Shrinking list of Shimano powered ebikes?

[Spiff]

First I have to say that I have been a loyal Shimano customer since I started ebiking, 25 years ago. I mainly used XT components in my analog bikes and I liked the design, durability, robustness, aesthetics, price-quality ratio.

Three years ago, when I decided to buy an ebike I made a comparison of motors and systems, mainly Bosch 3Gen and Shimano E8000 and the winner was the Shimano E8000, that at that time had been in the market for almost two years so all repairs had been in warranty.

But some time later, Bosch released the 4Gen that had many features inspired by the Shimano steps and improved all the weak areas that I found in my comparison three years ago, and if I had to chose now I'd have a hard time to decide between Shimano and Bosch.

I do not regret the purchasing because after three years and 6000Km (I have been alternating ebike with analog bike, that is the reason of the low Km), my bike powered by Shimano steps E8000 has been trouble free, the motor has not had any issue and the original battery has a health of 96% after 50 cycles

Today I was checking a german ebike web that has a link to Shimano web and the Shimano list of ebikes powered by Shimano motors:

List of all SHIMANO STEPS equipped e-bikes

City, Trekking or MTB. There are a lot of bikes equipped with STEPS. Here you find an overview of all the brands. To make it easy for you, make a choice.

www.shimano-steps.com

This list has 21 bike brands that are supposedly powered by Shimano, but I clicked three of the brands (Orbea, Ghost, Scott) in the Shimano page, and to my surprise, now they are powered by BOSCH 4Gen. I did not check all the brands, but this sample is significative and shows that bike manufacturers are migrating the motor system from Shimano to other brands, mainly Bosch.

Why do you think this migration is happening?

I will start providing the reasons that would influence my decision of Shimano powering or not my next ebike:

MOTOR

Shimano motors are a FRU (= Full Replacement Unit acronym from my IBM times) so Shimano does not sell parts or provide instructions, in case of motor failure (even the very minor issues like dirt in motor speed sensor connector causes connector damage) their only fix is to spend 1120€ and replace the complete motor, which due to parts shortage is not available and has long lead time. I totally disagree with this, in the age of R&R&R (Reuse - Repair - Recycle) whe should have all spare parts available to repair the motors.

Other manufacturers sell motor parts and bearing kits and it is possible to repair the motor. (My motor is fine so far but it is starting to develop a squeaking noise for which I can not locate the source and it may be that the motor is starting to give up).

A couple years ago it was possible to buy the Shimano motors in stores and at a discounted price, but Shimano changed this policy and now it is only possible to order from them and pay full retail price.

Also, EP8 has the mounting compatible with E8000 and only requires some cable adapters but Shimano is not selling EP8 to E8000 customers

BATTERIES

Many Shimano batteries are degrading quite fast, some of them are dropping their health to 90% after only 10 cycles, (This has happened to my second battery purchased few months ago). There are many theories about the cause of this issue, but there is no technical explanation and none of them has been proved, nor backed up by facts. The battery firmware is frozen since the beginning at V1.0.1.0, there has not been any upgrade.

Shimano communication has been very poor, well a better definition is that communication is non existent . They have not provide any explanation nor fix. Their only response has been to modify Shimano Etube Diagnostic Software to remove the Battery Health Diagnostic so now it can not be checked by customers so we can not back up with Shimano Diagnostics the Warranty Claims for battery degradation.

CONCLUSION

My conclusion is that Shimano is shooting himself in the foot and their future is kind of dark, unless they quickly change the roadmap and fix the above issues and others that may surface in this thread.

If I were Shimano, I'd get out of my ivory tower and start asking real customer their opinions about Shimano Steps System, we would be very happy to help them for free to improve their systems , they do not need to hire expensive marketing consultants that would them what they like to hear.

 

[Tonybro]

Orbea use Bosch for the Wild and Shimano EP8 (RS) for the Rise, if memory serves so they use both, depending on application/model.

 

[Spiff]

Orbea use Bosch for the Wild and Shimano EP8 (RS) for the Rise, if memory serves so they use both, depending on application/model.

