The Lectric XPremium mid-drive folding e-bike still holds the honor of the highest-value mid-drive electric bike on the market today. With a powerful mid-drive motor, dual batteries, and other impressive features, it’s going to be hard for any other e-bike to compete in this space and at this price point for a long time.
The Lectric XPremium, on the other hand, shovels in the value with more power, more range, better parts, and an overall better experience.
It’s a heavy bike at 75 pounds, which is one of its only downsides. But it has so many other redeeming qualities that I’ve found I can look right past the weight, especially since I don’t really need to lift it up stairs or onto a car rack.
To see my real-world testing of the Lectric XPremium e-bike, check out my review video below. Or if you’re more of the reading type, continue reading for my full written review. Or heck, try ’em both. I won’t tell anyone.
Lectric XPremium video review
Lectric XPremium tech specs
Motor: 500W (800W peak) mid-drive motor
Top speed: 45 km/h (28 mph)
Range: Up to 80-160 km (50-100 mi)
Battery: 48V 20.8 Ah (1,000 Wh) across two batteries
Weight: 34 kg (75 lb.)
Max load: 150 kg (330 lb.)
Brakes: Hydraulic disc brakes on 160 mm rotors
Extras: Torque sensor, LCD display with speedometer, wattmeter, battery meter, PAS level indicator, odometer and tripmeter, front and rear LED lights, half-twist throttle, dual removable and lockable batteries, robust rack/fenders included standard, kickstand, Slime anti-flat tire sealant pre-installed in inner tubes
Here’s the thing: You get so much value with this e-bike, from extra components to pre-installed accessories, that I still don’t know how they get away with charging a price similar to run-of-the-mill e-bikes from other companies.
But the Lectric XPremium comes with an 800W peak-rated mid-drive that gives you all the benefits of mid-mounted motors. That means you get to enjoy power delivery through your bike gears for more efficient riding on hills and varied terrain, better weight balance in the center of the bike, and more responsive pedal assist with the included torque sensor.
Next, you get hydraulic disc brakes. They’re only 160mm rotors, and I would have liked to have seen 180mm rotors on an e-bike that can hit 28 mph (45 km/h) at full speed, but the brakes work just fine as-is and I don’t see any issue there. The hydraulic nature of the brakes also means you won’t have to spend time tuning a finicky mechanical cable every few weeks like on cheaper disc brakes.
The Lectric XPremium features front suspension with 80mm of travel in a hydraulic fork (and if you really want extra comfort, I recommend adding the Comfort Package with its suspension seat post and cushier saddle).
There’s a 7-speed transmission with a shift sensor that helps you avoid jamming up your gears by accidentally shifting under load. It cuts power for a brief second while shifting, though ideally you’d already be doing that yourself.
Just like you wouldn’t shift gears in a manual transmission car while holding down the gas pedal, you shouldn’t do it on a bicycle either.
For long-range riding, the bike comes with not one but TWO batteries. Both are lockable and removable, and each has 500Wh of capacity. Together, that’s a kilowatt-hour of lithium underneath you.
Lectric eBikes has performed real-world range testing with the values shown below. They say you’ll get between 50-100 miles (80-160 km) depending on how you ride.
If you’re sticking to a reasonable average of 20 mph (32 km/h) on throttle-only operation — which is how many people will use the bike — you could get around 50 miles of range.
But if you’re willing to put in some effort and pedal along, you could bump that range up to 100 miles.
Not too shabby!
And we’re not even finished with all the nice add-ons you get in the Lectric XPremium. There’s an included rear rack for carrying extra gear with you, though may want to consider the cargo package if you’ve got a lot of stuff to carry on a regular basis. That will add a front and rear basket to turn the bike into something of a cargo e-bike.
There’s included front and rear LED lighting. You get built-in metal fenders instead of cheap plastic fenders. The bars are 25″ wide to give you better control and leave more room for adding accessories like phone holders, speakers, bags, and more.
And of course the entire bike folds up to fit in the back of a car, to stow on a boat, or to slip in anywhere that space is limited.
What don’t I like?
As usual, I still have a few complaints, even if the Lectric XPremium is largely a winner.
First of all, the 75 lb. (34 kg) e-bike is heavy. If you’re regularly carrying it up stairs as part of your daily commute, it’s going to get old quickly. Definitely look for an elevator if possible.
If you have back problems then you might not want to be regularly lifting it onto a car’s bike rack or into a truck bed. Consider a ramp.
