10 ways Velotric’s electric bikes are built differently: Deep-dive on the Discover 2
Velotric’s electric bikes stand out from all the other electric bike makers for more than just their eye-catching colors. Underneath that paint you’ll find a number of major differences. Everything from component selection, design choices, embedded technology, and a lot more helps to create a unique and high-performing electric bike that separates itself from the competition. Let’s take a closer look at the new Velotric Discover 2 to see just what goes into these premium e-bikes.
Velotric gets UL certification for the battery and bike
This is incredibly important because UL certification is the gold standard for e-bike safety these days. Not only does Velotric go directly to Underwriter Laboratories for the testing and certification, unlike others that often use third-party tests, but both the battery and the entire e-bike received separate testing and UL certifications. You can actually look it up and find their published UL certifications, which can’t be said for most e-bike companies.
The battery is certified to UL 2849 and the entire e-bike’s drive system is certified to UL 2271. That means the motor, controller, charger, electrical system, and battery pack are all UL-certified.
As more cities and states require UL certification for e-bikes to be legally sold, having this important level of testing already secured is a major advantage.
Proprietary drive system – investing where it matters
A lot of e-bike makers simply pull various components off a shelf and assemble them onto a frame selected from a catalog. Velotric is different.
The company builds its e-bikes using proprietary systems like the powertrain to ensure that it is the highest quality and offers the best performance possible. That’s not something you can get when simply selecting parts à la carte like many others.
Velotric has its own manufacturing team and has 42 utility patents and counting (plus more design patents and software copyrights), meaning they develop their own gear to ensure it all works together properly and provides the performance that riders demand. That’s a big part of the secret behind how Velotric’s Discover 2 and other e-bikes in its lineup can offer more torque and longer range compared to other electric bikes with the same specs.
It’s also an important aspect to ensure timely deliveries. By controlling its own supply chain, Velotric averages just 85 days total compared to the industry average of 150-180 days. That means you get better-designed e-bikes delivered more quickly! And with over 500 partner stores, those bikes show up where you can actually test ride them or return for support when you need it.
Bead welded frame that is hand-finished
When you see as many electric bike frames as we do each week, you notice the small details and differences that might slip by an untrained eye. Welding quality is one of them, and it’s an area where Velotric excels.
On the Discover 2’s own in-house designed frame, the Velotric team uses quality hand-finished bead welding for smooth and strong construction.
We’ve seen some shady weld jobs on other e-bikes, and we’ve even seen multiple e-bikes break in half under normal commuter usage. So Velotric’s assistance on quality welding on a purpose-designed frame is a major safety benefit that will ensure long-lasting, good-looking e-bikes that can withstand the test of time.
The attention to detail in quality manufacturing might also explain how they can offer a two-year warranty when many e-bike companies offer just half of that.
Included battery handle
This might sound like a small feature, but it makes a big difference. When you carry an e-bike battery around, having a convenient and secure handle is about more than comfort, it’s also a safety feature. Most e-bikes have bulky batteries without any good way to carry it other than gripping around the entire chunky battery shell. But the Velotric Discover 2 has a built in handle that folds away when you battery is installed but lifts up to give you a convenient way to carry it with just a few lazy fingers.
It’s another great example of taking the time to design and include small but important features that help differentiate the bike from others that haven’t been able to match Velotric’s attention to detail.
The Velotric Discover 2 is surprisingly waterproof!
This might sound strange, but you can actually toss the Velotric Discover 2 battery into a tub of water and it will be fine! The battery is IPX7 rated, which means it can withstand being submerged in over three feet of water!
In fact, the company demonstrated that feature by putting the battery in a washing machine for an entire cycle!
The rest of the bike is nearly as waterproof, carrying an IPX6 rating. That means you can pressure wash it without any issues.
If you read the fine print on most e-bikes, they explicitly warn against pressure washing and may even void your warranty if you use a pressure washer. But Velotric actually encourages it because the Discover 2 is designed to withstand high pressure water jets, making it easier to clean it after a dirty ride. And even if you never plan to pressure wash your e-bike, it sure does give us some nice peace of mind to know that getting caught in a rain storm won’t have any negative effects on the bike!
Peak performance that you can really feel
A lot of electric bikes claim to have 750W motors, but that’s often a “peak rating”, meaning the motor is actually more like a 500W motor that is capable of short bursts of 750W. But with the Velotric Discover 2, you’re getting a true 750W continuous-rated motor. That means the peak rating is actually much higher, allowing the motor to do bursts of power up to 1,100W. For anyone who enjoys strong acceleration or needs to climb big hills, that’s the kind of power you want!
And speaking of hill climbing, the 75Nm of torque found in the motor is a big part of flattening those hills. While many electric bikes struggle to climb steeper hills, the Velotric Discover 2’s torquey motor eats hills for breakfast.
