likely never be brought back. In other words, every kid that he works with grew up playing video games while refusing to get heir hands dirty, pick up a wrench, bust some knuckles or frankly
sweat...yet nobody appreciated some old man pointing out
on paper the fact that their 'leisurely upbringing' was not necessarily serving them very well in their professional careers (comparatively).
Life lesson here...what you have or even your immediate desires are not your limitations...yet you gotta get off that couch and heaven forbid go after it/
suffer (no charge for that, btw).
Post #8:
"...I'll take 20ah of battery capacity; a 750W motor; over 80nm of torque, a 25A controller; 7 gears; a torque sensing PAS; 4" Kenda puncture resistant fat tires; a seat that you cannot only easily replace but fab up to your liking both width and height-wise (more frame structure to work with underneath than any other) dual suspension easily upgradeable versus most upright trikes with little to none; a foot platform allowing weight distribution to the front wheel when rarely needed (let alone a looong seat of your modded preference for same); a rear bag; modern lighting and related amenities...over pretty much everything out there at this moment in time.
Sometimes it's not about what you have...but a previously unavailable base design boasting potential qualities easily transformed in to something much better not currently on the market..."
Not groundbreaking?
Then I'll ask again:
Show me the mass produced step through 2 rider trike for $3K boasting similar specs. (don't forget capacity) with this much modding potential.
If you are in to that kind of thing (and in 2023 that's a big
If) as we
might just be using power tools to create this even better trike and it
might just get a bit dusty/noisy (we may even break an old school sweat)....
Ok, so tearing this down....
Non-interesting - claims that seemingly no one else has ever welded, fabricated, or what, even sweated? Huh.
'Ground-breaking'
So I re-read the post above and looked through most of the linked pages on AddMotor. I still don't see the ground-breaking bits here, as there is literally nothing new here in the broader ebike world, although a couple of things may be 'new' versus electric trikes being offered from what I've seen. It seems your focus is really on the fact it has rear suspension, and the ability to build a custom seat on a minibike frame, with a couple of 'extras' thrown in like the lights and rack cover/bag. I'll throw those up top but here's the list of features from your post.
Ability to build a custom seat
Ok, I guess? But the default minibike seating sure looks like it's near worthless for actually pedaling, so would need more work to make pedaling worthwhile, or you could use a standard seat post mount and tie into the rear rack on a non-minibike-framed trike? Is your goal zero/near-zero pedaling and ride mostly by throttle?
Dual suspension (presumably the emphasis here is on rear and front, not dual likely cheap rear coils?).
Best I can tell this is the only rear-suspension electric trike I've seen. However, considering the front hub cadence-driven motor and OE cassette, as well as the 4" fat tires, I'm not sure this is as beneficial as you might want to believe. Personally, I prefer having working front and rear suspension on my ebikes, but I'm coming from decades of motorcycles and dual-sport, off-road riding, etc. The OE gearing on this along with the front hub drive and no-name suspension components makes me think much more grocery-getter than off-road beast. Too soon to tell if replacement quality shocks can be found, whether coil or air, but this is probably a place where a suspension seat post along with the fat tires would suffice.
Foot pad
It's fine, although nothing earth shattering . If one were so inclined, this could be resolved on other trikes with a pair of U-clamps dipped in liquid plastic and a simple frame and piece of plywood.
Rear bag -I'm afraid to even add up how much I've spent over time on various motorcycle and firearm related bags among others. There are standard connect bag systems out there for bikes and motorcycles, but sure, it's fine it comes with a waterproof bag for the rack as a bonus. The first time you 'overflow' the top of the bag may have you buying a different bag for the rack, but it's a fine freebie/bonus, sure.
'Modern lighting system' - this amounts to ~$30 or so on AliExpress or Amazon. I'm a strong proponent of rear lights, especially those with flashing and brake actions. They have an entire marketing page for what more or less amounts to they added a feed from the battery, or possibly even switched power, for lighting. Note that many/most of the Bafang controllers already have light outputs so you can switch them on from the control, etc. My similarly sized front light on one of the bikes was woefully underpowered, while their 40 lumen stated output is pretty weak lumen-wise. Lights at all on a bike/trike/motorcycle/vehicle are a good thing, but most of us have gone to rechargeable higher-powered, better lighting options. As long as the brake light actually functions off of the brake levers, and is reasonably bright, I'd probably leave the rear and expect to replace the front, pending seeing it's output riding through a tunnel, in the rain, at night, etc.
20ah battery - ok, pretty standard for many ebikes nowadays, but yes, it's fine, and better than those still trying to sell bikes with 14ah batteries.
750W Bafang hub motor - ok, lots of offerings using this in the ebike space, the motors been out for years. Here's a kit with (2) wheels, controller, display, and 20ah battery etc. for ~$900, from Bafang directly:
https://www.amazon.com/BAFANG-Front-Rear-Hub-Motor/dp/B0BGLKJH6T
25A controller - This is somewhat meaningless. Power(W) = I(Current) * E(Voltage). Unless they are over-driving the motor to some ~1250W, which may impact motor longevity (and possibly forks and rest of drivetrain, enough said already on this), all that's needed is technically 750W / 48v = 15.625A. As most of the ebike motors spike a bit above nominal, I'd expect to see 20-25A ratings on the controller and the same or a bit higher on the battery BMS. It's possible they've built a custom controller, but if so, it seemingly has zero programmability/adjustability or they'd be advertising it, so for now at least, I'm guessing it's just Bafang's latest controller, or another generic China controller.
7 gears - literally the cheapest Shimano kit available. There's nothing terribly 'wrong' with it for entry level, but that cassette range makes me twitch a bit considering bike weight and someone pretending this thing might see other than flat roads...Both the high end will be less (14T vs 10-11T) and climbing or starting on hills will be more effort (whether yours, the motors, or both - 28T vs 44-50T).
Torque-sensing PAS
This trike seems to be cadence sensing, literally from their page:
4" Kenda fat tires
These are pretty standard budget-but-above-China-no-brand on fat tire vehicles. My Eunorau came with them as well. See first video of this trike, 4" 20" Kendas.
The Electric Fat Trike is the perfect companion for your next off-road adventure. With its versatile wide 4" tires with a low-profile tread for both on-road and off-road use. To order call 1-800-375-0224 or email via
[email protected]
www.electrictrike.com
So basically, it's a standard Bafang hub motor, with an eBike standard 20ah battery (although yay, with Samsung cells and not no-name), with low-end cassette and groupset, some lights and a cover, but on a minibike style frame with unknown quality dual-coil rear shocks, and seemingly cadence-sensing over torque-sensing.