But if you’re like me and your bike wheels stay on the ground nearly all the time, then you likely won’t notice the added weight.
Next, I found the basic Shimano Tourney derailleur to be adequate, though it arrived with a bit of tuning necessary due to it tending to skip between the middle gears while riding. A few seconds of fiddling with the barrel adjustment had it working better, and it was a tool-free job. But if you don’t know how to adjust your derailleur, then $20 would be well spent at your local bike shop having a professional do it.
As it stands, derailleur adjustments are just something you have to do from time to time, but generally e-bikes should arrive perfectly tuned from the factory unless a bit of jarring around in the shipping box knocked things slightly out of whack.
The only other thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of were the 4″ tires. Sure, they can be fun when you’re off-roading, but after the Lectric XP 2.0 switched from 4″ fat tires to 3″ diet-fat tires, I found the smaller size was a great compromise. They still offered enough air volume and surface contact to get the fat tire experience, but weren’t as heavy or bulky as larger 4-inch-wide tires.
At the bike’s reasonable price of $1,899 though, I can’t really complain about much here. You can find hub motor e-bikes with a fraction of this battery capacity and cheap mechanical brakes for more than this. So the fact that the Lectric XPremium comes with a mid-drive motor as well as dual batteries and so many included features for under $2K still blows my mind.
If you’re on the lookout for a folding e-bike that has a quality mid-drive, tons of range, and enough power and torque to climb your local hills with ease, then the Lectric XPremium is a no-brainer.
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Taiwanese smart-scooter pioneer Gogoro is taking a step into more accessible territory with its newest model, the Ezzy. The company hopes to leverage its massive lead in battery-swapping technology while also bringing its smart scooters to a broader audience by lowering its price point.
Designed as a no-frills, budget-friendly ride that doesn’t skimp on modern conveniences, Ezzy is priced around NT$59,980 (around US $2,000). Once you add in the government subsidies from its native Taiwan, that price drops below NT$30,000 (around US $1,000). For Gogoro, this is the smartscooter distilled to its essential core: practical, connected, and ready for daily life.
The Ezzy looks like it is trying to build on Gogoro’s success with its 2024 Jego launch, the company’s previous forray into lower cost electric scooters. The Jego was a massive success and wound up resulting in around 40% of the company’s sales. Now the Ezzy looks to keep the good vibes rolling in a sleek, compact, and intuitive package.
The scooter features a rounded, minimalist body with a durable front panel and straightforward controls. Practicality is the guiding principle: a 68 cm (27 inch) long seat, spacious footwell, and a 28 liter (7.4 gallon) under-seat storage compartment, which the company says is large enough for two helmets – if they’re a 3/4 and a half helmet. Put it all together, and the features sound like they should make the Ezzy ideal for urban errands or weekend jaunts. Add in a built-in cupholder and flip-out footrests, and you’ve got a scooter designed to seamlessly slot into everyday routines with one or two riders aboard.
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The design is cute, but it’s under the panels where Gogoro usually tries to set itself apart. Ezzy is powered by a new hub motor capable of speeds up to 68 km/h (42 mph), high enough for city traffic while keeping maintenance low. The last time I was scootering around in Taipei, those speeds felt like plenty on the congested streets.
And while Gogoro’s scooters have long been impressive, the most important part of the company’s offerings isn’t even its rides, it’s how they’re powered. Ezzy integrates directly into Gogoro’s famed battery-swapping network, which includes thousands of swap stations around Taiwan.
Riders can skip charging downtime by swapping depleted packs at GoStation kiosks, which regularly see hundreds of thousands of battery swaps every day.
Electrek’s Take
In terms of performance, Ezzy strikes a balance. It’s not built for speed demons, but it likely won’t bog down in traffic either. It’s not overflowing with gadgets, yet includes thoughtful features that matter – cup holder, flip-out footrests, and room for two helmets. At around US $2,000 retail before subsidies, it’s clearly aimed at broadening access to smart two-wheeling in dense cities. And since the combustion engine scooters still dominate cities in most countries, making electric alternatives more affordable is a key part of displacing those heavy polluters.
This feels less like a normal launch and more like a strategic pivot for Gogoro. While the company’s premium Smartscooters – like the sports car-inspired Pulse or high-performance SuperSport – are impressive, they’re also spendy and niche. Ezzy, by contrast, looks like what Gogoro might want every city overpopulated by cars to embrace: a stylish, comfortable, and economical electric scooter that’s accessible to the masses.
