The Lectric XPremium mid-drive folding e-bike still holds the honor of the highest-value mid-drive electric bike on the market today. With a powerful mid-drive motor, dual batteries, and other impressive features, it’s going to be hard for any other e-bike to compete in this space and at this price point for a long time.
We’ve occasionally seen slightly more affordable mid-drive e-bikes on the market, but usually with low-power motors and low-end components.
The Lectric XPremium, on the other hand, shovels in the value with more power, more range, better parts, and an overall better experience.
It’s a heavy bike at 75 pounds, which is one of its only downsides. But it has so many other redeeming qualities that I’ve found I can look right past the weight, especially since I don’t really need to lift it up stairs or onto a car rack.
To see my real-world testing of the Lectric XPremium e-bike, check out my review video below. Or if you’re more of the reading type, continue reading for my full written review. Or heck, try ’em both. I won’t tell anyone.
Lectric XPremium video review
Lectric XPremium tech specs
- Motor: 500W (800W peak) mid-drive motor
- Top speed: 45 km/h (28 mph)
- Range: Up to 80-160 km (50-100 mi)
- Battery: 48V 20.8 Ah (1,000 Wh) across two batteries
- Weight: 34 kg (75 lb.)
- Max load: 150 kg (330 lb.)
- Brakes: Hydraulic disc brakes on 160 mm rotors
- Extras: Torque sensor, LCD display with speedometer, wattmeter, battery meter, PAS level indicator, odometer and tripmeter, front and rear LED lights, half-twist throttle, dual removable and lockable batteries, robust rack/fenders included standard, kickstand, Slime anti-flat tire sealant pre-installed in inner tubes
- Price: $1,899
Check out all this stuff you get!
Here’s the thing: You get so much value with this e-bike, from extra components to pre-installed accessories, that I still don’t know how they get away with charging a price similar to run-of-the-mill e-bikes from other companies.
Let’s start with the motor. Mid-drives are expensive and they are rarely found on e-bikes under $2,500 or so. You usually have to approach $3,000 before you start seeing them as standard.
But the Lectric XPremium comes with an 800W peak-rated mid-drive that gives you all the benefits of mid-mounted motors. That means you get to enjoy power delivery through your bike gears for more efficient riding on hills and varied terrain, better weight balance in the center of the bike, and more responsive pedal assist with the included torque sensor.
Next, you get hydraulic disc brakes. They’re only 160mm rotors, and I would have liked to have seen 180mm rotors on an e-bike that can hit 28 mph (45 km/h) at full speed, but the brakes work just fine as-is and I don’t see any issue there. The hydraulic nature of the brakes also means you won’t have to spend time tuning a finicky mechanical cable every few weeks like on cheaper disc brakes.
The Lectric XPremium features front suspension with 80mm of travel in a hydraulic fork (and if you really want extra comfort, I recommend adding the Comfort Package with its suspension seat post and cushier saddle).
There’s a 7-speed transmission with a shift sensor that helps you avoid jamming up your gears by accidentally shifting under load. It cuts power for a brief second while shifting, though ideally you’d already be doing that yourself.
Just like you wouldn’t shift gears in a manual transmission car while holding down the gas pedal, you shouldn’t do it on a bicycle either.
For long-range riding, the bike comes with not one but TWO batteries. Both are lockable and removable, and each has 500Wh of capacity. Together, that’s a kilowatt-hour of lithium underneath you.
Lectric eBikes has performed real-world range testing with the values shown below. They say you’ll get between 50-100 miles (80-160 km) depending on how you ride.
If you’re sticking to a reasonable average of 20 mph (32 km/h) on throttle-only operation — which is how many people will use the bike — you could get around 50 miles of range.
But if you’re willing to put in some effort and pedal along, you could bump that range up to 100 miles.
Not too shabby!
And we’re not even finished with all the nice add-ons you get in the Lectric XPremium. There’s an included rear rack for carrying extra gear with you, though may want to consider the cargo package if you’ve got a lot of stuff to carry on a regular basis. That will add a front and rear basket to turn the bike into something of a cargo e-bike.
There’s included front and rear LED lighting. You get built-in metal fenders instead of cheap plastic fenders. The bars are 25″ wide to give you better control and leave more room for adding accessories like phone holders, speakers, bags, and more.
And of course the entire bike folds up to fit in the back of a car, to stow on a boat, or to slip in anywhere that space is limited.
What don’t I like?
As usual, I still have a few complaints, even if the Lectric XPremium is largely a winner.
First of all, the 75 lb. (34 kg) e-bike is heavy. If you’re regularly carrying it up stairs as part of your daily commute, it’s going to get old quickly. Definitely look for an elevator if possible.
If you have back problems then you might not want to be regularly lifting it onto a car’s bike rack or into a truck bed. Consider a ramp.
But if you’re like me and your bike wheels stay on the ground nearly all the time, then you likely won’t notice the added weight.
Next, I found the basic Shimano Tourney derailleur to be adequate, though it arrived with a bit of tuning necessary due to it tending to skip between the middle gears while riding. A few seconds of fiddling with the barrel adjustment had it working better, and it was a tool-free job. But if you don’t know how to adjust your derailleur, then $20 would be well spent at your local bike shop having a professional do it.
As it stands, derailleur adjustments are just something you have to do from time to time, but generally e-bikes should arrive perfectly tuned from the factory unless a bit of jarring around in the shipping box knocked things slightly out of whack.
The only other thing that I wasn’t a huge fan of were the 4″ tires. Sure, they can be fun when you’re off-roading, but after the Lectric XP 2.0 switched from 4″ fat tires to 3″ diet-fat tires, I found the smaller size was a great compromise. They still offered enough air volume and surface contact to get the fat tire experience, but weren’t as heavy or bulky as larger 4-inch-wide tires.
At the bike’s reasonable price of $1,899 though, I can’t really complain about much here. You can find hub motor e-bikes with a fraction of this battery capacity and cheap mechanical brakes for more than this. So the fact that the Lectric XPremium comes with a mid-drive motor as well as dual batteries and so many included features for under $2K still blows my mind.
If you’re on the lookout for a folding e-bike that has a quality mid-drive, tons of range, and enough power and torque to climb your local hills with ease, then the Lectric XPremium is a no-brainer.
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Author: Micah Toll
Source: Electrek
