Lectric Team Talks about the XP Trike Design

Lectric Design Series - XP Trike - YouTube

foreign [Music] well honestly we're going to talk trike we really got to talk a bit more about the history of electric and everything so we launched in 2019 with the XP and first couple days of selling the bike was probably our first request for a trike in a way we have failed our customers a segment of our customers because we didn't have the right product for them and that's just not going to be part of the story in 2023 but I remember I would just yell over to Rob if I would see someone walking their their bike back I'm like Rob we failed another customer and I I think maybe that got annoying after a while so then he actually started the project actually getting it to where it is today uh was quite a long process and a pretty ugly process I don't even know how you guys got that retrofitted but it was at least somewhat of a oh this is in the works I don't know how we retrofitted it

either it just kind of came to be and we drew straws for who was going to ride it and pretty sure Austin was on The Chopping Block for that so he got out there and it held yeah and it worked so it was a good concept but was it just like being held together by like a bolt or two or something like it was it was basically the the rear axle was holding everything together by a a nut on either side so well but we we learned some super valuable lessons from that super Jank thing I mean the biggest thing was you know we strapped a front hub motor on there right and you know we're trying to you know get up to speed or even just starting from a standstill like even so you know pulling out of the office into the gravel it was slipping a ton even on the street like you know it was just slipping and we're like how are other companies making this work and I think for us we came to the conclusion that it just doesn't work it doesn't work and that people are just selling this you

know knowing that yeah you know it kind of works and it's just like you know the it's almost like they're not prioritizing that trike customer in the same way that they're prioritizing customers of their other products right and that's just not how we do things here so yeah we learned that that didn't work and so you know you don't want this front hub but you want strong throttle you tiptoe and you think a little bit about a mid-dry but you want to be price conscious and also kind of get really all the torque that you're looking for well I would I would back up even a step from there and and talk about why we decided to call this the XP trike and not just the electric trike and that is because in those super early days right after we came out with the XP we had so many people that loved the spec of that bike loved the idea but couldn't get on it and and really experience the XP and so that's why we

wanted to to come out with that the XP trike not just the electric trike and so that you know we kind of built backwards from that and that is why you know we had to you know spec this bike out and design it the way we did and you know you're you're pointing to the most unique aspect of this design that you know an industry first where we're using a differential axle in back with a hub motor to drive both wheels at the same time and you know we've alluded to you know most companies do the front hub drive and it ends up slipping out the center of gravity gets wonky you can't get that quick acceleration off the line because if you're putting all of that torque through that front wheel it just slips right out and so we knew we had to figure out a way to use a rear hub with the differential axle and for for folks who may not be familiar with what a differential axle is it allows the two rear wheels to spin

independently of each other so as you're taking turns you know you can imagine that one wheel has to turn a lot more than the other when you're when you're taking a turn and so we we definitely wanted that functionality and that advantage and you know that makes it more challenging to use a hub Drive in the rear here but you know Matt and and Blake and the rest of the team you know came up with this idea and were able to execute on it but we didn't have to compromise throttle at all make this insane investment on costs or whatever like we were able to keep this really affordable but we still get a lot of the benefits that you would traditionally get with the mid drive so I think that's pretty sick and you don't sacrifice anything even though it's such a small trike you could say but you're still still able to fold it still able to ride it with a wide range of Rider Heights I mean we didn't sacrifice in

any of those areas to get this as small as possible and maintain all the functionality well you brought up a good point that was probably one of the other biggest challenges with this project is when we originally met and talked about fusure products and whatever the one constant was like we build bikes that's our job not the customer's job to do it let's just bust our tail and figure out how we're going to deliver it to that customer fully assembled so the actual controller itself Peaks at 20 amps right and each one of the pedal assist levels one through five traditionally for us and our competitors is going to truncate out the speed at which you're going so if it's class two and it's 20 miles an hour traditionally pedal assist one through five would you know break out somewhere along there our trike will limit at 14 miles an hour at whatever pedal assist that you're in

what actually is being governed is the amount of amps that are translating from the controller to the motor so we're able to still leverage a lot of the torque at a lower amp so in pedal assist one you're only getting one or two amps of assistance so anywhere from 80 to 100 Watts which is like a light push behind your back so it's which makes it like for someone that may not have been on a bike for 30 years or maybe they've had a major surgery or life event since the last time they've been on a bike like that's what they're looking for is just like something that is approachable and tameable and whatever I think that's what's really sick about it and then you know the weight on this thing was really important for us as well and so you know we we've looked at some of the competition out there and saw hey you know these guys are using steel frames and we're like why is that and we couldn't come up with a good a good answer for that question either and you

know we've always done everything in aluminum and we knew we wanted to do the same thing here so you know without the battery without the rear basket here you know we're looking at 65 pounds on this thing so still manageable enough to be able to fold it down you know throw it in the trunk you know Stow the batteries separately and then go out to the park or you know wherever you want to to go ride with your you know your family and friends it was crazy the number of customers that are like oh I'm kind of waffling you know step through I just don't know I'm you know this age or this Mobility capabilities can I get on a step through and you get a lot of our customers that say oh yeah like I'm that same height or I had that same you know like circumstance where I wasn't sure of that I just hit my step through at 45 degrees and it gives me enough clearance to step over and I was like oh that's you know it's kind of interesting so I was able to obviously do that on our bikes tip it to 45 degrees get some measurements we actually got it much lower than that which was awesome I mean

that's kudos to the engineering team that they were able to lower the standover height in order for the customer to have the lowest step through possible or very close to Industry leading this is industry breaking in terms of a new price and it's a little weird because for us it makes total sense where it's priced out right we have the 3.0 or the XP itself and so we took that as our platform and we decided let's add hydraulic brakes let's not use the standard 10 amp but do the 14 amp because it's going to be more weight on it and you know you got additional Tire drag so it kind of just makes sense you got to go with the 14 amp on it and then you add that third wheel and sure we did a new design motor system but there's not that much change in it and it totally allowed us to price this

thing at you know 14.99 new for us is the parking brake yeah you see many other trikes out there that have parking brakes but you know it's really just mechanical well ours are hydraulic with dual parking brakes you not only lock the front wheel you can also lock both rear wheels with a parking brake for getting on and off let's say you want to you know park it somewhere on a little bit of an incline you don't have a kickstand to provide that resistance from Rolling backwards loading stuff into the baskets it's it's beneficial all the way around to have those parking brakes I just think that's really cool is we did not cheap out on any part of this bike yet we are so much below the rest of the market and it's just a really cool spot and I think it's really setting this bike up to be a massive success [Music]