Best Electric Bike Motors: Everything You Need to Know
How Electric Bike Motor Works
Electrical energy is converted into mechanical energy by electric motors. E-bikes have brushless DC motors, also known as BLDC motors, which do not need brushes like older electric motors did to change the direction of current flowing to the motor. Brushless motors have been the norm for more than ten years because their brushes reduced the motors’ efficiency and had a tendency to wear out over time.
You may notice a lot of cables winding around a ring of poles when you open a BLDC motor. It is the stator when the motor controller injects current into the wires from the battery and turns into an electromagnet. A circle-shaped row of permanent magnets will also be visible inside or outside the stator. Depending on the type of BLDC motor, the magnets’ orientation to the stator may differ, but the rotor is always present.
Understanding how the rotor and stator interact is essential to comprehending how best electric bike motors operate. The permanent rotor magnets are attracted to and repelled by the electromagnet as current flows through them in a circular pattern, turning the stator. A shaft is connected to the stator. A tiny chain ring attached to the shaft of a mid-drive motor uses the torque produced by the rotation of the shaft to assist you in pedaling. With hub motors, the shaft functions as the axle and does not rotate. Instead, the motor rotor spins itself, turning the hub as a whole and producing torque to turn either the front or back wheel.
Factors to Consider When Buying Electric Bike Motor
Efficiency
The quality and strength of your mid-drive motor pedal assistance should be the main deciding factors. A lighter, more maneuverable e-MTB is yours to ride thanks to improved efficiency, which makes it possible to use a smaller engine and battery pack.
Weight
One of the lower output mid-drive motors will be more than sufficient if you do not always need maximum pedal assistance. Despite having only half the power of a typical e-MTB system, they are significantly lighter.
Peak Power Output
It is simple to choose your e-MTB mid-drive motor for power and potential battery endurance: consider your options for power output and battery capacity.
The general riding characteristics are where the e-MTB experience, in terms of mid-drive motor choice, becomes more complicated. Mid-drive motors can be challenging on slow, steep, and rough terrain. A high-cadence power surge in one of your climbing gears might easily lift a front wheel and throw you off balance.
Which One Should I Choose: Mid-Drive or Hub Motor
A hub motor is one of the E-bike motor types that are most frequently purchased today. Typically, it is mounted on the back wheel, though there are also various front hub designs. The hub motor is straightforward, quite light, and relatively cheap to manufacture. The mid-drive motor has several significant benefits over the hub motor. Let us have a look!
Performance
Mid-drive motors are noted for having superior performance and torque, comparing a mid-drive motor to a conventional hub motor of comparable power. The mid-drive motor’s ability to drive the crank rather than the engine itself is an important factor in this, which multiplies its power and enables it to utilize the bike’s existing gears. The best way to picture this could be to figure yourself approaching a steep hill. To make pedaling simpler while keeping the same cadence, you would adjust the bike’s gears. That gearing modification also helps your bike’s mid-drive motor and enables it to provide additional power and range.
Maintenance
The mid-drive motor on your bike is made to be very simple to service and maintain. Without damaging any other bike parts, you can remove two unique bolts to remove and replace the whole motor unit. It means that any typical bike shop can troubleshoot and repair. However, routine maintenance procedures like removing the wheel to fix a flat tire would be troublesome if the rear wheel included a hub motor.
Handling
The mid-drive motor is positioned low to the ground and near the bike’s center of gravity, which improves handling. More evenly dispersing the weight that helps your electric bike handle better overall.
Conclusion
The motor will be one of the first things you look into, whether you are comparing the various electric bike options now on the market or trying to choose the best E-bike motor. In this article, we have highlighted some factors that might help you choose the ideal e-bike motor and how to select the one that is most suited. We have also discussed the distinctions between the hub and mid-drive motor, the two types of electric bike motors, which are described here. If you want to buy an electric bike motor always consider the mentioned factors.
