No Bafang used by mainstream bike manufactures.

[Timpo]

Have you noticed that Bafang is only used by DIY riders and non-mainstream bike manufactures?
If you look around, Bafang is only used by Juiced, FLX, Luna, AddMotor, Surface 604, Biktrix, Pedego, etc.

Yes, I'm aware that some non-mainstream bike manufacutures use something other than Bafang. Such as TongSheng, Das Kit, etc.
There are some exceptions, but I'm talking about it in general.

Now, I did look around some of the mainstream bike manufactures' ebikes.
Cannondale, Trek, GT, Specialized, Giant, Marin, Kona, Raleigh, Rocky Mountain, Bianchi, Fuji, Scott, Merida, etc.
Guess what, NONE of them was using Bafang.
They just use Yamaha, Bosch, Shimano or Brose.
No Bafang.

Yes, again I know there are some exceptions.
Raleigh is using Shimano STEPS for mid drive and TrazX for hub drive, Rocky Mountain was using Propulsion Powercycles, so not everything was made by Yamaha or Bosch. But my point is, no Bafang or TongSheng.

I think Bafang makes good products. They're not any louder, they not any weaker, I honestly think Bafang makes good products for a lot less price.
As you can see, some of the Bafang systems are very aesthetically pleasing too. They don't look inferior to any other motor manufactures.
https://www.bafang-e.com/en.html

Also I think we can all agree that Bafang is huge in ebike industry and the majority of us do not have problems riding Bafang equipped bikes.
For example, when I ride my Bafang powered bike (Juiced) I don't worry about my motor blowing up or just breaking down and getting stranded.
Yes, I did have some problems with motor making some grinding noises, but no product is perfect. So I think Bafang is reasonably reliable.

Why do you think mainstream bike manufactures are avoiding Bafang?
Is it because of historical perception of Chinese manufactures producing low quality products?

 

[Feliz]

I can't answer your question! The perception of a low quality product has a lot to do with it I suspect. I have two Bafang powered bikes, a Juiced hub drive and a Biktrix Juggernaut BBSHD mid drive and they've both been flawless but so have my other bikes. I don't know where Bosch, Yamaha, Bionex, Dapur, and EProdigy which power my other bikes are made but I think the perception is that at least some of them are manufactured in Europe or Japan.

 

[TForan]

One reason is they put out more power than would be legally allowed in most places if not everywhere. At least with the Bafang Ultra.

 

[Deleted member 4210]

Have you noticed that Bafang is only used by DIY riders and non-mainstream bike manufactures?
If you look around, Bafang is only used by Juiced, FLX, Luna, AddMotor, Surface 604, Biktrix, Pedego, etc.

Yes, I'm aware that some non-mainstream bike manufacutures use something other than Bafang. Such as TongSheng, Das Kit, etc.
There are some exceptions, but I'm talking about it in general.

Now, I did look around some of the mainstream bike manufactures' ebikes.
Cannondale, Trek, GT, Specialized, Giant, Marin, Kona, Raleigh, Rocky Mountain, Bianchi, Fuji, Scott, Merida, etc.
Guess what, NONE of them was using Bafang.
They just use Yamaha, Bosch, Shimano or Brose.
No Bafang.

Yes, again I know there are some exceptions.
Raleigh is using Shimano STEPS for mid drive and TrazX for hub drive, Rocky Mountain was using Propulsion Powercycles, so not everything was made by Yamaha or Bosch. But my point is, no Bafang or TongSheng.

I think Bafang makes good products. They're not any louder, they not any weaker, I honestly think Bafang makes good products for a lot less price.
As you can see, some of the Bafang systems are very aesthetically pleasing too. They don't look inferior to any other motor manufactures.
https://www.bafang-e.com/en.html

Also I think we can all agree that Bafang is huge in ebike industry and the majority of us do not have problems riding Bafang equipped bikes.
For example, when I ride my Bafang powered bike (Juiced) I don't worry about my motor blowing up or just breaking down and getting stranded.
Yes, I did have some problems with motor making some grinding noises, but no product is perfect. So I think Bafang is reasonably reliable.

Why do you think mainstream bike manufactures are avoiding Bafang?
Is it because of historical perception of Chinese manufactures producing low quality products?

Your perception is heavily biasing the conversation. For one, many so called 'mainstream' OEM's are late to the e-bike game. Two, many of the e-bike firms you mention, sell more units that most of the 'mainstream' firms you mention. Three, you mentioning 'made in China' and context suggest being made in China is somehow inferior, when 90% of the parts and regular bikes are "MADE IN CHINA" by the same 'mainstream' bike industry OEM's you mention.

