Lectric ONE Review (2024) | $5k+ bike for $1,999? (First Look)
Today we’re going to be talking about the newly announced electric one we expect this bike to shake up the industry because it would probably cost around $5,000 from anyone else electric is selling the bike for $19.99 so why is that such a big deal Let’s Take a Ride and find [Applause] [Applause] out Welcome to electric bike report my name is John today’s going to be a little bit of a different format as we normally do extremely indepth real world testing of every ebike we get our hands on but in this case we were fairly limited to just a few hours on the bike at Electric’s
Announcement event I’ll talk about everything we learned about the bike from that experience but just know that we will be doing a full review with with our normal process as soon as we get a test bike so make sure you’re subscribed to the channel and hit the Bell icon so
You can find out when we go live with that let’s go through the specs that we know and then I’ll kind of break some of those things down a bit more later on some of the big defining features here are the pinion C 1.6 gearbox which is an
Internal gearing system located at the bottom bracket and that’s connected to a 750 W rear hub motor with a Gates carbon belt the B version of the bike includes a 48v 499 battery but there are two higher capacity options that will increase the price of the bike the mid-tier option
Has 672 W hours of capacity and then the largest option which electric is calling the max pack has 9912 WS the bike’s price goes up to $21.99 with the midlevel battery and then $23.99 with that big one the tires are made by xiaoyang they’re 20in x 2.5 in with both
Both puncture and pinch flat protection there’s a hydraulic disc brake system with 180 mm front and rear rotors and a brake activated tail light there’s an adjustable and collapsible stem a color display and a thumb throttle and then the pre-order version includes a cargo rack front and rear fenders and a
Headlight but it sounds like those things will need to be added separately after launch for around $220 the one weighs 63 lb with the battery installed it’s L 2849 certified and it ships as a Class 2 with a 20 mph limit but it can be unlocked to a class
3 with pedal assist up to 28 that covers the basics but let’s dive in a little bit deeper and see what all the fuss is About the pinion gearbox is really what’s causing us to lose our minds about the electric one pinion is a German company that was founded by two former Porsche engineers and they manufacture sealed self-contained gearbox units that replace the traditional cassette and derailer on an ebike it’s essentially the same thing as
The transmission on your car and that’s really the point pinions Founders wanted to give the feel of a race car to a bike the gearbox on the one is one of their simpler units some of them combine a motor and a gearbox together but it’s still some really high-end Tech That You
Don’t See very often especially here in the US pinion has a much bigger presence in Europe it’s also unprecedented on bikes that are this affordable for perspective one of pinions Representatives at the announcement said that the cheapest bike with a pinion system in the US goes for around
$113,000 so what’s so cool about the gearbox first they classify it as an automatic sorry semi-automatic shifting system you can shift manually if you want but you can also set your preferred Cadence in pinion smart shift app and then the system can automatically adjust the gearing to help you maintain that
Pace it’ll also downshift for you when you come to a complete stop so you’re automatically in the best gear for getting moving again even if you’re manually shifting you can make those adjustments under load and also when you’re stopped we didn’t have access to all of the opinions features when we
Tested the bike at Electric’s event but the downshifting feature was super cool the manual shifting was also amazing it was super smooth and almost instantaneous so we honestly can’t wait to try out the rest when we get our review copy of the bike but another huge huge benefit of the pinion system is
That it’s incredibly low maintenance the oil bath inside the gearbox only needs changed about once every year or after 6,000 M whichever comes first and the unit itself should last over 60,000 mil the sealed nature of the gearbox also protects the gears from damage so the only thing you’ll ever really need to
Replace is the gates carbon belt that should last at least twice as long as a traditional chain it doesn’t need lubrication it won’t have any problems if it gets wet and it also doesn’t stretch out over time so there’s just a lot less to worry about overall based on
All those things I think the big takeaway from this bike is that the experience of both owning and operating it should be incredibly easy I think that’s really important when you’re using a bike daily even small hiccups can make you late to work trust me I
Know so it’s definitely ideal if you can just hop on and go without worrying about anything and I think the electric one is going to make that happen let’s talk about the electric 1es motor a little bit more by the Numbers it looks like the same motor that comes on
