It's not just under the helmets that the heat boils when climbing, the engines also get hot, sometimes too hot. The motor heats up and the electronic components do not find good cooling conditions in the housing and can become so hot that the motor power has to be reduced to protect the electronics. Shimano riders sometimes see the warning message W010 on their display - an indication from the engine room at the bottom bracket that the heat is building up. The power is then noticeably reduced by the motor control unit, which is also clearly illustrated on the display by the falling level of the power indicator. According to our practical experience, the motors of one supplier reach their load limit after around 15 minutes if they are constantly operated in boost mode, the strongest support level. But only if the cadence is below 80 rpm.
We wanted to find out whether other motors exhibit similar behaviour and therefore subjected the seven most popular drives to a tough practical test in which the motors were required to deliver maximum performance on a continuous basis. Using measurement technology, we indirectly determined the motor performance and thus visualised its progression over time in practice - information that was previously only available from our roller test bench in the EMTB test laboratory.
The complete test report with all tables and data is available as a PDF in the download area below:
- Bosch Performance CX
- Brose Drive S
- Panasonic
- Rocky Mountain Powerplay
- Shimano Steps E8000
- TQ HPR 120
- Yamaha PW-X
