EM FACTOR-e la révolution trial électrique

[nacho73]

15 hours ago, lotus54 said:

Considering EM’s past range estimates, I guess real world range will be about 30km

I have seen that prototype battery in motion in a 2023 EM and it is capable of doing 33km and 1300 m of elevation in a really hard trail. my vertigo 250cc needed one and a half tank to do that.

[trapezeartist]

12 hours ago, bikerpet said:

You're in the company of a lot of people, but I think it reflects a common misunderstanding. I completely understand how it's arrived at, I just don't think it takes into account some of the key aspects of trials.
For people like yourself riding easy route and without clutched maneuvers then you're probably on the money. But as soon as you start looking at maneuvers where the clutch is used it changes dramatically, even at relatively modest skill levels.

If you take something at the more extreme end of the scale, a splatter onto a big vertical say, then gearing becomes dramatically important. You want to accelerate from virtually stationary incredibly quickly in order to rotate the bike and generate lift. However you only want to accelerate to a relatively low speed (you really don't want the back wheel to hit that face at 50kmh!). So how do you accelerate super fast to a very low top speed? Answer - use a low gear. Using a high gear makes it virtually impossible to limit the top speed and extremely hard to get that really, really fast acceleration. Yes, the guns will use 2nd, 3rd & even 4th gear for some obstacles, but I believe they are selecting the gear to adjust their target top speed more than anything, which reinforces the idea that gears are really very useful. The same principle holds throughout the skill levels.
Bikes like the Pure Race and the Dragonfly with just one gear capable of 50-60kmh are massively limited in their ability to produce radically fast acceleration and low top speed.
I think there's also considerably more detail in there around why it's hard to replace a flywheel/clutch, but that's the crux of it.

I've had an electric trials with a 2-speed box, and I can absolutely say that it is dramatically different having that low 'trials' gear compared to just a single 'trail' gear.
I'm not convinced you need 4 gears, maybe 3. But making a 3 speed shifter is the same as a 4 speed except for the missing gear wheel - you might as well put in all 4 for the few extra grams.

The 17,000 rpm motor represents a massive upgrade, to my thinking. I've long thought the prevailing wisdom that trials needs a slow torquey motor is a big misunderstanding once you move beyond easy-route riding. The basis for my belief is that A. There is as yet no practical replacement for a flywheel & B. flywheels store energy proportional to the square of their RPM but directly proportional to mass & diameter, so it is vastly more efficient to spin a light flywheel fast than it is to spin a heavy flywheel slowly. All truly high performance flywheels are made from the lightest materials possible and spun as fast as possible.
There is effectively almost no difference between useable torque at the tyre from a slow motor geared down a small amount and a fast motor geared down a lot.
Overall you gain far more by spinning a fast motor than a slow one - if you have a flywheel involved.

Seeing this 17K RPM figure makes me tend to agree with @konrad that the VW logo on the bike might possibly relate to the motor? It's pretty hard to find quality motors of this power level and that sort of RPM range - pretty limited number of niche manufacturers and they tend to be astronomically high prices. So perhaps a deal with VW has given them access to a higher volume production motor at a good price? Not sure what VW would need such a motor for, but they're a massive, sprawling empire so who knows what they have in the stable. No clue, just makes me wonder.

That's an interesting point of view. I have just a couple of things to add:
1. Max speed can be limited electronically on an electric motor. It doesn't have to rely on the motor running out of revs.
2. The energy stored in a flywheel is proportional to the square of radius, not directly proportional. Hence high energy storage in a flywheel without a big overall weight penalty requires both speed and radius.
3. At my level, motor torque is enough. At TrialGP level riders clearly need a big kick from a flywheel as well as motor torque. The question is, at what skill level does the crossover occur. I would submit that it comes in at a higher level on an electric bike due to the torque characteristics v. petrol. On petrol maybe the crossover occurs between Sportsman and Clubman. With electric, between Sportsman and Expert. 

[trapezeartist]

3 hours ago, nacho73 said:

I have seen that prototype battery in motion in a 2023 EM and it is capable of doing 33km and 1300 m of elevation in a really hard trail. my vertigo 250cc needed one and a half tank to do that.

The issue of range depends on whether you are using your trials bike solely for short 3 or 4 lap trials or whether you are trail riding and/or doing things like the Scott or SSDT. For short events current EMs and Mecatecnos have more than enough battery capacity, equivalent to more than a tankful of petrol. However once you go beyond the range of a bike you find that splashing in a couple of litres of petrol is quicker and easier than recharging and much cheaper than having a spare battery. Hence there will have to be some system of reasonably priced battery hire before privateers start using electric bikes in the SSDT.

