Mid drives vs Hub drives ???

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Alex M said:
DD hubs - yes, as long as you keep it dry. Geared hubs - not so much.
But then, 1.5-2K miles is not unheard of, even for a geared hub. Depends on how and where you ride, too.

Bafang hub costs from $200 online and is not terribly difficult to swap with exactly same motor that has just died. Bafang mid-drive costs roughly 2 times more. Bosch... let's not go there :) ...

After 2K miles the cost of battery replacement will dwarf the "hub worries", if battery will even last that long.
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I have a Pedego Interceptor with over 3k miles on the battery and the hub motor. Both are going strong (battery holds 15-20 percent less charge after approximately 150 charge cycles).
 
Depends on what kind of experience you want. For as close to a bicycle for repair/maintenance and/or MTB = mid drive. Cheap = hub. It was no contest for me choosing a mid drive for mtb singletracks. If you want a commuter, sure I'd consider a hub knowing that any wheel issue would suck balls.
 
Alex M said:
By all accounts, this is true for DD hubs - as long as you keep it dry. Geared hubs - not so much.
But then, 1.5-2K miles is not unheard of, even for a geared hub. Depends on how and where you ride, too.

Bafang hub costs from $200 online and is not terribly difficult to swap with exactly same motor that has just died. Bafang mid-drive costs roughly 2 times more. Bosch... let's not go there :) ...

After 2K miles the cost of battery replacement will dwarf the "hub worries", if battery will even last that long.
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I'm between 1,600 and 1,800 miles with 3 eBikes and I haven't seen any degrade in the batteries yet. I doubt if they will fall off a cliff in the next month or two. Personally, I don't worry about a new battery purchase. I knew it would happen when I bought an eBike, just the cost of having fun! My wife likes to travel with her girl friends. Every other year they drop about $5,000 on a 10 day European river cruise. I'd say I'm way ahead of that with almost daily pleasure rides.
 
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elyhim said:
Depends on what kind of experience you want. For as close to a bicycle for repair/maintenance and/or MTB = mid drive. Cheap = hub.
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I would say "close to a non-powered bicycle in feeling".

As to maintenance and repairs, mids require at least as much maintenance as a hub, and are definitely more expensive. Can't say about MTB, not my cup of tea.
 
Ok. Any ideas as to the unavailability of Dapu motors? It's really inconvenient to deal with dealers, no pun intended.
 
bob armani said:
A Japanese company located in China, Okay I get it now.

I have a Dapu motor on my Easy Motion and it performs really well so far. Very responsive and quite reliable. I am hearing that it is one of the better motors on the market for ebikes.
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Strange, indeed - their only listed contact is in China.

Yes, one of better hubs, from what I hear. The problem is, Dapu don't sell it to consumers.
 
Alex M said:
Strange, indeed - their only listed contact is in China.

Yes, one of better hubs, from what I hear. The problem is, Dapu don't sell it to consumers.
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Why not consider another brand like Bafang or something similar. They seem to be quite reliable and have not seen many complaints...
 
I had a hub motor, but it could not assist me going up the numerous, and very steep, hills. This defeated the reason for me getting the ebike in the first place. And I live on a huge hill to boot. Additionally the battery was getting drained on these hilly roads.

The LBS suggested a mid-drive motor. They said that it would have the power to get me up the steep hills around here.

I got my new bike yesterday and took my second ride today. I did not have to get off the bike and push it up any hills. And the battery is still three quarters full.
 
Alex M said:
Tina, what wattage was the hub that couldn't get you uphill even with pedaling, and approximately how steep % incline?
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The problem is most people try a cheap hub motor E-bike with cadence sensors like Sondors etc. (Pedego uses Dapu motor but with a cadence sensor) and get turned off. There are slightly better hub motor E-bikes like Magnum, Surface 604 etc. But then there are much better bikes like BH Easy Motion with a good torque sensor. Bikes of Stromer quality can serve a customer for 30,000 miles easily with some proper maintenance.

This guy put 10,000 miles in 15 months on a Stromer ST2-S. Still original wheels and battery. The motor can go on 30 or 40,000 miles.
that kind of mileage would need lots of maintenance on a mid-drive.

(Link Removed - No Longer Exists)

(Link Removed - No Longer Exists)

In summary, a good hub motor E-bike with a refined torque sensor provides the best value for money.

Don't believe me, just look at the number of people who are enjoying Juiced CCS. It provides more than adequate performance for 95% of the uses and with proper maintenance, it will last for a long time.
 
Alex M said:
Tina, what wattage was the hub that couldn't get you uphill even with pedaling, and approximately how steep % incline?
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The wattage was 250 and I don't know what the % of incline is. The incline is not straight up, but its not far off from that.
 
Ravi, your posts are great but I feel compelled to be a bit pedantic...

Newer Pedegos have both a cadence and a torque sensor. The highest level of pedal assist only uses the cadence sensor to apply power while lower levels also take into account how much torque the operator is providing.

I don't understand the mechanism that would make a hub drive with a torque sensor better at climbing hills than one with a cadence sensor.

Electric motors (especially small electric motors) typically produce peak torque and power in fairly narrow RPM ranges. Since any hub drive motor is going to have limited gearing it makes it fairly challenging from an engineering standpoint to make a small, reliable, and reasonably inexpensive hub drive electric motor that will perform well at a wide range of speeds. This is made even more challenging by the fact that the RPM range producing peak torque is probably quite a bit different from the RPM range producing peak power -- although generally peak torque happens at lower RPMs which is where you'd need it on those hills, and peak power happens at higher RPMs where you're likely pushing wind.

Your comments about the durability and maintenance requirements of hub-drive systems are well taken. I absolutely agree that if all other things are equal a hub drive system will require less maintenance and probably have a substantially longer lifespan. It is just that all of those other things absolutely are not equal -- at one extreme a mid-drive with a belt and an internally geared hub will probably have a substantially greater lifespan than a hub drive with an 11 speed derailleur (some of the skinny chains on 11-speeds look like they might break just at an unkind word or two). In general the mid-drive bikes I've looked at have burlier derailleurs than comparable hub drive bikes.
 
Tina Marie said:
The wattage was 250 and I don't know what the % of incline is. The incline is not straight up, but its not far off from that.
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My Pedego bogs down badly on about a 20 percent grade -- that is approximately 1000 vertical feet per mile. On a highway in North America grades of over six percent or so are considered terribly steep (six percent is approximately 300 feet per mile).
 
Mr. Coffee said:
My Pedego bogs down badly on about a 20 percent grade -- that is approximately 1000 vertical feet per mile. On a highway in North America grades of over six percent or so are considered terribly steep (six percent is approximately 300 feet per mile).
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I will have to take a photo of the hill and post it. It's incredibly steep. If I had to guess, I'd say it's greater than a 20% grade.
 
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