Lectric XPremium review: The most affordable, quality mid-drive electric bike that money can buy
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.
We’ve occasionally seen slightly more affordable mid-drive e-bikes on the market, but usually with low-power motors and low-end components.
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
- Price: $1,899
Check out all this stuff you get!
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.
Let’s start with the motor. Mid-drives are expensive and they are rarely found on e-bikes under $2,500 or so. You usually have to approach $3,000 before you start seeing them as standard.
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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National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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