[nacho73]

4 hours ago, trapezeartist said:

The issue of range depends on whether you are using your trials bike solely for short 3 or 4 lap trials or whether you are trail riding and/or doing things like the Scott or SSDT. For short events current EMs and Mecatecnos have more than enough battery capacity, equivalent to more than a tankful of petrol. However once you go beyond the range of a bike you find that splashing in a couple of litres of petrol is quicker and easier than recharging and much cheaper than having a spare battery. Hence there will have to be some system of reasonably priced battery hire before privateers start using electric bikes in the SSDT.

No trial motorcycle is prepared for the trials you talk about because there are only a few in the world. And you can always rent a petrol bike for them.

[rotors7]

This was the Mecatecno five years ago, with a gearbox.

It's interesting that their current bike is gear free, were they just after a super light bike or did they feel gears were unnecessary. 

They've obviously got the facility to produce the gearbox should it be needed to compete with the EM.

[konrad]

I reasoned that an EV with a gearbox introduces an extra complication for the electronics. See: https://www.electricmotiontech.com/home/ev-tech-101#h.i4aqgk34vpex  (Covered in 3 section headings.)

[bikerpet]

11 hours ago, trapezeartist said:

That's an interesting point of view. I have just a couple of things to add:
1. Max speed can be limited electronically on an electric motor. It doesn't have to rely on the motor running out of revs.

Yes, but when and how do you limit the speed? If you flick a switch that limits speed before a step, what happens at the top of the step when you now want to go much faster for the bigger second step? As soon as you introduce a control-ability you also need to provide means to manipulate it. Or you make it fully automatic and take it completely out of the rider's hands, eg. traction control, ABS, stability control - that's no longer trials as far as I'm concerned, boring.

11 hours ago, trapezeartist said:

2. The energy stored in a flywheel is proportional to the square of radius, not directly proportional. Hence high energy storage in a flywheel without a big overall weight penalty requires both speed and radius.

True, my error. Speed and radius are somewhat interchangeable but various physical realities can weight toward one or the other - space, material strength, cost. It's pretty hard to fit big diameter flywheels into the drive train of trials bikes, so speed becomes the more easily altered variable at a certain point.

11 hours ago, trapezeartist said:

3. At my level, motor torque is enough. At TrialGP level riders clearly need a big kick from a flywheel as well as motor torque. The question is, at what skill level does the crossover occur. I would submit that it comes in at a higher level on an electric bike due to the torque characteristics v. petrol. On petrol maybe the crossover occurs between Sportsman and Clubman. With electric, between Sportsman and Expert. 

This is a far bigger topic than we want to cover here, but:
I'd argue that if motor torque is enough (without significant flywheel) then you're selling yourself short.
At TGP level the big kick is what we see and is so obvious, but what happens after that is just as important. Control and delivery of power is as important if not more so than absolute power. What they do is really only an extension far, far up the scale of your basic rollup - accelerate before the slope/obstacle, then let inertia (flywheel, bike & rider) carry you up. But they are doing all that in a few hundred milliseconds while turning themselves over backwards with their hips at the bars and doing who knows what else. Aint going to happen on throttle control alone, that's for sure. So that control is coming in part from a controllable, repeatable release of energy. And that characteristic is just as useful to a beginner as it is to a GP rider.
So I don't see there being a crossover point really. It's a continuum.
When I put a total beginner on a trials bike I turn up the idle a little so it wont stall so easily, then have them ignore the throttle and ride purely on clutch so they learn that the clutch is the most important control, not the throttle. From there it's just progressively developing clutch & throttle skills along the way, and bringing in more and more use of flywheel inertia.
I do this on both electric and ICE bikes (no, I don't turn off electric 'idle' for beginners, and yes my e-trials has a big, heavy flywheel & hydraulic clutch).

6 hours ago, rotors7 said:

This was the Mecatecno five years ago, with a gearbox.
It's interesting that their current bike is gear free, were they just after a super light bike or did they feel gears were unnecessary.
They've obviously got the facility to produce the gearbox should it be needed to compete with the EM.

I was so sad when they released the production version with no gearbox. Pretty much lost interest immediately.
My guess is that they 1. wanted to save cost, and 2. without sufficient flywheel they didn't get anywhere near the benefit out of the 'box to justify the cost.

Trials bikes power delivery systems have been finely honed over decades, it borders on stupidity to throw most of it out the window and start from scratch rather than start with what's proven and then work out what the new motor can get away without.
"Oh you ICE bike engineers have settled on engines that rev to around 10k, have big flywheels, large clutches and 5 gears. Right, well we're putting in a different spinny thing instead of your piston motor, so we're going to halve the RPM, throw out the clutch, the flywheel and the 5 gears."  Brilliant.
Now much of a decade or so down the track and where are we?
Oh look, engine RPM has gone up dramatically, the clutch is looking suspiciously similar to an ICE bike, we've got 4 gears instead of 1 and I rather suspect the energy storage in the system is going to look fairly similar to an ICE bike. What a surprise! 🤣

🔥 (dons flameproof suit). Why is it that so many electronics type people can only see electronic solutions to mechanical problems? We end up with the "simple solution" being an insanely complex electronic/software system.
EM & their first attempt at an electronic clutch.
Or pretending that accelerating an electric motor is exactly the same as decelerating a flywheel.
Or cars that have touch screens with 532 different icons and menu items that you have to learn to navigate just to shift the heat from your feet to the windscreen - ever heard of a knob with discrete positions?
Drives me nuts!

yes, yes, I know. It's actually the bean counters who figure they can save 10c by adding software rather than putting in a knob. It's a conspiracy!
I blame the Golgofrinchans.

