With these E-CVT's kill the rest of the market?

[Plummet]

I wonder if the release of these two E-CVT's will kill the rest of the bike market?

It must be hard being a bike shop and manufacturer committing to stock and literally 5 mins later some step change opposition product is released and all of a sudden you have a ton of dead stock that you have to sell at cost or below to quit out of.

I guess its great for the consumer with all new tech and these discounts for old spec product other than our old spec once super expensive bikes are now worth even less than used toilet paper.....

I guess we have to wait and see how good the E-CVT's are to understand how disruptive they will be.
Will the work with a flat battery or motor off?
How much more power will they burn through?
Efficiency above motor cut? How do they work above motor cut?
What is the actual weight difference?

 

[Astro66]

I guess we have to wait and see how good the E-CVT's are to understand how disruptive they will be.

This. If they shift like a mechanically geared derailleur, which Rob is reporting they do. The derailleur is done in an EMTB. It was the one area of the EMTB that pissed me off.

I want perfect shifting. And it takes the most innoxious bump of the derailleur or cage, to create poor shifting. When maneuvering through tight twisty rock gardens. The derailleur is a huge burden. It's just a big easily bendable target, hanging down low, ready to impact with obstacles.

Branches, stringy bark and long grasses get caught up in the cage wheels. It's just the wrong tool for the job. And if these the E-CVT's produce the same shifting sensation as the derailleur. Then it's game over.

 

[Brawwp]

Even with all the techy smoothshift, wireless shift, etc it is still just the absolute worst part on an e-bike (or any bike).

I don’t think it’ll hurt bike shops to any significant degree. They’ll just have to transition their emtbs over as they sell them. It’s up to the manufacturers to get on board if it takes off or be left behind. Feels almost like the pharm industry, do they cure diseases and cancers or keep making profits lol (sorry for the messed up comparison, but the derailleur is a freaking cancer on my bikes).

If anything, shops that are early adopters of those brands may see a big uptick in sales initially and potential for new customers.

 

[Plummet]

Even with all the techy smoothshift, wireless shift, etc it is still just the absolute worst part on an e-bike (or any bike).

I don’t think it’ll hurt bike shops to any significant degree. They’ll just have to transition their emtbs over as they sell them. It’s up to the manufacturers to get on board if it takes off or be left behind. Feels almost like the pharm industry, do they cure diseases and cancers or keep making profits lol (sorry for the messed up comparison, but the derailleur is a freaking cancer on my bikes).

If anything, shops that are early adopters of those brands may see a big uptick in sales initially and potential for new customers.

It is certainly hurting bikes shops that have old stock. It must be hard stocking these uber expensive bikes to have them sit there for years and then sell em below cost.

I guess the offset to that is if they are plundering new sales of the new tech with high margins then that will cover the old stock non selling stock.

 

[Plummet]

This. If they shift like a mechanically geared derailleur, which Rob is reporting they do. The derailleur is done in an EMTB. It was the one area of the EMTB that pissed me off.

I want perfect shifting. And it takes the most innoxious bump of the derailleur or cage, to create poor shifting. When maneuvering through tight twisty rock gardens. The derailleur is a huge burden. It's just a big easily bendable target, hanging down low, ready to impact with obstacles.

Branches, stringy bark and long grasses get caught up in the cage wheels. It's just the wrong tool for the job. And if these the E-CVT's produce the same shifting sensation as the derailleur. Then it's game over.

Yeah, im burning through derraileurs. This was me a few weeks back....

I look forward to the day of no derrailleur.

 

[TimC7]

The Avinox M2 has a massive uptake but seems to be in short supply - are Avinox already ahead of the game and putting more resources into their MGU knowing it will kill sales of their current motors?

 

[DylanJM]

The Avinox M2 has a massive uptake but seems to be in short supply - are Avinox already ahead of the game and putting more resources into their MGU knowing it will kill sales of their current motors?

I don't think so. In Rob's video the guy from Avinox said he sees a market where both products co exist. There may be a lot of people out there who do not like the way a eCVT bike rides and prefer the traditional setup.

 

[Mteam]

I can see that eventually gearbox motors might kill off regular motors + derailuer, but it'll be a few years away. The first iteration of gearbox bikes will be poor/compromised in some way or other, it won't be until the second gen that they start to refine the design.

If I was in the market for a new ebike now I wouldn't be postponing that purchase because of the two recently announced gearbox motors, I'd just buy a new emtb now that did what I wanted and was available.