The X Peak which is Electric’s fulls siiz Fat Tire Bike so it’s 750 W nominal 1,310 wat Peak with 85 newm of torque that’s just a lot of power for a bike of this size our tester Justin recorded a short speed test with the one so I’ll
Pass you over to him to see how it went okay so we got a decent Runway here I’m just going to see how fast I can get this up I’ve got my whole camera gear backpack on here we go whoa yeah it does kick in shift super fast on that pinion 19 20
22 24 right to 26 it did not take long to get it up to speed just crazy fast off the line do that one more time stop I’m not even having to Pedal really like push down it’s just get that Cadence going and this thing flies like crazy flies brakes feel
Good that was a lot of fun this bike is seriously a kick in the pants tons of fun obviously this bike can be super Zippy but its feel is also customizable Justin had it in class 3 mode for the test you can keep it in class 2 mode if
You want and then you can also adjust the intensity of the pedal assist so basically it can be as Punchy or as gradual as you like this bike uses a Cadence Sensor and those aren’t usually known for being very responsive but we found that this bike was most bikes with
That type of sensor use 12 magnets to detect your Cadence but electri expect this bike with 990 magnets to improve the motor engagement and we thought the difference was really noticeable one other interesting thing here is the programming instead of being set with specific speed limits in each assist
Setting this bike uses Electric’s pwr programming which only limits the amount of power to the motor this seemed a lot more natural feeling and a little bit closer to what we’d expect from a bike with a torque sensor so bottom line this bike has great acceleration it has a
Customizable feel and it’s really responsive we expect to see really great results from our formal speed test as well as our Hill test so again make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss out when we release the full Review I’m going to pass you back to Justin so he can talk about the ones ride quality he spent quite a bit of time getting the feel for things at Electric’s announcement event and I think you’ll be able to tell just from the sound of his voice how much he liked
This bike okay so out here trying to just give you an idea of what it what it’s like to ride on the on the electric one um first of all the shifting with that pinion gear box is just smooth as silk you can set it up to auto shift according to your
Cadence um you shift under tension and it just goes you know I’m in PS2 right now going 1550 mph you’ve got some settings you can change this to class 3 Class 2 with an electric system um but for being a rear h Hub is one of the smoothest rear hub Cadence sensors that
I felt motor shuts off as soon as you stop pedaling goes as soon as you start pedaling just feels really controlled and really good um which is what I want in a commuter because you get in a situation where you got to kind of get going you
Want to make sure that you have the responsiveness from the motor that of what you need um so overall really good feel it’s quiet you know you hear it a little bit but it’s I mean I haven’t been able to find a hill to really take it up yet but it’s
Got a good it it sounds good sounds really really solid let’s kick it up to five here I will say if you uh you can change the responsiveness in the settings and if you make it Ultra responsive you better know what you’re doing cuz it’ll it’ll
Pop a wheelie on you um you know being a lighter weight if you’re not kind of lean forward a little bit it’ll it’ll kick that front tire in the air for sure throttle also is on this which not a lot of pinion bikes that I’ve ridden have throttles um you know lot of
Mountain bikes road bikes that type of thing that’s not what they’re going for and so on a Comm I like seeing that in case you’re stopped like here you want to just get going but you you know maybe you’re just tired or you just want to
Get some help to get started you can just throttle around for me personally I still like to manually shift and I still like to Pedal but if you don’t like to you know out of all the media here I’d say about half have been throttling around half have been pedaling um so I
Like the option and just overall kind of has about everything you’d want in a commuter just in a fraction of the cost $2,000 is just I still am having a hard time wrapping my head around giving all the features and all the components that you
Get on this bike for 2,000 it’s a really good deal um stuck back in here see how the handling is really smooth solid and it’s just a super Zippy fun bike you can see as I maneuver in and out these you know very controlled excuse me and very Nimble which I
Love yeah so this is a kind of a media bike you know it’s not the the final final version there’ll be a few touch-ups but I’m I’m having a hard time finding many touch-ups that I think need to be made um on it at this point see yeah let’s go
Check out some other areas and see see how it rides okay so I’m headed to the tempy Town Lake I don’t know why Google Maps isn’t working um so I’ve got a lot of weight on I’ve got my backpack with all the camera gear and
