German bicycle manufacturer Focus have announced their commitment to *ahem* refocus their proirities in their e-bike range with the release of their Project Y concept e-bike.
Project Y is the culmination of Focus's analysis of what really matters to them when they're riding their bikes and how that compares to the direction the e-bike market is moving. The bike isn't just some dreamland design work either, it really exists.
In a press release that accompanied the announcement of Project Y, Focus commented that "the world of performance e-bikes is heading for a dead-end."
They said that as the e-bike market has grown the focus has been on bikes with greater power and bigger range capabilities. Focus sees this as a problem because "power and range is only acheived with weight. Thus the direction of e-mountain bikes is currently totally contrary to the other developments in the mountain bibke world.
"What's left are just motorbikes with pedals."
Project Y is their answer to that growing problem of enormously heavy e-bikes.
The Focus machine weighs in at 12.96kg, which is 8kg lighter than Focus's production electric mountain bike the Jarifa I 29 SL.
Of that weight their colaborator elecric motor company Fauza's Evation motor and battery unit contributes only 4.7kg to the overall weight.
Fauza's unit is interesting because it slims down the entire motor, battery pack, and transmission into one streamlined unit that fits - almost unnoticably - into the downtube of the Project Y bike.
Clearly though, with such a small motor and battery pack, you're going to lose out on some significant power output.
Focus says that the planned battery capacity is 250Wh, the maximum peak power output is 400W and the average - at the moment - is approximately a 190W output.
The target for average power output for the bike is a rather ambitious 250W, but, as we've already noted, this is just a concept at the moment - there's surely room for improvement.
Details on the rest of the bikes componentry are strangely light on the ground, however, from the images we're receiving we can get a pretty good idea about what to expect.
It looks like the Focus Project Y is running SRAM'S EX1 electric mountain bike specific groupset, a FSA SLK crank, Continental RaceKing 2.2 tyres, and a factory series Fox 32 fork.
There is no release date, let alone any clear indication from Focus that the Project Y will ever be available to buy.
However, it seems exciting times are ahead of us from Focus's e-bike range, especially if they stand by their statement that "our goal is e-bike excitement but with a real bike feel."