6 hours ago, konrad said:

I reasoned that an EV with a gearbox introduces an extra complication for the electronics.

I don't see that as a serious issue on an e-trials bike. How often do you really need to shift down gears on the roll on an e-trials? Pretty much never.
Just take a look at what the current single speed bikes can do in 'top' gear, and how we operate our peaky ICE bikes. It's staggeringly rare to drop down the gears while on the roll in a section, even rarer to do so while anywhere even vaguely close top RPM. Add in regen braking instead of using engine braking ...
Inhibit shifting on the fly (just build a really **** shifting gearbox, which the Spanish tend toward already) or move the gear lever where it's harder to reach, or throw in some electrical control if the shifter is moved while rolling ... many ways to kill that cat.

Edited January 16 by bikerpet

[ChrisCH]

9 hours ago, bikerpet said:

...Or cars that have touch screens with 532 different icons and menu items that you have to learn to navigate just to shift the heat from your feet to the windscreen - ever heard of a knob with discrete positions?

Drives me nuts!

yes, yes, I know. It's actually the bean counters who figure they can save 10c by adding software rather than putting in a knob. It's a conspiracy!
I blame the Golgofrinchans.

One of the reasons modern cars are going this way is more computing built into the system.  It is not a saving on the cost of physical hardware, but making a system where the mechanic and repair shop have to buy in the software to do the repair.  Without the software you cannot "tell" the vehicle it has been repaired so it isn't.  This means the vehicle owner must use a repair/service outlet that has the software and you can licence the software only to dealers in your brand of vehicle.  BMW are pretty much at that point already.

It is very refreshing that in trials both Vertigo and EM offer the engine mapping software to the owner and end user.  In the pedal cycle world the lack of compatability between motors/versions and batteries is a real problem forcing 'scrappage' of working machines that cannot be upgraded.  It is all driven - as you rightly say - by the profit motive and a total disregard for the environmental cost.

[konrad]

Now I understand my confusion.  Apparently, Gael rode both a 2024 Comp and a 2025 FACTOR-E at Montpellier.  Trial-club.com posted a video on FB.  Here's a screenshot from the video.

[ChrisCH]

Available to pre-order today.  Not as much as I expected.  My piggy bank might get a raid  😁

https://inchperfecttrials.co.uk/products/2025-em-epure-factor-e-1-8kwh

[Ktrial]

2 minutes ago, ChrisCH said:

Available to pre-order today.  Not as much as I expected.  My piggy bank might get a raid  😁

https://inchperfecttrials.co.uk/products/2025-em-epure-factor-e-1-8kwh

I believe you've just asked if you can sell my Ducati to pay for one....!!!! You got the appropriate response.

[konrad]

2 hours ago, ChrisCH said:

Available to pre-order today.  Not as much as I expected.  My piggy bank might get a raid  😁

https://inchperfecttrials.co.uk/products/2025-em-epure-factor-e-1-8kwh

When I follow that link from the US, it says, "$11,980.00   Tax included.  Shipping calculated at checkout."

Yes, dollars.  I realize your price includes VAT, whereas mine would not.  But that can't possibly be right. 

[nhuskys]

3 minutes ago, konrad said:

When I follow that link from the US, it says, "$11,980.00   Tax included.  Shipping calculated at checkout."

Yes, dollars.  I realize your price includes VAT, whereas mine would not.  But that can't possibly be right. 

USA pricing for EM has been essentially EU price including VAT and then transport costs. I had long discussions with EM's Jean Pena and EM USA's Mark Berg about this. No other trials manufacturer does this for the USA. Their logic for this is the different requirements for 120v charging in the USA add cost.  Maybe some, but not 20%. A big reason I didn't buy an EM....

[konrad]

13 minutes ago, nhuskys said:

Their logic for this is the different requirements for 120v charging in the USA add cost.

Seeing as how EM buys a standard charger out of China, their logic is severely flawed.

 

Oh, and just to be clear, I'm shocked that it could cost only $12k USD.  I had been anticipating something like $16k (not saying I think it's worth that, however).

Edited April 4 by konrad

[nhuskys]

4 minutes ago, konrad said:

Seeing as how EM buys a standard charger out of China, their logic is severely flawed.

Obviously! Mark Berg had wanted lower pricing, but he said EM couldn't be dissuaded. I think they decided that USA early adopters have deep pockets and they needed to exploit that.