8th June 2026

Most e-bike motor coverage is written for mountain bikers. We sell cargo bikes and family bikes to people trying to get two children, school bags and a week’s worth of snacks up a hill in North London, so here’s our version instead.

What actually works on a real road, what we can stand behind when something goes wrong, and where the market seems to be heading.

The two main players: Bosch and Shimano

If you’re buying a quality cargo or family ebike from a reputable dealer, the motor is almost certainly made by one of two companies: Bosch or Shimano. That’s not a duopoly enforced by cartels. Both systems are genuinely good, both have serious dealer support networks, and both have earned the trust of the brands building the best bikes in this segment.

Shimano offers the EP6 as their main motor for urban and cargo use. It’s lighter than a lot of people expect, smooth, quiet, and sensibly matched to the job. You don’t need a mountain bike motor to ride to school with two kids on the back, and Shimano hasn’t tried to sell you one. The EP6 is on the Muli, the Bike43, and the Veloe range, among others. It’s also cheaper to build around, which helps keep bike prices more sensible. We’re expecting an EP5 option on some models before long, which should bring costs down a notch without losing much of practical value. Shimano haven’t overhauled this system dramatically in a while, which is arguably reassuring. Updates are on the way, but the core motor has been solid.

Bosch is the bigger player and, slightly confusingly, they have multiple generations in the market simultaneously. The older non-Smart System is still on some Tern models, including the Quick Haul, the QHL, and the GSD P10. The Gen 4 Smart System is on the GSD and HSD. Gen 5 Smart System is currently on the Muli and Bike43, with Veloe expected to follow. The motor feel between generations isn’t dramatically different, but Smart System is worth having for the ecosystem: a removable computer, battery lock (if someone nicks the computer, the system locks and the bike becomes significantly less attractive to steal), and increasingly deep integration with other components. Bosch now plays nicely with Magura ABS brakes and Shimano Di2 electronic shifting. Once you’ve ridden a bike that automatically adjusts gears in response to how hard you’re working, it’s hard to go back. Full integration with a 3×3 automatic hub would be the next logical step, and we’re quietly hoping for it. Shimano’s own ABS product appears to have been quietly shelved in the meantime, and the irony is you can now get ABS on a Bosch-powered bike using Shimano brakes. There’s also the Performance Line SX, a sportier, high-cadence motor that turns up on lighter urban bikes, but demand for it in this part of North London is approximately zero.

We have one Shimano bike and one Bosch in our own household and genuinely like both. The right choice depends on the bike, not a spec sheet.

The gap neither of them fills

Here’s something that doesn’t get discussed enough in cargo and urban bike circles: hub motors.

In the wider ebike world, particularly at the budget end, hub motors (where the motor sits in the wheel rather than at the bottom bracket) are everywhere. They’re simpler, lighter, and cheaper to produce. The trade-off has traditionally been efficiency and feel on hills, because a mid-drive motor uses the bike’s gears to multiply torque, while a hub motor pushes directly from the wheel. For a cargo bike carrying 80kg of children and shopping up a hill, that difference has mattered.

But hub motor technology has moved on. Torque sensors, which read how hard you’re pedalling and respond proportionally rather than just switching on at a fixed cadence, are now available on hub motor systems. Companies like Bafang and Mivice are producing systems worth taking seriously. We see a lot of them coming through the door.

Our most popular bikes using hub motors are the Estarli e28.X and the Estarli e20.X. Both use belt drive with an automatic two-speed hub, they’re lightweight, smooth, and genuinely easy to live with. The e20.X is a folder, which makes the lightweight point even more relevant. We also stock a range of Tenways hub motor commuters. These aren’t bikes we sell reluctantly while steering people towards something more prestigious. They sell because they work.

Which means neither Bosch nor Shimano makes a hub motor, and that gap is getting harder to ignore. If you’re a folding bike manufacturer trying to build something genuinely lighter than a Tern Vektron, compact and light enough to carry up the stairs at a Tube station, your options from the big two are limited. So where do you go? You go to Bafang. Or you wait and see what happens next.

The wildcard: DJI

Yes, that DJI. The drone company.

At Eurobike 2025, Velo de Ville launched the Revo-C, the first urban ebike to use DJI’s Avinox M1 motor, a system previously confined to eMTB, where it had already earned a reputation as about the best-performing motor independent testers had tried. The Revo-C brings it into city use.

I’ve ridden it. On paper, 120Nm on a city bike sounds like a deeply unnecessary amount of motor. In practice it’s surprisingly well judged: the power delivery is progressive, it doesn’t lunge or surge, and for a fully equipped urban bike with a 600Wh battery it’s genuinely light (standard build around 24kg, under 20kg with the carbon wheels and fork option). Whether you need quite that much assistance on the Holloway Road is a fair question, but it’s impressive regardless. Available in the UK from around £3,579 at time of writing.

DJI had 16 OEM partnerships by Eurobike 2025 and the Revo-C makes clear they’re moving well beyond mountain bikes. We’re watching to see who’s first to drop a DJI Avinox into a cargo bike. Someone will.

Our hunch: Bosch won’t ignore hub motors forever

This is speculation, to be clear. Informed speculation from someone who sells these bikes, but speculation.

Bosch currently makes no hub motor. They’re entirely a mid-drive company. And yet hub drive is not going away. Its market share is growing, the technology is genuinely improving, and the case for hub motors on lighter urban and folding bikes gets stronger every year. Several brands that run Bosch by choice, brands that value the ecosystem, the dealer network, the anti-theft features, must be staring at the lightweight end of the market and finding themselves with nowhere to go within the Bosch family.

There’s also a recent episode where Bosch pushed for regulatory changes to the definition of an ebike that some in the industry read as an attempt to protect their mid-drive business. Whether or not that’s fair, it signals a company thinking hard about where its market position is heading.

A dominant player, a gap in their range, a growing market they currently can’t serve, and commercial pressure from brands they’d rather keep. We think Bosch will release an ebike hub motor. It would be very unlike them to leave that gap permanently unfilled. They haven’t announced anything, and this is a hunch, nothing more. But if we’re right, you heard it here first.

What this means if you’re buying now

Probably less than you’d think. The mid-drive systems from Bosch and Shimano that power the best cargo and urban bikes are excellent, well-supported, and will outlast the bike if you service them sensibly. For carrying kids up hills, they’re still the right answer.

For lighter commuters, folders, and people who genuinely need to carry the bike upstairs, hub motors are getting harder to dismiss, and there are good options available now. For most buyers, though, the motor is probably the fifth or sixth thing to worry about, after the bike, the battery, the brakes, the gearing, and whether you actually enjoy riding it.

The one consistent thing we’d say: buy from a shop that can support the system. Motor issues are rare, but when they happen, you want someone with the right diagnostic tools and a proper relationship with the distributor. Grey market imports are cheap until something goes wrong.

Come and ride a few. Crouch Hill is right outside the shop door. It has a way of sorting out the bikes that talk a good game from the ones that actually deliver.

Butternut Bikes is an independent bike shop in Crouch End, North London, specialising in cargo bikes, family bikes, and electric bikes. We stock Tern, Veloe, Muli, Bike43, Estarli, Tenways and more, all available for test rides Tuesday to Saturday.