DJI, a manufacturer of drones and camera technology, has made a significant entry into the e-bike market with its Avinox Drive System, unveiled at Eurobike 2024. This move represents a natural progression for the company, leveraging its expertise in battery and motor technology from drones and camera stabilisation systems. Bike Europe took the opportunity to interview drone pilot and DJI product experience director, Ferdinand Wolf, to hear more about what makes the e-bike market so interesting.  

What attracted you to take up the e-bike project at DJI and leave the drone business?

Since my childhood, I have been an avid cyclist and mountain biker. A significant portion of the e-bike market is based in Europe, particularly in Germany. As a native German, it was a logical move for me. I’m a tech geek, so I enjoy anything new, especially when it involves a motor and riding or controlling. In my new role, I’ve moved to the other side of the table, as I now serve as a liaison to our OEM manufacturers, providing them with technical support.

Drones and e-bikes feature very similar components. Core components are brushless motors, electronic speed controllers that drive the motor, and a battery to complete the whole system. Also, a drone comes with a lot of sensors that basically read the drone position which is calculated by the main processors. Technology-wise, it was not such a leap from drones to e-bikes I would say.

Interestingly, many of the developers I worked with for years on drones have also moved to this project within DJI. I essentially communicate with the same people on the development side. The technician responsible for developing the battery and battery management systems for the Mavic and Phantom drones is now working on the e-bike battery system.

“For smooth operation and a natural feeling, we have integrated 10 sensors in the drive system, which is also something that has never been seen before.”

How is the e-bike business at DJI being organised?

It is basically handled like any other DJI product, but with a very high priority because we are very excited about the potential of the Avinox drive system. Also, our management gives it a lot of attention. Our sales team is focusing on European OEMs but is of course also working in the US and China. Many of them have a long history in this market and are very knowledgeable about the e-bike industry. We are also planning to establish collaborations with the OEMs that will release e-bikes with the Avinox system. We want to work together with them on the presentation of their bikes and support any bike release specified with the Avinox system.

Service is recognised to be an important part of launching an e-bike product on the market. We primarily operate in the MTB category where products are used in tough environments by tough guys and girls. Every system, no matter how good it is, will eventually have some issues and we want to tackle these from the beginning out of our office in Frankfurt. We have learned that after-sales support must be a top priority. While product development, R&D, and production are mainly conducted at our headquarters in Shenzhen, China, we perform a portion of field testing in Europe. Market feedback from both European OEMs and field testing is communicated back to our headquarters for new product development.

How many people are involved in this project?

It's difficult to say because we share resources across different departments – for instance, the app development. People are working fulltime on the e-bike app, but we also have colleagues that are basically shared resources among different projects. The same applies to marketing and design. In total, more than 60 people participate in this project.

MTB is the core market for DJI in Europe. But what is the main category for DJI on your home market in China?

The mountain bike market in China is relatively small and growing slowly compared to road biking. We aim to change this by promoting the popularity of mountain biking in China. While extreme sports are not very popular in China, mountain biking offers various levels of difficulty and doesn't have to be extreme. Avinox was primarily developed to shine on a mountain bike, but as it works well in this category it will also work on a city bike or cargobikes. So, we expect to see it specified in other categories like city bikes, touring bikes and cargobikes, as well as creating an entrance on the Chinese home market as well. We are already talking with Chinese OEMs, but our current focus is on Europe and North America.

What is your main business model: supplying the Avinox motor system to OEMs or Amflow e-bikes?

Amflow is an autonomous company incubated by DJI, and we currently share the resources. The ultimate goal is for Amflow to become a fully independent and self-operating company, similar to other bicycle manufacturers. My focus is solely on Avinox. DJI initiated Amflow as a showcase of our system and to push it on the market. By Euroibke this year, I expect the Avinox system will be available on a few selected niche boutique brands. For next year, we anticipate wider adoption, including on major brands.

What elements in the performance are so much better than all other systems on the market that it became so easy to convince OEMs?

The first thing people experience when riding the Avinox system is the output power. Our peak power is tremendously higher than on other systems. We're speaking about 850 watts and 1,000 watts in the boost mode. This means 120 Newton metres of torque in the boost mode. This is something that was rarely seen before, especially in combination with such a very small form factor and lightweight motor. In terms of efficiency, Avinox is rather comparable to other systems.

We learned from market studies that controllability was a major drawback on existing systems, so that’s what we really focused on in our product design. There have been powerful drive systems on the market before, but they didn't handle very well – they never felt natural or like a natural extension of your body. At DJI, we have extensive experience with sensors for our drones and handheld camera stabilisers. Processing the sensor data to control a drive system based on the input has been key in our product development. The app comes with every functionality you can think of, just built in and without extra charges. That’s what people like.

Does DJI develop all components themselves?

Everything is done in-house by DJI – not only the motor and display, but also the battery and the BMS. We didn't use a third party for that, as our long-term experience with drones gave us the know-how to develop this system, creating a very good power-to-weight ratio. Even the motor itself and its components – like the magnets – as well as the whole setup of the dual planetary gear system on the inside, come from our own engineers. Creating a gear system was quite new to DJI, as drones are usually direct-driven, unlike e-bikes.

For the design of the dual planetary gear set, we focused on its compact size, low weight, and low noise level. We learned from market research that a low noise level is perceived as very important by the consumers, and I personally fully agree with that. For smooth operation and a natural feeling, we have integrated 10 sensors in the drive system, which is also something that has never been seen before. Besides the regular torque sensor, we added a speed disc to the rear wheel that has 42 data-gathering points with a high refresh rate. We also specify an Inertial Measure Unit (IMU). This device, which is always used in drones, can measure and report attitude, velocity, changes in altitude and gravitational forces. With this we gain additional data to control the motor. Even inside the motor we use sensors to monitor the system's health information.