this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2026
195 points (94.9% liked)
Technology
78511 readers
3140 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Well thanks for correcting me, that is wild. I can't imagine it's actually pragmatic.
At least it being a fully integrated hub(less) electric motor makes it a much more sensible of a solution than many other tries with all kinds of belt drives and gears and cogs and stuff.
Even the tire change is pretty simple.
Adding a bunch of unsprung weight is a poor decision when it comes to handling though, and that's something pretty important in a motorbike that's trying to do more than just low speed commuting. Such a design will also be putting a lot of vibration through the motor components which is not good for longevity. It's more a case of going for the (admittedly distinctive) aesthetic rather than being sensible.
Makes me wonder about the wheel's rotational inertia, too. In theory, a hubless wheel could be lower mass overall without the need for a center axle/hub and spokes connecting the outside to the center. But that's all weight saved in the center of the wheel with lower effect on overall rotational inertia. Visually, the picture that makes the thumbnail in this post shows that the brake disc has to be further from the center of the wheel, which I imagine adds a lot more weight (more material necessary for the overall brake disc being a larger circle) and a lot more rotational inertia (further from the center).
Maybe the whole design itself can save weight in certain places that make up for the weight added in other places. But I just have a ton of questions, and am overall pretty skeptical of the long term potential of this design.
Looks cool, though, I guess.
The motor design has huge performance benefits. Power is like a solid disk motor of the same size. Their previous model claimed much faster 0-60 time, and so I don't get why it dropped, but if true, the discharge rate of battery simply isn't as high as NMC. That would also explain why they have to have both huge range and fast charge.
more complex, more expensive, more prone to fail fromdirt entering gears, more strain on rims, and alignment in cornering suffers.
There are good reason why real motorcycle companies avoid these designs that are best left as movie props.
I watched that exact video. I still don't think it's ever more efficient to have a hubless wheel vs a good central bearing.
Because it isn't? I'm comparing it to other hubless designs, stuff like this.
It's just more bullshit for a company marketing bullshit to techbros who will use these bikes as living room ornaments.