Not sure I see the point of even bringing this up. Another perspective to take is that the firm's like Pedego, Juiced, Surface, Biktrix, Evelo, etc. have chosen to use hub drives from when they first started, before they added mid drives to their models, as their price points would be more competitive with hub drives. Bosch, Yamaha, Brose, Shimano all build mid drives that are inherently more expensive than hub drives, in part due to their very low volumes versus hub drives (millions are made per year for the Chinese ebike market, which dwarfs the rest of the world in motor drive ebike consumption). Choosing lower price points opens the market up to many more consumers, and hub drives are perfectly fine and suitable for most riders.

Both motor configurations do the job, and every motor OEM has its pro's and con's. I wouldn't read any more into it than their choice than that. Although one observation is that one could imagine that bigger firms like Trek or Giant, would want to deal with deep pocket multibillion dollar firms like Bosch, Shimano, or Yamaha, to reduce financial risk, despite their products costing more to put on their bikes.

For as many motors as Bafang builds, and for how long they have been doing so, they are still a much smaller firm than someone like Bosch, or Yamaha, or even Shimano. That said, In a little over 10 years, Bafang has pretty rapidly become a major player in ebike systems, grown extraordinarily fast, with more than 300 staff worldwide, and 40 engineers in design and development. As the ebike market (which is still very much in its infancy here in the US), begins to mature, it would not surprise to see some of your 'mainstream' OEM's start incorporating Bafang's products into their designs. Bosch and Yamaha have very strong and deep marketing teams that spend a lot of time with the bike industry, and so here in the early going they have some decided commercial business advantages over Bafang that are not necessarily technical or motor performance related. And I certainly would not pre-judge reliability as being poor on Bafang's, and in fact I'd lean toward the opposite, since nearly every mid drive OEM had serious reliability problems from the get go, in their early designs, especially Bosch and Shimano.(mid drives being much more complicated internally in terms of gearing, timing, applied forces, and attachement to the drive train, than the simple design of a hub motor). Many may not know this, but Shimano's early designs (dating back to 2010) were so poor, they had to completely retract from the market, got out for awhile, and only very recently came back. Bosch had early issues too. Yamaha is probably the only one with the fewest number of issues in the past 10 years, but their experience dates back to the early 90's, and stuck to smaller more regional market in Japan, before going worldwide, to get their act together first. Plus Yamaha has decades of multiple motor sports equipment to draw upon, being a fairly large conglomerate going well beyond motorsports (motorcycles, snowmobiles, ATV's, etc) into professional audio equipment, stereo's, precision musical equipment, and they date back to the late 1800's. A great long heritaged Japanese company that just knows how to build stuff.

In any event, going back more than 5 years, I wouldn't have touched any mid drive with a 10 foot pole, from a reliability standpoint. Also take them apart, and you'll find that Bafang is by far the easiest to service, and takes far less sophisticated tools to diagnose issues.

China is so big, with so many bike parts and components manufacturers and so many engineers, and having learned from all these other Japan and European and even US firms, that its actually sort of surprising that more firms have not been spawned like a Bafang or Tongshen. As an FYI, Giant produces about 60% of all bikes (including ebikes) made now for the entire world, and most of its manufacturing is centered in China. Everyone else is sort of an 'also ran' by comparison. So I don't think there is ANY of the 'historical perception of made in China' that you mention occurring with these 'mainstream' industry OEM's. Thats sort of silly to even bring that up. If anything, that is typical America centric perception of those that are outside of the bike industry. And unfortunately that negative perception remains actually with a lot of would be ebike buyers, especially baby boomers, who haven't bought a bike in decades, and now coming back due to electric assist. P.S. And please try to refrain from fostering that negative 'China' stereotype, as it does none of us in the ebike industry any good, and especially does a dis-service to the buying public. Frankly, it nearly all comes from "China" anyway, no matter the firm.

 

[MarkF]

Another thing that wasn't already touched on is dealer price. Manufacturers expect a certain percentage on there discount to consider using you. I wouldn't be surprised if bafang, with it's already low price to consumers, couldn't agree to a price low enough to satisfy the big makers.

 

[Alex M]

I also fail to see what useful conclusions could be made of Timpo's observations.

Mainstream mfrs are not using Bafang, so they are not using it, period. "Possibly" missing out in this game, or possibly not. Higher-priced market lives by its own rules. Besides, existing restrictions in Europe make it easier to promote underpowered motors of big brands there.