Everything and I’m going to see if I can stress this out a little bit because it is incredibly powerful my initial take on this is wow it is crazy fun and Incredibly fast you know how they’ve got that pinion gearbox set up with the Cadence sensors with 96 magnet points I
Guess it feels incredibly smooth incredibly natural I mean no it doesn’t feel like a mid Drive I wish the car wouldn’t park there Um but it’s just really dialed in um and I know this isn’t a final production model but even as it is right now this might just be the one bike pun intended um that I’m going to want to have in my garage just to commute around
The ones Tech really seems to be a defining feature and again not something you can really find anywhere else in this price range we really like the bike’s handling and its power and I’ve also got to give electric some credit for their first color display I think it
Looks great and it also really fits the high-tech feel of the bike very well the only other thing I can add here is that I just can’t wait until we have some more time on the Bike we recorded Electric’s full announcement for the the one which will include here I think it’s worth watching to see the thought process that led to this bike but if you want to skip ahead to the conclusion I’ll see you there when we started this company you know we
Talked to grent my dad and you know we were babies and he he was coaching us on how you know you guys will probably never have the number one bike right just in terms of the recommendation what is the best bike that you could do uh but he said so because if you’re
Going to do that it’s going to be north of $10,000 you’re going to need all this crazy componentry and what we want you guys to do is focus on doing you know being the number one in service because that’s something you can control you can control how much attention and effort
You put in to customer service customer experience and I would hope that the uh things that you hear and and I would say our NPS reflects that we do you know act on that we do have the number one uh customer service in the industry so it’s just like number one number one
Number one but you know it really bothered me when my dad said you know you you just won’t have the number one Buton like what what if you tried like it’s probably almost impossible to have the number one bike in a category but also still be ranked number
One just in terms of the spec and the bike itself but I think the key word in that phrase is the word almost so what I would like to introduce with the help of Robbie is the one the only electric what yeah what did we just do here we just
Broke the industry in terms of componentry selection uh and I’m just going to jump right to the headline of this bike which is the drive train uh so you’re going to see some representation from pinion and Gates here today but if you want to be the best you can
Only work with the best there is no substitution for it you have to work with the best and that is what we’re interested in doing we wanted to collaborate with the industry leaders in in componentry in order to make the best commuting bike possible you can tell
That we’re going after every segment the folding the trike the cargo the offroad the adventure but we we have ignored the commuting where there’s the most opportunity to go after car miles so if we’re going to go after it we have to go after it with a hay maker and so what
We’re staring at right now is uh you know we did not do pinion and Gates just to do those names we did the best pinion system we did the best Gates system we have a pinion C1 which means they’re uh best set they offer uh c16 sixspeed I so it has the electronic
Smart shift so semi-automatic shifting uh built into it we then pair that system with a gat CDC their second best belt they offer in their bike division paired with a CDX sprocket which is the best sprocket they offer over there at Gates so this drive train that we’ve uh
Elected to do well Rob I think it’s probably a good idea for you to explain where the drive train even is and let me flip this around for sure for the folks sure so for those who aren’t familiar drives are kind of the ideal solution for commuting bikes right
They’re clean they’re quiet they’re reliable and they’re long lasting right they last two to three times as long as your traditional chain you basically need to do zero maintenance on this thing right so when you go out and you ride in the rain and you’re worried about your chain getting rusty or
Something else forget about that with the belt right it just it doesn’t happen you can be assured that when you get on this thing it’s going to work for you it’s going to be there every day day in day out so when we’re thinking about building a commuter our minds went
Straight to belt drive right but then thinking about the rest of the build and staying true to what makes electric electric and offering this fantastic experience we knew we wanted highp speed right we wanted class three performance and we wanted an awesome throttle on this thing and we wanted high torque
