The Focus Project Y is a carbon hardtail with e-drive. The e-bike weighing less than 13 kilos is a project, not a study. The difference is that you can already ride it and not just scrutinise the confusing drawings on a piece of paper. Focus wants to break new ground together with drive manufacturer Fazua. In order to shed the image of clunky, heavy e-mountainbikes, both Focus and Fazua are focussing fully on system integration. Focus product manager Marc Faude puts it bluntly: "We don't want to build motorbikes with bicycle cranks, but real mountain bikes with a bit of motor support."
Falzua drive weaker than Bosch, Brose & Co.
Behind the company Fazua is a Munich-based engineering office. Since 2011, the former fellow students have been working on their vision of a fully integrated drive for e-bikes. What makes their idea special is that the battery and motor form a single unit. The power of the motor is transferred to the chainring with the help of a gearbox. The motor should weigh 1950 grams and the battery 1300 grams. However, the compact design of the Fazua drive also takes its toll. The assistance is significantly weaker than the thrust of a state-of-the-art Bosch motor, for example, and the range is also reduced. According to the manufacturer Fazua, the battery-motor unit should provide 190 watts of additional power for over 1.5 hours of riding time. During an initial test ride, however, it felt like less power.
The battery-motor unit can be removed with a single movement and without tools. Only the gearbox remains in the frame. The e-bike then becomes - more or less - a conventional mountain bike. The "Evation Drive Train", as the battery-motor unit is called, is Fazua's first product and will be seen exclusively on Focus bikes in the mountain bike sector. However, there will be other manufacturers in 2017 who will install the electric drive in other bike categories.
For the time being, there is no date for the series production of the super-light Focus hardtail. The company wants to wait for feedback on the Focus Project Y in order to better customise the series bike to the needs of customers.