I was about to interject that Pedego is pretty much a mainstream, given their dealership network and sales volumes. They are not using Bafang, they are using Dapu - both hubs and mids. Not that I promote Pedego - there are other (cheaper) substitutes of comparable quality, also equipped with Dapu.

 

[Ken M]

I think the primary reason for dominance of brands like Bosch, Yamaha, and Brose is EU regulations which kept the higher wattage ratings on the Chinese hub drives out of the biggest market outside of Asia.

I know there is some concerns at the mid-drive manufacturers that the ambiguity of the US federal motor ?limit? of 750W (there is plenty of technical information on the internet on why this is an ambiguous specification as any motor can be rated/stated to be 750W) will provide a window for high powered hub motors and mid-drives like the Bafang Ultra to gain some economies of scale from the US market. I think Bosch donates to People for Bikes which is pushing state regulations modeled after the EU regulations which I believe will limit the potential of ebikes as human scale transportation in the US.

The EU regulations for power are more tangible because the address the drive system power and not just state a motor rating so it's unlikely to see any hub drive to have much success there. Stromer and Klevar may be the only EU brands using hub drives on their bikes and they seem to slip thru the regulations by having high "peak" power vs. the continuous rating (mid drive producers are also doing this so I really ???? the regulations world wide (much more thought needs to go into determining what is an acceptable power level and top assist speed for an ebike. Suffice it to say we need human scale transportation more than we need DMV and insurance companies getting their way regulatory-wise on ebikes.

 

[Ebiker01]

The Easy motion brand besides using all motors(Yamaha, Bosch, Shimano,Brose) also uses Bafang rear hub motor , no ?i should know better, is what I ride...

 

[SirJonathan]

When I was a kid anything that said "Made in Japan" meant it was cheap garbage. Now if something says "Made in Japan" it's generally thought of to have high quality components.

 

[Feliz]

When I was a kid anything that said "Made in Japan" meant it was cheap garbage.

That was a long time ago though

 

[michal]

They're (slowly) introducing thousands of e-bikes to the bike share program here in NYC and, having seen this thread, I decided to check what motor they're using after riding one today.

Sure enough, it's a Bafang front hub motor.

 

[linklemming]

I personally would LOVE to use a bafang mid drive although I dont have a use for the higher power.

Sure wish Juiced would come out with a bafang mid-drive, I think they might sell alot.

Would also be nice to see framesets to use this motor, I would love to build up my own bike(I know this is available thru china only vendors, Im not willing to take the risk, nothing against china products as they are making everything these days anyways but woiuld prefer to buy from a us vendor).

I know FLX has the blade. Seems a little to $$ to me

 

[Ken M]

One of my concerns about all the mid drives is availability later in the product life cycle. It seems every motor mount is different so if you own a mid drive motor that fails in say 5 years are you going to be able to get a replacement that fits the custom frame of the original. Hub drive motors are pretty much universally adaptable ... about the only thing you may need to have custom is spokes but those will always be available in any length you would ever need.

 

[Bruce Arnold]

I have zero confidence that Juiced could deliver a reliable bike to me if I ordered one. Their 52v batteries are a temptation, but customer service and reliability are far more important than a 5 to 10% gain in power. Especially if it's unusable.

Great. Someone who has no experience with Juiced Bikes, has read a handful of complaints (many of them legit it's true), ignored all the comments from customers who have received great service, and overlooks the 1000s of Juiced Bikes sold with no need for service at all, and thinks he's got a qualified opinion that must be shared, because reasons.

Sheesh.

 

[SirJonathan]

My interactions with Juiced have been nothing but positive. I have a very powerful eBike (CCX) for quite a bit cheaper than the "big-box" manufacturers. My bike just works. Can go for 80 miles on ECO and a good 60-70 miles at 20+ mph. I absolutely love riding bikes again because of this bike. I would recommend them to anybody.

My personal feeling is that Juiced will become very big. They've beefed up the support and have sold thousands of bikes now. Interest in their product on almost every forum is at the very top. They are a disruptor in the industry for sure. They've also been around since 2009 which means they've got a decade of experience in direct sales now. Things can always improve but I wouldn't discount Juiced at this point.

 

[bikerjohn]

My interactions with Juiced have been nothing but positive. I have a very powerful eBike (CCX) for quite a bit cheaper than the "big-box" manufacturers. My bike just works. Can go for 80 miles on ECO and a good 60-70 miles at 20+ mph. I absolutely love riding bikes again because of this bike. I would recommend them to anybody.