It’s still early days and Gogoro hasn’t confirmed availability beyond Taiwan, but enthusiasm for affordable, swappable-battery electric scooters is growing. If Ezzy finds even moderate success in its initial market, it could pave the way for Gogoro to expand its smart ecosystem deeper into urban centers worldwide.
In short, Ezzy may not be a headline-grabbing performance machine, but that’s exactly the point. Sometimes progress happens not with fireworks, but with smart, thoughtful moves that make electric mobility more attainable for everyone. And that’s an evolution worth riding along with.
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The e-bike industry in the West has long been a tale of two territories. North Americans enjoy higher speeds and power limits for their electric bicycles while Europeans are held to much stricter (i.e. slower and lower) speed and power limits. However, things might change based on current discussions on rewriting European e-bike regulations.
New power levels are not totally without precedent, either. The UK briefly considered doubling its own e-bike power limit from 250 watts (approximately 1/3 horsepower) to 500 watts, though the move was ultimately abandoned.
But this time, the call for more power is coming from within the house – i.e., Germany. The Germans are the undisputed leaders and trend setters in the European e-bike market, accounting for around two million sales of e-bikes per year. Home to leading e-bike drive makers like Bosch, the country has yet another advantage when it comes to making – or regulating – waves in the industry.
And while there aren’t any pending law changes, the largest German trade organization ZIV (Zweirad-Industrie-Verband), which is highly influential in achieving such changes, is now discussing what it believes could be pertinent updates to current EU electric bike regulations.
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Some of the new regulations involve creating rules maxing out power at levels such as 400% or 600% of the human pedaling input. But a key component of the proposed plan includes changing the present day power limit of e-bikes from 250W of continuous power at the motor to 750W of peak power at the drive wheel.
The difference includes some nuance, since continuous power is often considered more of a nominal figure, meaning nearly every e-bike motor in Europe wears a “250W” or less sticker despite often outputting a higher level of peak power. Even Bosch, which has to walk the tight and narrow as a leader in the European e-bike drive market, shared that its newest models of motors are capable of peak power ratings in the 600W level. That’s still far from the commonly 1,000W to 1,300W peak power seen in US e-bike motors, but offers a nice boost over an actual 250W motor.
Other new regulations up for discussion include proposals to limit fully-loaded cargo e-bike weights to either 250 kg (550 lb) for two-wheelers or 300 kg (660 lb) for e-bikes with more than two wheels. As road.cc explained, ZIV also noted that, “separate framework conditions and parameters must be defined for cargo bikes weighing more than 300 kg (see EN 17860-4:2025) as they differ significantly from EPACs and bicycles in their dynamics, design and operation.” Such heavy-duty cargo e-bikes, which often more closely resemble small delivery vans than large cargo bikes, are becoming more common in the industry and have raised concerns about cargo e-bike bloat, especially in dedicated cycling paths.
It’s too early to say whether European e-bike regulations will actually change, but the fact that key industry voices with the power to influence policy are openly advocating for it suggests that new rules for the European market are a real possibility.
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China just laid out a plan to roll out over 100,000 ultra-fast EV charging stations by 2027 – and they’ll all be open to the public.
The National Development and Reform Commission’s (NDRC) joint notice, issued on Monday, asks local authorities to put together construction plans for highway service areas and prioritize the ones that see 40% or more usage during holiday travel rushes.
The NDRC notes that China’s ultra-fast EV charging infrastructure needs upgrading as more 800V EVs hit the road. Those high-voltage platforms can handle super-fast charging in as little as 10 to 30 minutes, but only if the charging hardware is up to speed.
China had 31.4 million EVs on the road at the end of 2024 – nearly 9% of the country’s total vehicle fleet. But charging access is still catching up. As of May 2025, there were 14.4 million charging points, or roughly 1 for every 2.2 EVs.
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To keep the grid running smoothly, China wants new chargers to be smart, with dynamic pricing to incentivize off-peak charging and solar and storage to power the charging stations.
To make the business side work, the government is pushing for 10-year leases for charging station operators, and it’s backing the buildout with local government bonds.
The NDRC emphasized that the DC fast chargers built will be open to the public. This is a big deal because a lot of fast chargers in China aren’t. For example, BYD’s new megawatt chargers aren’t open to third-party vehicles.
As of September 2024, China had expanded its charging infrastructure to 11.4 million EV chargers, but only 3.3 million were public.
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