Yes, you are right. I checked Shimano Wild FS that a couple years ago used Shimano and now Bosch.

 

[Rusty]

Personally I think Shimano has done fairly well considering. Loved the e8000 in my Scott Genius better than the other 3 motors at the time. However, the Gen4 Bosch is really a step up compared to the Gen2. The Brose motor in my Levo was a love/hate relationship and was pretty pissed that I had to buy a 700W/h battery to get the range the dealer assured me I would get. Put a couple thousand km on the e8000 without a blip but only got 600 or so with the Brose before a belt failure - ditched it the instant the motor was replaced (wasn't told it was replaced until later on).
To be fair, if Shimano had a 625W/h or 700W/h battery I would still have it.

I do think there is a lot of bad advise/bad design in both Bosch and Broseearly efforts. With those companies having a very long history with electric motors I expected a hell of a lot better product with way better reliability. Both are very well known for well thought out, reliable products in all sorts of fields so I can only surmise that the input from the bicycle manufacturers was off base.

Have only had a short play with the EP8 and the new Yamaha motors and found them both OK but not tempted to get rid of my Bosch yet.

As far as batteries go I know people with very high charge numbers and still showing good health from all 4 majors - conversely I know severl people that have had major degradation and/or failures in a very short time. As these are all realtively local to each other it is not about different climates so has to be more about how they are cared for and more importantly the quality of the batteries supplied for the packs.
With your comment about FRU I am guessing you can remember the early 2000's when all motherboard manufactures were having endless failures due to contaminated electrolyte in the capacitors - I am wondering if there is a similar issue with batteries. A guy that does repacks has done a few recently and talking to him about it he was doing full repacks for paying customers but if it was for himself or a family member would have only replaced the 6-10 failed cells that were causing the issue. He reckoned the cells in most of the packs he has done were name brand ones and not random Chinese brands. He uses solely Toshiba or Panasonic (Japanese) when available but will use Korean (LG or Samsung) happily.

Me, I think each of the mufacturers has good and bad points - some of them hard and fast and others preferential.
The software I think is where Shimano really suffer, but saying that it is all about the package. Personally I love a large display so I can see data without wearing glasses. That was one thing I really missed on my Levo as looking down at the top tube when riding is just not ideal in my mind. Love the Kiox display in some ways but think for instance on the battery life screen they need colors to represent certain percentages like Shimano. Loved the more conventional trigger shifter on the Shimano but did get used to the buttons on the Levo ... freaking hate the Kiox controller .... make that HATE.

I do think Shimano needs to revise how they go about things and not only listen to customers, but go out and poach some designers with a long background in electric motors - from say Ryobi, Makita or Hitachi. Not so sure selling motor parts or providing tutorials to end users is the answer, but they sure as hell need to be selling parts to authorised service centers.

 

[Tonybro]

I have an E8000 with over 1000 miles on it. I have an EP8 RS with about 250 miles on it. My wife has the full fat EP8 with about 600 miles on it. All Shimano and all good so far...

I've not ridden Brose, Bosch or Yamaha so can't comment on them but have ridden alongside people with them. Real world performance is hard to compare as the bikes and riders were all different...

I know they are relatively small markets in the grand scheme of things but I am surprised the EU let the manufacturers get away without allowing repairs or the ability to buy a replacement motor! Very anti-competition in my book! Also just from an environmental impact too - sell a service kit to Shimano Service Centres and let them do the servicing...

 

[RickBullotta]

Production capacity and availability of components is certainly playing a role here.

 

[towzer]

I like you was a massive Shimano fan, loyal for about 30 years after starting off with deore dx 21 speed, so for an ebike went for an e8000 bike, 2000 miles later and massive bb wobble, replaced under warranty (at about 23 months) and was told that I wouldn’t get another one as it will be more than 2 years old, at that point I researched rebuildability/spares and after that I became an ex shimano motor fan. I have a levo now (with a 4 year warranty, lucky timing) I don’t know what bike I’ll buy next but it will be one whose motor manufacturer is prepared to help post warranty period ownership(rebuildability, spares availability, technical documentation, tools, etc) so it’s unlikely to be a shimano - isn’t it.