...Juiced will become very big. They've beefed up the support and have sold thousands of bikes now. Interest in their product on almost every forum is at the very top. They are a disruptor in the industry for sure. They've also been around since 2009 which means they've got a decade of experience in direct sales now. Things can always improve but I wouldn't discount Juiced at this point.

...My precise thoughts!!

 

[Feliz]

My interactions with Juiced have been nothing but positive. I have a very powerful eBike (CCX) for quite a bit cheaper than the "big-box" manufacturers. My bike just works. Can go for 80 miles on ECO and a good 60-70 miles at 20+ mph. I absolutely love riding bikes again because of this bike. I would recommend them to anybody.

My personal feeling is that Juiced will become very big. They've beefed up the support and have sold thousands of bikes now. Interest in their product on almost every forum is at the very top. They are a disruptor in the industry for sure. They've also been around since 2009 which means they've got a decade of experience in direct sales now. Things can always improve but I wouldn't discount Juiced at this point.

Good post, as a Juiced owner I agree wholeheartedly.

 

[Feliz]

I appreciate what owners have to say, positive or negative, but why would anyone listen to someone who has never owned the bike......like an armchair quarterback. I would never consider posting something negative about any product I have never owned.

And Bafang make some of the best mid drives, BBS01, BBS02, BBSHD, ULTRA, etc. I have a Bosch CX drive on my Haibike but it doesn't compare to my Biktrix with a BBSHD, it's apples to oranges.

 

[Feliz]

I don't think that's how consumer behavior works.

Many people think Samsung phones are explosive and poor quality, also some of the airports have banned Samsung.
Yet you could argue "you just ignored the fact that Samsung have sold millions of phones and there are happy customers"

Also many people have poor perception about GM vehicles, they had 2009 bailout, and fast forward 10 years, they're talking about another bailout and layoffs.
People have low confidence in GM vehicles and will hesitate to buy one.
Yet you could argue "you just ignored the fact that GM is one of the largest automotive manufactures in the world and they have a lot of happy customers" or "You never owned GM vehicles and how can you possibly criticize their vehicles?"

Me personally as a Juiced owner, I can not recommend Juiced to someone who is not mechanically inclined.
In fact, as much as I hate Pedego, I would recommend Pedego because of their customer service. (I even made a thread about Pedego before because I honestly couldn't see a point of Pedego, or why would anyone choose to buy them)
No, I have NEVER owned a Pedego, and never will. I don't like their design, I think they're over priced, I don't like their specs, but they get really good customer reviews. They always go extra mile to make customers happy, and people have been posting their experiences.

You could tell me "You have never owned a Pedego and you just ignored the fact that some people had problems with Pedego"
Well I know no business is perfect, but generally, I have a perception that Pedego is very much focused on customer service.
I believe Juiced is best bang for buck, but I can only recommend it to people with DIY skills and there's definitely market for that.

Although I believe Juiced have improved (judging by reviews fro CCX and newer model owners) , I think it is going to take some time.
When Ford and GM started making eco friendly vehicles, it took a long time to change consumer behavior... and they're still working on it.
Because when someone is looking for a eco friendly vehicle, who would think about "Ford and Chevy?" because I think they're too well known for building V8 muscle cars.

Once there's a bad perception, or bad news, you don't have to own a vehicle (or bike in this case) because bad news will be just as bad as real experience.
The bad news will be remembered into prefrontal cortex or amygdala or wherever and that's how humans have been avoiding risks or danger for many centuries.
I saw a documentary (National Geographics?) about how human brain works and they said something like that.

What an odd posting, your talking about Pedego and you've never even owned one, you're talking about the human brain, discussing auto popularity and sales, are you saying Juiced is hard to work on? It's probably the simplest ebike made, discussing human perception! lol

 

[Feliz]

This is a ludicrous 100% unrealistic standard for communication.

Consumer Reports tests a few dozen automobiles every year. However, they aggregate data from many hundreds of models over several decades. By your standard, CR's data is invalid since they don't own and thoroughly test every single model from every single owner first hand.

Likewise, this forum, and other sites like reddit, aggregate the experiences of owners from all over the english speaking world. You are saying if someone reads these reports, they should remain silent about the very obvious discernible patterns: high rates of defects with batteries and controllers. Late deliveries. Errors with orders shipped. Missing parts. Long delays in shipping replacement parts unless they own a juiced product.

Guess what: even without owning one of the bikes, the reports from owners still stand.

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil is foolhardy.

People complaining about issues with bikes on the internet has absolutely nothing to do with what CR does, sorry.