E-bike start-up Velotric is launching an affordable commuter e-bike with a strikingly large battery. The firm – which is led by Adam Zhang, co-founder of e-bike and e-scooter hire firm Lime – has so far crowdfunded over £150,000 for the Discover 1 via Indiegogo.
Velotric says it believes that e-bikes should be elegant, stylish, high performance and reliable, but it is undeniably emphasising affordability and range.
The Discover 1 is available for £944 via the Indiegogo campaign and will sell for around £1,500 afterwards.
That pretty much qualifies it as a budget e-bike and yet it’ll come with a sizeable 692Wh battery. That’s the kind of battery capacity you’d normally expect to see on a trekking e-bike somewhere around twice the price.
That puts the Discover 1 in a similar bracket to Rad Power’s RadRunner, which features a 672Wh battery and costs £1,299. We can’t think of too many other bikes that warrant comparison.
These things always have to be taken with a pinch of salt, but Velotric reckon their battery and hub motor combination is good for about 80 miles of range. (The website generally states that the motor is 500W, but there’ll also be a 35Nm 250W version to meet EU standards.)
Other than that, you’ll get an LCD display, 7-speed Shimano gears, integrated lights, disc brakes, a rear rack and mudguards.
The Velotric Discover is now in production with deliveries expected to begin in December.