Right and so we’re known for that across all of our bikes we have these super powerful Hub motors with the 20-in wheel the acceleration is out of this world and it’s like riding around on a mini spaceship basically and so we knew we wanted to go Hub drive and we knew we
Wanted to go belt drive now you may be asking yourselves well if you have a hub drive and you have a belt drive how are you going to change gears because you can’t have a derailer when you have a belt drive right so logically the gears
Need to go somewhere and so they go up here in the BB and that’s the pinion system that Levi is talking about right so the derer the gears they’re all situated inside of that pinion gear box up front and you’ve got six gears up there right so you get that huge
Maintenance advantage of the belt drive paired with the pinion six-speed up front and the awesome thing about the pinion is it also is super super reliable and super super low maintenance so basic basically the only thing that you have to be worried about with this pinion thing is that you don’t have to
Be worried about it right I mean like you really only need to change the oil on the pinion system every 6 or 7,000 miles and that’s it otherwise this thing just runs soting your derailer no and it and it works instantly there is no by the time you think that I Am shifting
You have shifted you have electronic shifting that is happening right the moment it’s already in the next gear by the time you thought that it needed to go so there’s that aspect that it’s instantaneous delivery but that’s you know Robbie and I ride different right and so I I think
If you’re making an investment into a gearbox like this you really want it to be uh tailor to your riding experience because Zach from uh vpl um this is pinions North arm North America division Zach how much uh what’s the cheapest bike in the United States that
Uses the pinion spark ship system it’s right around 13,000 right around $113,000 is the cheapest bike in the United States that uses the pinion smart Shi right so that’s an investment if you’re buying a bike at that price point you expect it to be tailored to your
Needs and I would say pinion has delivered on customization if you want to talk a little bit about that sure so with the smart shift gearbox you know not only are you getting electronic shifting like Levi mentioned right so there’s no there’s no cables going from
The shifter up at the handlebars down to the gearbox it’s all you know some of you may be familiar with steer by wire we’re shifting by wire with this thing right so it makes it super reliable C STP no cable stretch nothing to maintain there but then they take it a step
Further with this semi-automatic smart shifting so you’ve got electronic shifting you’ve got six speeds but then you have the pinion smart shift app and so what that app allows you to do is dial in exactly when where and how this thing shifts so when we say it’s semi-automatic shifting and you’ll all
Get an opportunity to do this in a moment you set your riding Cadence so you may prefer to Pedal a little more slowly maybe 45 RPM or you may prefer to Pedal at 90 RPM you know and you can dial that in with the pinion system and
Say okay I like a Cadence of 60 RPM and then it will automatically shift you to put you in that comfortable Cadence when you get there so you’ll experience this and I always say riding is believing so you guys will you know I can say these things but really when you feel it
You’ll you’ll get there and understand and not only will it automatically up upshift for you as you speed up it’ll also downshift for you as you slow down so again for those super hardcore commuters what that means is as you’re coming up to a stop light you’re pulling
The brakes you’re slowing down and the gearbox the sensors on this bike they’re recognizing that and it’s automatically downshifting for you so when you get to that stop light and you come to a stop you’re already back in gear one so when you want to get going again it’s it’s
Right there for you and you can set that start gear if you don’t want to start in gear one you can start in gear two you can start in gear three that’s all adjustable through the app and the other thing is if you don’t want to use a
Smart shift and you prefer to shift by yourself you can turn the smart shift off via the app as well and what’s really really cool about this that we haven’t even touched on is with a normal derailer setup you have to be pedaling in order to shift the thing this you
Don’t need to be moving the bike at all or pedaling you can just shift at a stop no worries at all it’ll go through those gears for you so the the modularity the adjustability that you get to dial in your ride with the pinion smartship app is Cutting Edge it’s leading the
Industry there’s no better technology out there this yeah so we’ve talked a lot about this drivetrain we’ve hit on a little bit about the motor but you know that was one of the things that we cared a lot about when designing this bike is I did not come from the cycling industry
I came from I just liked putting motors on things right Robie and I just wanted to at first just make things go fast and have fun and some of you who have been with us in the very beginning we didn’t even know there were legal parameters so
