[HN Gopher] DJI Announces an Electric Mountain Bike Drive System
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       DJI Announces an Electric Mountain Bike Drive System
        
       Author : Logans_Run
       Score  : 20 points
       Date   : 2024-07-05 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.dji.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.dji.com)
        
       | sandworm101 wrote:
       | 20kg? Actual trail riders spend hundreds to thousands shaving
       | _grams_ off their bikes. I think this is just another attempt to
       | break e-bikes away from being a distinct product, to keep the
       | "e" an optional upgrade to whatever bike the customer already
       | owns.
        
         | demondemidi wrote:
         | Actual trail riders mostly do not do this. Source: worked at a
         | bike store. People with a lot of money that treat their bike as
         | something to optimize and not something to ride do this. I'm
         | not saying its wrong, its just another way of being a bike
         | enthusiast, but this type rarely overlaps with serious riders.
         | Training improves performance, not $3000 wheels that shave off
         | 50 grams.
        
           | slau wrote:
           | Agreed. For most people it would be more reasonable to lose
           | the three-four kg in body fat and keep the aluminium frame
           | rather than upgrading to carbon fibre.
        
             | plorkyeran wrote:
             | Unless you have found a way to spend a few thousand dollars
             | to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no
             | complications or effort, losing weight and spending more on
             | a bike are not things you're choosing between.
        
               | unsigner wrote:
               | semaglutide comes pretty close to "a few thousand dollars
               | to make 3-4 kg of body fat magically disappear with no
               | complications or effort"
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | Isn't this about e-bikes? Do people generally train on
           | e-bikes? It feels that these two would be distinct sets.
        
           | sandworm101 wrote:
           | At least in the pacific northwest, mounting biking isn't just
           | about riding the bike any more than owning a motorcycle is
           | just about riding a motorcycle. It's a culture or talking
           | about and bragging about bike tech. Weight is bragging rights
           | for mountain bikes as "aero" is for road bikes. Lots of
           | people will pay to have the better toy. The running joke is
           | that many bikes are worth more than the cars that bring them
           | to the trailheads.
        
         | plorkyeran wrote:
         | Approximately no one is paying thousands of dollars to shave
         | grams off an eMTB. There is a small but visible group of people
         | doing that for road bikes and a much smaller group of people
         | doing that for non-electric mountain bikes. There's probably
         | some weirdo out there doing it for an electric mountain bike
         | but they're probably more of a "decorative expensive bike
         | purchaser" than an "actual trail rider".
        
         | bluescrn wrote:
         | I don't think competitive e-biking is a thing. And if you're
         | commuting or riding recreationally, you probably don't care
         | much about weight.
         | 
         | And this looks like a competitor for the Bosch systems that
         | power many e-bikes, needing a similar frame design - and not a
         | kit to install on non-electric bikes.
        
         | Zigurd wrote:
         | 20kg is fairly light for an e-mtb. I'd bet typical use is to
         | climb the uphill paths on an mtb trail system, even though the
         | bike they mention isn't a dedicated DH bike.
        
       | Temporary_31337 wrote:
       | It's hardly state of the art at this point. There's lighter and
       | more efficient drivetrains from Shimano bosch and many others.
        
         | reustle wrote:
         | Get into as many markets as possible so it becomes harder for
         | the US to ban you outright.
        
       | sottol wrote:
       | I don't know that I see anything revolutionary? The peak power
       | seems maybe higher than Bosch CX at 850W vs 600 but continuous
       | power is similar 250W. 800Wh max battery pack size is also not
       | entirely out of the ordinary. The packaging seems nice, the
       | battery seems quite slim and integrate well into ordinary-looking
       | downtube on the Amflow bike - but don't see much otherwise.
       | Weight seems on the high side.
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | More than 250W continuous is pointless in many countries
         | because that's the limit for the most common e-bike class (i.e.
         | even if the system can do more, you'd want to de-rate it to
         | 250W).
         | 
         | Bosch makes excellent motors, but they're ripping people off on
         | accessories (a dumb charger costs 89 EUR in the "compact"
         | variant that can do 2A or around 80W and weighs 600g, needing
         | over 10 hours to charge a large battery), and enabling this
         | with aggressive DRM (which also means updates can only be done
         | by a repair shop). They're also trying to make your bike a
         | subscription, of course.
         | 
         | So even if all DJI does is become competitive, that's already a
         | win. Bonus points if they actually let you tune (some) motor
         | parameters yourself. The hard part seems to be reliability (a
         | bike that gets mud, water and washing together with constant
         | vibration is a pretty harsh environment) and many Chinese motor
         | brands have a less than stellar reputation there, and because
         | this is not something easily testable, building a reputation
         | (and gathering the experience needed to actually build good
         | products) takes time.
        
           | rdl wrote:
           | I assume price would be the major factor. Also, as someone
           | who knows nothing about e-bikes, but who knows "DJI makes
           | good cheap drones and gimbals", they'd be pretty high on my
           | list of "probably makes an ok product" without searching.
        
       | nathancahill wrote:
       | The product page has a lot more info and photos:
       | https://www.dji.com/global/avinox
       | 
       | The screen/computer part seems to be significantly nicer than
       | competition.
        
       | metadat wrote:
       | _> The integrated DJI Avinox electric power assist system
       | leverages DJI 's cutting-edge technologies in both software and
       | hardware design, offering 850 W of peak power (250 W nominal
       | power) in an ultra-light body of 19.2kg_
       | 
       | This is most unimpressive. I have an (absolutely bonkers) 2019
       | 3000w LunaCycle e-mountain bike (based on the Giant Anthem) with
       | similar drive system weight specs, which includes the ginormous
       | 40ah battery.
       | 
       | Why can't DJI compete with something nice from 5 years ago?
        
         | bagels wrote:
         | Is that a legal bike in your jurisdiction? In California you're
         | riding an unregistered moped, illegally, most likely.
         | 
         | I suspect DJI is aiming for legal bikes that established
         | bicycle manufacturers can sell.
        
           | _zoltan_ wrote:
           | I can't imagine a 3kW bicycle to be legal anywhere. here in
           | Europe you'd need an A1 license for it.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2024-07-05 23:00 UTC)