Tested Turbo Levo WATT output, surprising results...

[RRAPTRR]

We did some testing with my bike, vs some other converted eBikes with powerful mid drives. My friend, owner of Luna Cycle, was SUPER impressed with my Levo, and he was convinced the bike had to be putting out more than the stated 530-watts.

Being a shop, he had the Rosenberg connectors and a Cycle Analyst which we wired up in-line with the battery and motor, so we could really see how much voltage/amperage the battery was sending to the motor.

We took a video during the process, with the findings as well:

Long and short of it... the bike actually outputs 660-watt continuous power, with the highest peak measured "just" under 700-watts, in turbo mode.

We did some races up a steep hill, me on the Levo in Turbo mode pedaling as best I could, vs two other bikes... one a 1500-watt mid drive, and a 2500-watt mid drive road bike. I beat the 1500-watt bike EVERY time, by significant margin. I lost by a half-wheel distance to the 2500-watt bike during the 2 races.

Video clip of the short races we did, me pedaling vs. throttle-only on their bikes:

Needless to say, they were blown away with the Levo, and have a new found respect for them.

 

[AlexS]

You just gotta give it up to Luna. Those guys are awesome.

 

[George S.]

The results don't make sense. Nobody ever compares the refined factory bikes with DIY, and the DIY is not winning this round. Still, watts are watts. If you put the bikes on a dynomometer to measure real output power, you might have a clue about what is going on. The numbers don't add up.

Hicks just can't help himself. It's always a good thing to have more power, break every rule. Why not say the Turbo proves you can have a fast bike, a high performance bike, and still be under the US watt limits? You can make a battery pack for a 750 watt motor that is small and has range. A pack for a 2500 watt bike has to be huge.

More comparisons like this would lead to better engineering from the bottom level of DIY to the top of the factory bike lines. I'm glad a 750 watt street legal bike can have impressive performance. So why are people chasing big watt numbers that don't seem to translate into big performance?

Nobody runs tests. Nobody runs comparisons. Nobody has a clue what works or why it works because it is mostly marketing. You've got the power people and the torque sensor people, bikes that are faster because they integrate better with the rider. Until you have real tests of real bikes, X versus Y, under real world conditions, buyers will be in the dark.

So what would Specialized gain making a 1500 watt version of their bike? Maybe people should just make 750 watt bikes that work. Solid hub motors like the MAC or the heavy Goldens work, even at 750 watts. Hicks needs to tell us what a 2500 watt ebike really means, why we need it. It was nice of Luna to run a video showing why we don't really need 2500 watts. Super nice.

 

[bazzapage]

What this says is that the Levo had a 20A controller so can consume up to 720W. No surprises really. We also know that the Brose motor has higher torque than most, and in the Levo form is geared to haul up hills. It will be quite different on the flat.
I do a comparative real world test for my reviews; I haven't done a home built, but the best bike up a very steep hill so far is a Vado 3.0.
I do advise people to ignore W because it is not especially useful as a measure, especially as measurements are inconsistent at best. How it rides is everything.
W can either be big or small depending on who the manufacturer is trying to impress: the public or regulators.

 

[Sonoboy]

How veerry interesting! We must ask ourselves about the POWER of this bike. Notice the black and red colors? Why is the manufacturer LYING about the power of this machine? Is it for good? Is the 660 watts quoted by the reviewer ACTUALLY 666 Watts? Could this bike actually be an instrument of… oh, I dunno… (in one’s best Dana Carvey Church Lady voice)…SAAAAATAN?

 

[Rainman1404]

Thanks for taking the time and effort to give us test data! I have a question however. I have a 2018 fsr and in the specialized app I have seen the wattage go up to 577 which is more than the claimed 530. Your test shows close to 700 watts. Have you seen the same readings in the app? I'm curious how accurate it is. Thanks again!

 

[RRAPTRR]

That's the interesting part! I consistently hit 680-watts peak power during our testing (only one jumped to almost 700 momentarily)... but the app always shows about 525-watts peak power output! Sandbagging? lol

The only reason that we tested the power output with the meter, is because Eric flat out did NOT BELIEVE it was only 530-watts, after seeing it outperform a 1500-watt mid-drive bike on our hill climbs tests. Erik was SUPER IMPRESSED with the Levo and has an entirely new found respect for them after our day of testing. The fact he was convinced it had to be way more power than stated, says a lot. In fact, he was theorizing that it was more like 1000+ watts, because of the way it was climbing the hills against his other bikes.

As for the flats, I had no issue keeping up with the other guys with the 1500/2500 watt bikes on the streets... and on the trails, they'd likely be chasing ME! The biggest limitation is the battery capacity for these bikes, and the overall range when using Turbo mode aggressively. That being said, we're looking into reverse-engineering these packs and possibly even offering a higher capacity USA-made pack from LUNA, at half the price of a OEM spare. Some complications to work through, but we're going to be working on it!

On a side note, check out Erik's full (and a bit long) review and impressions of the Levo:

 

[eagamer80]

Couldn't you just have your measures using the Diagnosis tool? I think that Levo bike still uses the same port as older Turbo bikes.

 

[DaveN007]

I am curious about the way the test environment compares to a riding environment. What would a human rider have to do to “sustain” 660 Watts of assist? I am curious because even in Turbo with everything set to the max, I have never seen battery consumption in line with 660 Watts. I can’t imagine a scenario where I could deplete my battery in 42 minutes. Any thoughts?

 

[Dunbar]

I am curious about the way the test environment compares to a riding environment. What would a human rider have to do to “sustain” 660 Watts of assist? I am curious because even in Turbo with everything set to the max, I have never seen battery consumption in line with 660 Watts. I can’t imagine a scenario where I could deplete my battery in 42 minutes. Any thoughts?

Find a 42 minute climb, turn the bike up to max assist, and go for it. Most cycling requires you to coast sometimes so it would be very hard to sustain 66oW average power for that long. True mountain biking usually involves descending where you’d be using little to no electric assist. In practice you’d get more than 42 minutes even on the highest assist level in most real world riding conditions. By ‘sustained’ 660W assist I believe they just mean that the motor and controller are rated to maintain 20A of power indefinitely (vs. just for short periods of time.)

 

[DaveN007]

“True mountain biking usually involves descending.” Lol. Yes it does. I have seen lots of comparisons of Brose, Yamaha and other Pedelec motors in bikes that all claim around 500 Watts peak, and they all seem to deliver the same levels of power. Instead of an indictment of Specialized, this could just as easily be interpreted as Luna making claims that they are delivering a more powerful solution, when they aren’t. I am of the opinion that 250/500 Pedelec is the perfect “Smart Bike” assist level.

 

[Dunbar]

“Instead of an indictment of Specialized, this could just as easily be interpreted as Luna making claims that they are delivering a more powerful solution, when they aren’t. I am of the opinion that 250/500 Pedelec is the perfect “Smart Bike” assist level.

Well the guy from Luna says that he would pay $7600 for the Levo in a heartbeat. So my takeaway from the third video wasn’t that he thought it was a bad bike. I don’t agree with him that Americans want glorified electric scooters with pedals on them. I believe that Luna caters to a small segment of the market that wants that type of e-bike but that American e-bike preferences are quite a bit more diverse than he lets on.