We see some comments about how bad the Shimano EP8 motor is. Some claim it’s a dangerous motor that suffers spindle failures. Some say it’s unreliable with a high risk of getting bricked. Others will tell us the EP8 is a weaker motor.
We haven’t really got an opinion about durability. We test a lot of different motors but never ride the same motor for several hundred kilometres. So we asked 4 local shops, or should I say 3!? All of them are big shops that service a lot of ebikes, mostly Bosch, Shimano and some Yamaha. This isn’t a proof of anything, just the opinion of the guys we happened to talk to. None of the shops had any data of motor systems sold versus motors returning with a failure.
Power?
How about motor power? We did a comparison of the Bosch Performance CX 85 Nm against the Shimano EP8 85 Nm a while ago.