There's always some next big thing being announced/just round the corner, if you waited for the next big thing You'd never have an emtb to ride.

I tend to buy emtbs like I buy phones , the latest super phone is always very expensive, and hyped to the max. But you can get last years superphone for half the cost, and it's 85% as good.

 

[slickrock]

...

I guess we have to wait and see how good the E-CVT's are to understand how disruptive they will be.
Will the work with a flat battery or motor off? [Degraded mode where as you pedal you are basically charging enough battery to power the control system and the smaller gear motor. It will be a slog through. ]
How much more power will they burn through? [Possibly even less than a derailleur EMTB, since shifting is both instantaneous, non-mechanical, and in auto mode you could have a profile that is optimized for max motor curve efficiency]
Efficiency above motor cut? How do they work above motor cut? [No internal freewheel, so always connected to the transmission. it won't be as efficient after cutoff.]
What is the actual weight difference? [TBD, but with ECVT ditching the kludgy gearbox, you have the best chance if getting it to net parity with derailleur/motor combo].

See comments in [brackets] above.

To answer the topical question though, yeah it will probably kill at least the full-power enduro side of the EMTB market in due time. It's not clear at this point if a super compact, light-weight, lower-power ECVT could be built for a trail EMTB. It requires two motors, after all to work.

 

[Fangs2k]

How much more power will they burn through? [Possibly even less than a derailleur EMTB, since shifting is both instantaneous, non-mechanical, and in auto mode you could have a profile that is optimized for max motor curve efficiency]

Surely that’s only true if the motor and battery are doing all the work?

On a pedal assist bicycle the human riding it is supposed to be providing a good chunk of the work, so seems marginal.

As you say, two electric motors at play as far as I can see, and the Q factor hasn’t been talked about much either?

 

[Fangs2k]

I think the original question has to be asked and answered in the context of the bubble within the bubble that is EMTB.

There is far more to the ‘bike market’ than a £5-10k mountain bike with a fancy electric motor drive unit sitting between two wheels.

My LBS loves working on EMTBs, most of their day is taken up prepping or repairing kids bikes and other utilitarian (but no less important from a business point of view) bicycles with and without motors.

 

[RoJo]

I could have been tempted to buy a Karve Evo/Mondy Zendit/Dreadnaught E/Orbea Wild but there is absolutely zero chance now. If I had an order I'd be looking to cancel.

Bikes have 3 bugbears for me: drivetrain maintenance, pivot bearings, suspension service and this addresses the biggest of these 3 issues which is a tangible gain for me: less time tinkering, more time riding. Off topic, pivot bearings could be replaced by flex stays and composite leaf springs like the C6 corvette.

Anyhow, I agree, I feel sorry for any brand who has worked tirelessly to accommodate Bosch, then Shimano, back to Bosch, now Avinox to find out that their bike demand has dropped off the cliff.

I don't feel sorry for big derailleur who have been price gouging us for years with unsuitable products. Let's not forget that Shimano could have released this product years ago.

As for efficiency and reliability, this is well established tech (Prius eCVT) so it absolutely will be reliable and efficient. There is no world in which anyone will want a conventional derailleur eBike.

 

[Bogdan_CH]

Promises alot of things on paper. Let's see it handle real mountain rides.

 

[Ndanger]

I'm an optimist and would love to find a better drive train that is durable, light and efficient , providing as much or more gear range currently
Why am I reminding myself of the following joke; Magic trick: To make people disappear, ask them to fulfill their promises.” – Mason Cooley

 

[pagheca]

I will wait to see

1) how much weight they add (probably not too much or nothing, considering the total weight of an e-bike),
2) how much added friction (again, probably not too much).

I don't think cost and reliability will be an issue, but still... I will wait. It could be a disruptive resolution, it may not. Technology, and marketing, is complicated.

 

[Bogdan_CH]

He has a point

 

[TimC7]

He has a point

I don't understand why these people get their panties in a twist over naming semantics. Surely the point is they're new torque sensing electric drive units for class 1 pedalecs which don't use crappy chains and derailleurs. What they're called is irrelevant to their impact on the sport.

 

[skizzian]

I don't understand why these people get their panties in a twist over naming semantics. Surely the point is they're new torque sensing electric drive units for class 1 pedalecs which don't use crappy chains and derailleurs. What they're called is irrelevant to their impact on the sport.

his main point, it seemed to me, was that the direct drive is lost
he's probably right - the Ai Algorithm controlling pedal response will need to do a lot of fast clever thinking to make it feel direct in it's response to pedal input.