What happened to the 2 speed hub?

[mike killay]

Some years ago d8veh posted about a new 2 speed hub motor and was full of its praises, so I expected to see new bikes offered for sale with 2 speed motors, but nothing seems to have happened.

 

[flecc]

That Xionda motor is still being sold and it was preceded by one from SRAM as well, though that not as well implemented. I suppose that as usual no-one wants to be first to use a new concept in their e-bikes in case it all goes wrong.

But another factor has been the parallel influx of a number of crank drives from Europe and the Orient, which essentially answer the same climb ability issue. It seems they've been the winners in the market.
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[Deleted member 4366]

OEMs are always very reluctant to take on anything new. That wasn't helped by a couple of problems on the first batches of those motors: There was the resonance noise, which grease fixed for a while and the jamming when you pushed them backwards. Several motors ended up with broken gears from the jamming. They were all trikes or recumbents, where people paddle them backwards with weight on, so that the motor takes a massive internal impact when they jam. Both problems were improved by Xiongda, but I don't know whether they were 100% or not.

For conversions, they have the problem that they're wide and the spoke flanges are offset. That means that you have to do a bit of jiggery pokery to get them into a normal bike frame. OEMs could easily make a frame specially for them.

They're very good motors for overweight riders or people that need to tow heavy loads. At 48v and 14 amps, they're just like a winch. Even heavy riders can get up just about any hill without pedalling. I retired mine after 4000 miles because I lost weight and found that I was only using the high gear and I wanted to get my 9-speed gears back, which required a cassette motor.

Xiongda must be one of the best companies for support. They sent me new gears, a controller and LCD for a broken out of warranty motor from a trike for about £35 including shipping cost.

 

[Woosh]

as d8veh has made the point, Xiongda have fixed the problems reported on their XD motor but I don't think the design is 100%. The average cost of dealing with an incident is not far off £100, and likely to be even higher if it involves the motor. On the other hand, you can get the performance of the XD at low speed using the SWX02 or BPM at nil risk.
That's the problem for manufacturers wishing to save a few grams.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

as d8veh has made the point, Xiongda have fixed the problems reported on their XD motor but I don't think the design is 100%. The average cost of dealing with an incident is not far off £100, and likely to be even higher if it involves the motor. On the other hand, you can get the performance of the XD at low speed using the SWX02 or BPM at nil risk.
That's the problem for manufacturers wishing to save a few grams.

The Xiongda has the advantages of not only being relatively light, but it can give massive torque and a fair speed at very low cost, and it's very quiet. A BPM can match it for torque, but only if you have a low-speed one and run it at high current, which would require a decent (expensive) battery and a larger controller. The SWX02 is similar to the Xiongda when it's in high gear, but in low gear, the Xiongda more or less doubles its torque. No SWX02 can get anywhere close.

 

[Woosh]

The Xiongda has the advantages of not only being relatively light, but it can give massive torque and a fair speed at very low cost, and it's very quiet. A BPM can match it for torque, but only if you have a low-speed one and run it at high current, which would require a decent (expensive) battery and a larger controller. The SWX02 is similar to the Xiongda when it's in high gear, but in low gear, the Xiongda more or less doubles its torque. No SWX02 can get anywhere close.

you have to go to very low speed to see any difference in favour of the XD. From around 8mph, the SWX02 and BPM will leave the XD eating dust.