ebikes

Hot-rodding, hacking, or e-bike tampering – call it whatever you’d like. But Europe’s major electric bicycle companies are doing everything they can to prevent riders from finagling more speed from their e-bikes.

Earlier this summer, BMW unveiled an interesting electric cargo bike known as the Dynamic Cargo Concept. It used a three-wheeler platform and novel tilting mechanism to make a more stable e-cargo trike.

BMW said at the time that it had no plans to produce the design, but instead was seeking a partner to commercialize the concept. Fast forward several months and it appears BMW has found that partner in German bicycle company Cube.

Italian design firm ARES is showing off its ARES Super Leggera electric bicycle, which it claims is the lightest electric bicycle in the world.

Cowboy has been a popular electric bicycle brand in Europe for several years now, and it’s finally making its US debut.

Harley-Davidson’s electric bicycle brand Serial 1 launched a limited edition e-bike known as the MOSH/TRIBUTE that has seen surprisingly fast sales despite its high sticker price.

The RadCity 5 Plus e-bike from Rad Power Bikes has just been launched with a pile of new upgrades, making it the most extensive update to the RadCity electric commuter e-bike yet. The team at Rad kindly gave me the opportunity to get an early test ride on the new RadCity 5 Plus, and today I’m taking you along with me to see what makes this new e-bike tick.

Specialized has been in the electric bicycle game since 2009, making them one of the earlier entrants among mainstream bicycle companies. With all those years building premium e-bikes, they’ve had plenty of time to refine their technology. Now the company is showing off the latest generation of Full Power Turbo electric bikes with updated models of the Turbo Vado and Turbo Como bikes, plus a new model known as the Turbo Tero.

The range is one of the first questions I get asked about my electric bikes, right after “How fast does that thing go?” But range has always been one of the most mysterious and difficult to pin down specs in the e-bike industry.

After increasing its minimum battery size, San Diego-based Juiced Bikes is showing just how far its electric bicycles can go on a single charge with real-world testing data.

Serial 1, the electric bicycle company that was spun-off from Harley-Davidson’s original electric bicycle program, has revealed that it will sell a limited number of S1 MOSH/TRIBUTE e-bikes.

In case you missed it, a gaggle of Electrek‘s staff just spent several weeks in Germany attending the Eurobike and IAA Mobility trade shows to check out the latest in two-, three-, and four-wheeled electric transportation. While we were there, the fast-paced electric bicycle company Super73 was kind enough to loan us a pair of badass e-bikes that turned into our main wheels for the rest of the trip.

We took those things across Germany, toured the cities and the countryside, road the hell out of them, left them outside during intense rainstorms, may or may not have crashed one or both of them at various points during the trip, and basically did the best we could to push those bikes to their limits. They took everything we could throw at them and asked for more.

Phoenix-based Lectric eBikes has made a name for itself in its two short years of existence thanks to the company’s smash hit Lectric XP e-bike. Now the garage startup turned massive e-bike brand is getting a boost of old-school cred with the hire of industry insider Jeff Frehner as its new COO.

A 30% tax credit for electric bicycle purchases in the US has been slowly working its way through the gauntlet of Congress. The latest update to the proposed legislation shows much anticipated progress but also reduces the potential size of the incentive.

We’ve watched many electric bicycle models in North America push further into the heavier, more aggressive categories of fat tire e-bikes and electric moped-style rides. But the KBO Breeze takes a different approach, bucking the trend toward bigger and bolder e-bikes. This comfortable and leisurely contender is light on riders’ backs and even lighter on their wallets.

After skipping a year due to the pandemic, Eurobike 2021 returned to Friedrichshafen, Germany, nearly two years to the day after the previous rendition of one of the world’s largest and most important bicycle trade shows. The show was immeasurably different (much like the world itself over the last 18 months), but it still hosted some of the most interesting new updates to bicycle tech we’ve seen in years.

And as e-bikes have exploded in popularity since the pandemic, so too has the proportion of e-bike companies to pedal bikes at the show. While 2019 saw closer to an even mix between electric and acoustic bikes, Eurobike 2021 was absolutely the year of the e-bike as electrically-powered two-wheelers dominated the show.

The GOTRAX Endura electric bicycle is the answer to the question, “What e-bike would you recommend if I wanted to spend as little money as possible but not get a pile of junk?”

It is far from the best e-bike I’ve tested, but it still scores major points for combining good-enough parts with a super-low price tag of $649. I’ve tested e-bikes that cut too many corners before, and this is not one of them. It makes some sacrifices that we’ll discuss, but it still lands a solid win in the end.

Beginning early this year, electric bicycle prices crept up nearly across the board. Now we are starting to see reductions in prices from major US brands. Could this be the light at the end of the tunnel?

Electric bicycles are subject to various speed limits around the world, but the 25 km/h (15.5 mph) speed limit in places like the EU and Australia is particularly frustrating to riders who are in search of just a bit more “oomph” in their bikes. But a new device is making it easy to increase the top speed of electric bicycles without making any major modifications to the electric bike’s drive system.

Dutch electric bicycle company VanMoof has announced one of the largest funding rounds ever in the electric bicycle company. The $128 million funding round could be a sign of more to come as e-bike sales are hotter than ever and investors continuously eye a piece of that action.

German company Schaeffler has just revealed an innovative new drive system for electric bicycles that eschews traditional bike chains and belts for an entirely electrical-driven system. The new system is known as the Schaeffler Free Drive and marks the entry of one of the most divergent electric bicycle drivetrains we’ve seen in years.

Bosch has just announced one of the biggest updates in years to its electric bicycle drive unit lines, including some smart new tech and a new larger battery.

Electric bicycle sales have been increasing around the world for years, with the US seeing particularly drastic year-over-year growth. But never before have we witnessed the kind of colossal growth spawned by the COVID-19 pandemic. And according to industry leaders, there’s no sign of it slowing down.