Types of Ebike Motors

We currently offer ebikes with geared hub motors in the rear wheel or bottom bracket. This will give you an overview of geared hub motors and how they work in our various models. We will also cover 2 other common types of motors. The mid-drive and the direct drive hub motor.


Our Prodigy equips a gorgeous Brose mid-drive motor that could not be smoother. Brose designs the motor, controller, display, and all settings for the torque sensor. You can see the internals for this mid-drive below:


Geared hub motors

Provide good low-end torque and hill climbing ability. Inside, they will have internal gears, bearings, magnets, and copper windings, as you can see in this stator replacement video. They provide very little resistance, so whether you are coasting or utilizing the PAS or throttle, there will not be any excessive friction slowing you down.


Over the years we have come out with many different model bikes which all came with slightly different brand geared hub motors. Identifying the motor that originally came on your bike is important because any replacements motors, rear wheels, and controllers will need to be a matching brand. Luckily this can easily be done by simply looking at the rear hub of your bike. Here are some reference photos for the different brand motors that could have come on your bike.


AKM



Bafang

Shengyi


MXUS


Mid-drive motors

Like the one shown above, these motors have the best performance but are generally more expensive. Mid-drive motors output their power through the chain rather than directly to the wheel, meaning that they use the mechanical advantage of the gears. This means that mid-drive bikes generally have the best hill climbing ability and efficiency. There are some things to be aware of, though. With a mid-drive, it is more critical that you are in the correct gear. You can also cause excessive wear and tear on the chain if riding too aggressively and/or in the wrong gear. Since the chain and cassette are used by the mid-drive, if the chain breaks, you will be walking home. Whereas hub motors do not use the chain, so you could power home if you still have some juice in your battery.

Direct-drive hub motors

These motors are quiet and efficient once at speed and on flat ground. However, they are slow to accelerate and do not perform as well on hills. They are often larger and heavier than geared hub motors. Additionally, when coasting or pedaling with the bike off, there will be a noticeable drag. On the flip side, these motors are capable of regenerative braking (not all have it), but the battery gains seen at this time are relatively low. Many do not think the trade-offs are worth it. These are the main reasons we only use Geared hub motors and Mid-drive motors at this time.


Motor ratings


Much like the engines of cars, ebike motors will have a power and torque rating that will give you an idea of the performance you would expect out of the bike. These ratings are usually measures in Watts (W) for power and Newton-Meters (nm) for torque rather than the horse power and foot-lbs that you may be familiar with in car engines, but they roughly correlate to the same performance expectations. Power and torque of a motor is a complicated subject that you can really get lost in the weeds of, but you can think of this as torque being a measure of a bikes hill climbing and acceleration ability, while power is a measure of how quickly a motor can output that torque. Here are the ratings of the motors we have used on our various models.

  • Portola - 750W, 65nm torque geared hub-motor
  • Vorsa - 750W, 95nm torque, AKM hub-motor
  • Roadster V3 - 500W, 50nm torque MIVICE angled gear hub-motor
  • REVV 1 - 750W, 95nm torque Bafang Geared Hub-Motor
  • CF Racer1 - 250W, 42nm torque, Bafang geared hub-motor
  • Prodigy V1, V2, & TrailRush - 250W, 90nm torque Brose German Made TF Sprinter Mid-Drive Motor
  • Roadster V2 - 500W, 40nm torque, Shengyi Geared Hub-Motor
  • Core-5, Turris (1st gen), 500 Series - 750W, 60nm torque, Shengyi Geared Hub-Motor 
  • Cafe Cruiser, 700 Series - 750W, 60nm torque, Bafang Geared Hub-Motor
  • LMT'D - 750W 100nm torque(MXUS) or 95nm (AKM) Geared Hub-Motor 
  • LMT'D V2,Turris - 750 W, 95nm (AKM) Geared Hub-Motor, Turris will have 90nm of Torque
  • Rift - 750W, 95nm torque AKM angled gear hub motor

You will notice the Prodigy V1, V2, and TrailRush has a 250W mid-drive motor, but it also has 90nm of Torque. Mid-drive motors output their power through the chain rather than directly to the wheel, meaning that they use the mechanical advantage of the gears. This means that directly comparing a mid-drive model to a geared hub-motor is apples to oranges.  


It is also important to note that the power of a motor does not directly correlate to the top speed of the bike but it does give you a general way to compare the performance of different ebikes. While our bikes may have different power ratings, they are all capable of reaching 28mph. 


Glossary of ebike power terms


Amps: the amount of current or power a battery or controller can put out

Ah or Amp hour: How many amps a battery can produce in an hour, i.e., the gas tank size of your battery

W or Watt: volts x amps is the amount of work a motor can produce. You can think of this as the horsepower of your ebike

N-m or Newton meter: how much torque a motor can make

Nominal voltage: Is the voltage class for a system as the actual voltage of a battery-powered ebike can vary