Why do the big bike brands (almost) never use hub motors?

[tomjasz]

What does that have to do with the price of oil?

I enjoy the fella and many of his posts. I hate to make this personal, BUT...
These supercilious comments denigrating hub motors just reveals a narrow view. Clearly a myopic view...

 

[mclewis1]

true but we have not seen anyone actually make a better setup with a hub motor but that one high end company I cant think of the name of.

I agree, we haven't seen much in higher end commercial setups, but many of the features can be had via DIY type of builds ... but that isn't what the majority of folks want. That also brings the conversation back around to the original question posed in this thread.

 

[AHicks]

I agree, we haven't seen much in higher end commercial setups, but many of the features can be had via DIY type of builds ... but that isn't what the majority of folks want. That also brings the conversation back around to the original question posed in this thread.

Oh dam, please tell me we haven't run out of stuff to argue about.

 

[teskow]

The gains obtained by running a power source through a transmission is great when the power source has a narrow power band. Internal combustion engines. The electric motors used in electric vehicles have a much broader torque range so we see a trend to direct drive systems in electric autos because of simplicity and a wide power band. I expect e-bikes will go that direction more and more as technology gets better.

 

[AHicks]

The gains obtained by running a power source through a transmission is great when the power source has a narrow power band. Internal combustion engines. The electric motors used in electric vehicles have a much broader torque range so we see a trend to direct drive systems in electric autos because of simplicity and a wide power band. I expect e-bikes will go that direction more and more as technology gets better.

Agreed. We already see just a single front gear vs. 2 or 3 in analog bikes. Regarding the rear cluster, how many gears you NEED there, can't be too conclusive as there's too many different sizes of motors/amounts of power in play. The bigger motors (1000w+) don't need the number of gears most would want with something closer to 250w.

 

[Akrotiri]

1. Every ebike has a way of measuring rear wheel rpm to obey the legal speed support. It is not hub or a mid drive specific thing. Hubs use motor position sensor for this one instead of an additional magnet type sensor that most of the mid drives use. So hubs measure motor rpm and this is also used to calculate the speed.
2 - 4 For mid drives a similar position sensor is used to read motor rpm and this data is also used to compute cadence(so these two are not two separate sensors). For hub motors a separate cadence sensor is used. In other words mid drives also measure motor rpm and use it to compute cadence.
3. Again this is not specific to mid drives, hub motors also can have torque sensors as have been stated too many times.

5,6 Most mainstream mid drives does not have these sensors. But more importantly these are once again NOT mid drive specific. Actually Stromer has claimed to have those.

Once again none of these things you have stated is specific to mid or hub drives. Maybe you should first learn these things before throwing them out randomly.

 

[AHicks]

Thank you so much for the time you've taken to share your opinion.

 

[Allan47.7339]

I enjoy the fella and many of his posts. I hate to make this personal, BUT...
These supercilious comments denigrating hub motors just reveals a narrow view. Clearly a myopic view...

Hello pot meet kettle.

 

[Elkman]

My first two Class II e-bikes had hub motors and I prayed not to get a flat tire while out on the road. I replaced them with two Class III e-bikes that provide less power but also allow me to pedal at 25 mph with some motor support. With the mid-drive the bikes use normal wheels, rims, and tires, so changing a flat tire is no different than for my other non electric bikes.