Full Speed Ahead just announced their new FSA System e-bike motor. Meant for road, gravel & commuter bikes, the rear hub drive unit provides a maximum of 250 watts of assist, pulling from a 250Wh battery inside the down tube. Additionally, you can add an second 250Wh battery into a bottle cage for extra range.
2020 FSA System e-bike pedal-assist rear hub motor
E-bike systems are on the rise, and FSA just joined the fray. They were already a supplier of cranksets, spiders, and sprockets to other e-bike manufacturers, and opted to make their own complete system. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the Fazua Evation setup, in that it targets low weight (4kg total), and gets a hidden downtube battery. However, rather than using a bottom bracket motor, it drives a large rear hub that must be built into your wheel.
FSA will offer four initial wheel options: Vision Metron 40 SL Disc, Trimax 30 Disc, Team 30 Disc, and the AGX gravel-specific wheels. That’s another big reason for FSA’s choice of a hub motor, since they can already build it into their Vision brand of wheels, and offer complete wheelsets.
The motor will have five output settings, hitting a maximum output of 250W of pedal assist (and a maximum noise level of 55 decibels). The 20-cell downtube battery has 250Wh of storage capacity, and there’s an optional bottle cage auxiliary battery with the same capacity(not pictured) – very reminiscent of the Range Extender in the latest Specialized e-system. The battery charge port is near the bottom bracket area, and doubles as the power port for the extra battery.
The FSA System hub is 6-bolt disc brake-only, with a special bolt-on thru-axle interface to transmit torque through the dropout. The drive system works with any standard road drivetrain, 1x or 2x using a conventional cassette.
Assistance cutoff speeds are 25km/h for Europe, or 32km/h for the USA.
You can control the system using the integrated top tube unit. FSA has also developed an iOS and Android app, which allows the user to record ride and usage statistics, display battery life, and even provide turn-by-turn GPS navigation.
The new FSA System will be available in complete bikes from Spring 2020, and carries a 2-year warranty. The System will not be available aftermarket, and pricing will only be reflected as part of complete e-bike costs.