Don’t believe me? Consider that the Discover 2 is rated to tow 880 lb (400 kg) of weight, showcasing just how powerful it truly is!
Tested tougher than necessary
Standard e-bike torture tests usually involve loading a bike with a certain amount of weight on a test machine and then running it for a certain number of miles. But Velotric prefers to exceed those standards so that they know the bike can truly last longer than the competition.
The standard ISO-4210 testing protocol provides a series of tests to confirm the safety and robustness of a bike, but Velotric doesn’t use the normal values for the test. Instead, they increase them to 150% of the test standards, turning the torture test into an even more torturous test.
While nearly every other company settles for the minimum standard, Velotric voluntarily raises the bar to test their e-bikes at 50% tougher conditions. Not only does it result in stronger bikes designed to handle anything thrown their way, but it also speaks to the company’s ethos, designing and building e-bikes that riders can trust to overcome the unexpected.
More PAS levels for more pedaling options
Having a torque sensor is a nice feature, and the Discover 2’s torque sensor provides comfortable, responsive, and natural feeling pedal assist for riders who enjoy feeling like they’re part of the pedaling experience. But Velotric goes beyond merely including a torque sensor, and has included an unprecedented 15 levels of PAS (pedal assist system) settings, meaning riders will have a lot more variation to choose from. It’s all right there on the brightly-lit color LCD screen, making it easy to choose your optimum assist level.
Whether you’re looking for a relaxing and easy cruise along the beach or you want a fast workout ride that has you sweating by the end, you can find it in the Discover 2’s wide range of PAS levels. There are even other nice features like the included cruise control so you can set your desired speed and then forget about it!
Sure, it’s nice to have the throttle there for times when you just want to fly along without pedaling and quickly increase speed at a moment’s notice. But for the other times when an easy-going pedal ride is what you’re after, that torque sensor combined with the unprecedented 15 levels of pedal assist settings make the pedal experience so much nicer than any other commuter or recreational e-bike on the market.
Serious suspension designed with quality in mind
Quality suspension makes a major difference. If you’ve ever tested a budget bike with a loud, clickity-clackity front fork, you’ve experience cheap suspension. It doesn’t feel very good because it isn’t designed to truly absorb bumps and road vibration the way a true hydraulic suspension fork does.
The Velotric Discover 2 features a quality hydraulic suspension fork with 80 mm (over three inches) of travel. Whether you’re staring down a speed bump, pot hole, branch across the road, or any other obstacle in your path, this is the kind of suspension you want to actually protect your bike and body from the bruising bumps along the way.
Apple FindMy integration
In a perfect world, we’ve never need to worry about protecting our e-bikes from going missing. But until then, having a built-in tracking device is the best chance you’ll ever have of getting your e-bike back in a case of theft.
Apple’s FindMy technology is the leading low-cost tracking solution that uses a network of hundreds of millions of phones, computers, and other Apple products to wireless transmit AirTag tracker locations. Devices like the Velotric Discover 2, which have the hardware found in AirTags built into their own design, make use of that network to protect the device with constant tracking ability. We still recommend a good lock, but if your e-bike some how goes missing, the Apple FindMy technology included in Velotric’s e-bikes can show you or the police exactly where it’s now sitting.
Or, you know, you can also use it if you forget where you parked!
Attention to detail makes the difference
There is so much about an e-bike that impacts its ride and ownership experience. Power and speed are nice, but all the other little things truly affect how the bike feels, rides, and fits into your life.
Velotric obviously took the time to consider those important differences and design them into the Discover 2 and many of the company’s other new models of e-bikes. In the end, that makes a huge difference when comparison shopping between a field of electric bikes that all claim to offer similar speeds, power levels, and prices.
When it comes time to make a decision, the bikes that offer all the other features that improve longevity, comfort, safety, and security, those are the ones that truly stand out!
You can learn more at the company’s website and use the promo code electrekv1rv60 to get $60 off your new e-bike!
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Investors are entering 2025’s first-quarter earnings season with a huge cloud of uncertainty hanging over them — thanks primarily to U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The scale of duties announced in April, along with the volatility injected by subsequent updates and reversals in policy, have so far exceeded even the most bearish forecasts.
Negotiators from the European Union and the U.K. are in talks with U.S. officials to try to alleviate their respective 25% and 10% blanket tariffs, while also grappling with broader tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos. Meanwhile, the rest of the world watches on to see whether red-hot tensions between Washington and Beijing will cool, averting a trade war between the two biggest economies that would have far-ranging repercussions.
Two major earnings reports have already landed in Europe, providing an indication of the tone to come.
Luxury giant LVMH said its categories such as beauty, wines and spirits were vulnerable to a pullback in spending by “aspirational clientele.” Dutch semiconductor firm ASML, which manufacturers chipmaking machines critical to global tech, said tarifs were “creating a new uncertainty” around demand. But neither was able to quantify the scale of the impact.