The very first XP prototype was 35 miles hour so um you know it’s been a journey for us but so we really like that throttle experience and that’s another decision we made of why not do a mid drive or something the reality is is you just don’t get a very good throttle
Experience when you uh do mid Drive systems so the throttle is there but it is incredibly powerful and the most powerful of not just electrics lineup um but in terms of a of a three class ebike the fastest most powerful so this bike comes in uh at 55 lbs and it’s rocking
A7 50 W Motor so that means it has the highest watt to weight ratio of any electric bicycle in the industry so it because it has so much power it’s peeking out at 1300 watts and it weighs so little it truly is a rocket ship when
You when you dump that throttle so and so for that customer that enjoys that throttle experience they’re really going to enjoy um this fight so we’ve paired it with the c M24 so it’s incredibly quiet this whole package is meant to be quiet if you’re riding day
In day out you don’t want to hear gears plunking around you don’t want to hear chain all of that is quieted you got to have a motor that’s paired with that as well uh that dampens sound now we’ve talked a bit about the motor the battery is being offered in
Three different sizes the first size is our standard 10 amp hour then there is the long range which is 14 and then there’s the max pack which is 19 amp hour so we will now be offering three battery sizes for this because for the hardcore commuter you know they’re going
To want that and if they go all the way up to the max pack you know it’s 80 M of range uh with this bike uh the starting 10 amp is 40 40 6080 mil of range now we can talk a little bit about the cockpit should we sure so
Obviously well you know what I think is cool we can this cuz we’re talking about the drive training we’re talking about the motor is the sensor that’s being used on this bike so those that know know I really love uh Kaden sensors because if I’m going 28 mph I don’t want
To have to be working out and sweating anytime I’m going to 28 M hour I I want to choose my workout when I want to work out and those that know me know I don’t like to work out so I like going fast and I don’t want to be cranking on it in
Order to go there but we did want to upgrade the uh Cadence Sensor uh technology that is in this so those that are familiar with electric know that we are have been doing uh 12 magnet Caden sensors and there’s been a bit of an upgrade to not 12 and not
24 uh we actually went to a 96 magnet uh resolution for this so eight times the resolution of our normal systems you know the ones that you’re familiar and love on Expedition we got eight times more resolution and quicker response and interaction between your pedal stroke and them that cover all that beautiful
All right so with this system you obviously got to pair it with hydraulic brakes so we’ve done that G hydraulic braks 180 mm rotors but what we’ve also done is this is our first color display so we changed the display to a color display and there’s all sorts of things
That you guys will be able to see with it um new iconography to help you better understand and interact with your bike when it’s in walk mode you see a little stick figure walking you see uh headlights on um but you have a power meter so you can see when you’re using
1,200 1300 WS it’s now telling you uh in the power meter and uh the range estimations as well so we were really happy to be able to attend and check out the bike and obviously we had a lot of fun with it but let’s wrap up our thoughts on the electric One I’ve got to stress again just how crazy it is to see a bike with these components at this price electric has consistently redefined what’s possible with their ebikes and I think this bike follows the same pattern patter our first impressions of the electric one
Were great so much so that I don’t think we really had anything to critique obviously we reserve judgment until we can do our standard speed Break range and Hill tests but based on our experience we expect solid results speed is definitely covered and the brakes felt great range will obviously depend
On battery size but just by the math we think the bike could go up around 80 Mi with the max pack battery and of course with the same or similar motor as the X Peak I don’t think hellhole Trail will pose much of a threat to this bike in
Our Hill test I look forward to sharing more details in the near future but in the meantime please make sure to like subscribe and let us know what you think of the electric 1 down in the comments again I’m John with electric bike report and I’ll see you Soon
To check pricing and details on the Lectric ONE click the link below:
Lectric ONE eBike
For more thoughts on the ONE and all it’s tech, see our written review:
In our initial Lectric ONE Review, this may well be the best e-bike of 2024. Pinion & Gates Carbon Belt Drive for $1,999?? How is this even possible? Watch our review of this e-bike from the launch event. We will be putting this electric bike through our full testing review after we get one in.