Here are five other major European firms yet to report earnings that could face big hits from the tariff turmoil.
Maersk
Danish shipping giant Maersk, a bellwether for global trade, is poised to report first-quarter earnings on May 8. Shares of the company have been highly volatile in recent weeks, moving sharply as investors react to the Trump administration’s back-and-forth tariff announcements.
An escalating trade war between the U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies, has been a major source of concern for the maritime and transport sector.
Analysts expect Maersk’s first-quarter earnings before interest, depreciation, taxes and amortization (EBITDA) to come in at $2.3 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus, down from $3.6 billion in the final three months of 2024.
Maersk earlier this month described the U.S. tariffs as “significant” and — in their current form — clearly not good news for the global economy, stability and trade.
“It is still too early to say with any confidence how this will ultimately unfold. We need to see how countries will respond to these plans — and to what extent they choose to negotiate, impose counter-tariffs, adjust import duties, or pursue a combination of these measures,” the company said in a statement on April 3.
Shell
Shell is scheduled to report first-quarter earnings on May 2. It comes after the British oil giant in March announced plans to boost shareholder returns, cut costs and double down on its liquefied natural gas (LNG) push.
In a later trading update, Shell trimmed its first-quarter LNG production outlook, citing unplanned maintenance, including in Australia.
A Shell logo in Austin, Texas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Oil and gas stocks have been caught up in tariff-fueled market turmoil in recent weeks, with energy majors exposed to growing recession fears, subdued oil demand and falling crude prices.
Analysts at wealth manager Hargreaves Lansdown said earlier this month that Shell’s “sharpened focus on efficiency and quality leaves it well-placed to grow free cash flow and shareholder distributions.”
But it can’t control the oil price, Hargreaves Lansdown noted, “so, investors have to be prepared for the relatively high level of volatility that accompanies the entire sector.”
Shell is expected to report first-quarter adjusted earnings of $5.14 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus, down from $7.73 billion in the same period a year ago. The energy major reported adjusted earnings $3.66 billion in the final three months of 2024.
Equity analysts have singled out Shell as the best capital allocator among its European peers, pointing toward the firm’s steadfast commitment to cost discipline under CEO Wael Sawan.
Volkswagen
Germany’s Volkswagen is one of many automotive firms expected to take a hit from tariffs — particularly those on Canada and Mexico — though results out April 30 should give a clearer indicaion of how much it expects to be able to shoulder through operations in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
The U.S. in April implemented a 25% charge on all foreign cars imported into the country, which appears to have already caused some panic-buying.
Volkswagen’s Chief Financial Officer Arno Antlitz told CNBC last month the company was in favor of open markets but already felt “like an American company” due to its thousands of U.S. employees.
However, analysts warn tariffs are especially negative for German carmakers which export thousands of vehicles a year to the U.S., while many cars produced in the country still require European-made parts.
Volkswagen is expected to produce higher year-on-year revenue in the first quarter, up to 77.6 billion euros ($88.2 billion) from 75.5 billion euros, an LSEG-compiled consensus shows. Earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) are seen dipping to 4.03 billion euros from 4.6 billion euros.
Lufthansa
As geopolitical tensions mount, some have questioned whether travel demand will suffer or trends will change — and the results of German airline group Lufthansa, due April 29, could hold some clues.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told CNBC in early March that he expected global demand to drive “significantly” higher profit in 2025 and had not seen any dent in transatlantic bookings. But a lot has changed since then, with the scale of Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric fueling public anger and even boycotts of U.S. products.
A Lufthansa Airlines plane taxiing for takeoff as an United Airlines plane lands at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) in San Francisco, California, United States on February 7, 2025.
Anadolu | Anadolu | Getty Images
Figures for March published by the International Trade Administration showed a 17.2% year-on-year fall in visitor arrivals from Western Europe to the U.S., against a 3.4% dip from Asia and a 17.7% increase from the Middle East.
Lufthansa Group, which includes the German flag carrier along with SWISS, Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Italy’s ITA Airways, has already been grappling with challenges including strikes, global price pressures and Boeing aircraft delivery delays.
According to an LSEG-compiled consensus, analysts expect the group to report revenue of around 8.07 billion euros in the first quarter, up from 7.4 billion euros the previous year, and a roughly $630 million loss in EBIT, trimmed from a $871 million loss year-on-year and down from $482 million profit the prior quarter.
Novo Nordisk
Drugmakers have little idea how their access to the critical U.S. market will be impacted in the coming months.
The Trump administration said last week that it had opened an investigation into how importing certain pharmaceuticals affects national security, widely seen as a prelude to tariffs on drugs — also suggested to be happening in the coming months by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
There remains no clarity over what size the tariffs will be, and when or even if they will come into effect.
For Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, Europe’s second-largest listed company, that leaves exposed the U.S. sales of its hugely popular obesity and diabetes treatments Ozempic and Wegovy. Traders will be hoping its May 7 results give an indication of how it is preparing for that, and how much can be offset by its “very significant” manufacturing set-up in the U.S.
Emily Field, head of European pharmaceuticals research at Barclays, told CNBC earlier this month that tariffs were the “No. 1 question on investors’ minds.”
— CNBC’s Karen Gilchrist and Annika Kim Constantino contributed reporting.
Tesla has settled another wrongful death lawsuit, and it has significant implications based on Tesla’s legal strategy of not settling unless it is at fault.
Admitting a mistake is difficult. We humans are not good at it, which is why I respected Elon Musk when he said that Tesla wouldn’t seek victory in “just” legal cases against it and would “never settle an unjust case” against the company:
We will never seek victory in a just case against us, even if we will probably win. – We will never surrender/settle an unjust case against us, even if we will probably lose..
This strategy also means that if Tesla ever settles a case, it is admitting that it was in the wrong, even if settlements often come with no admission of wrongdoing.
Tesla has very rarely settled cases and Musk made this comment back in 2022. A lot has changed since then.
In fact, around the same time Musk made that comment, he announced that he was building a team of “hardcore lawyers” at Tesla to pursue legal cases aggressively.
But it started to happen over the last few years.
In the UK, a Tesla owner challenged Tesla over its failure to deliver on its full self-driving claims and won a settlement that represented a refund of his purchase cost for FSD, with interest, after filing a claim in small claims court in 2023.
Last year, Tesla also finally settled a wrongful death lawsuit regarding the death of Model X owner Walter Huang, who was one of the first Tesla owners to die while using Autopilot back in 2018.
Now, Tesla has settled a second wrongful death lawsuit.
The estate of Clyde Leach, a Tesla Model Y owner, sued Tesla for wrongful death after his Model Y “suddenly accelerated, went off the road, and slammed into a pillar at an Ohio gas station.” Leach, 72, died from “blunt force trauma, burns, and other injuries” after the vehicle burned down following the impact.
Unlike Huang’s case, the lawsuit didn’t focus specifically on Tesla’s Autopilot or other ADAS features, but it claimed that a defect led to a “sudden acceleration” that contributed to the crash.
There have been numerous allegations of “sudden unintended acceleration” against Tesla vehicles, but in most cases, the evidence has pointed to the driver mistakenly pressing the wrong pedal.
This makes it particularly interesting that Tesla, which claims never to settle unjust claims against the company, has confirmed that it settled the case with Leach’s estate in a filing on Monday in federal court in San Francisco.
The terms of the settlement have not been released.
Electrek’s Take
In Tesla’s early days, there were numerous claims of “sudden unintended acceleration” regarding Tesla vehicles. I would often look into them, and we even had third parties review the telemetric logs; you could almost always prove pedal misplacement.
I assumed some of it also had to do with people not being used to vehicles that accelerate as quickly as Teslas, leading to less forgiving situations when pressing the wrong pedal.
However, considering Tesla settled this case and Musk’s claim that Tesla would not settle an “unjust” claim, there could be a case that sudden acceleration could occur with Tesla vehicles.
This could complicate a lot of other cases against Tesla.
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Despite the will-they, won’t-they uncertainty surrounding the future of tariffs and union jobs and – let’s face it – just about everything else in every industry these days, GM says it has no plans to move production of its Ultium-based EVs from Mexico to the US.
GM has exclusively produced electric cars at its plant in Ramos Arizpe, Mexico since last year, and has created some 5,000 new jobs in the area according to economist Raquel Buenrostro, who currently serves as Mexico’s Secretary of Anti-Corruption and Good Government. And those cars – including the popular Chevy Equinox EV and Honda’s hot-selling Prologue – have been huge hits in their respective segments.
The General seems to know a good thing when it sees one, so it should come as no surprise to learn that GM has no plans to scuttle its assembly lines out of the country.
“At this time, GM has no plans to halt or relocate production of any of our EV models made in Mexico,” the director of GM de México’s EV operations, Adrián Enciso, told the Spanish-language newspaper, Milenio. “It’s possible that additional models, such as (the new 2026 Chevy Spark) could be built here, too.”
Market Watch is reporting that the proposed tariffs, if they take effect, could raise GM’s cost to make electric cars in Mexico by up to $4,300 per vehicle. But while that could put a significant per-unit dent in GM’s profits, it’s worth noting that the EVs might continue to be built in Mexico and sold in Canada and other markets – the new Spark, especially, is targeted towards Central and South America, anyway.
And, frankly, GM can afford it.
SOURCE: Mexico News Daily.
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