This has cropped uo a few times before Eddie.
Giant got their first ebike, called the Lafree, very wrong, too heavy and moped like. For their second attempt they retained the Dutch Lafree people to design the cycle side and used the Panasonic motor unit and battery, so Giant themselves played virtually no part. That was the successful model.
With the inefficiencies that large companies have when handling very small markets, Giant never managed to make a profit on those bikes and finally packed in the series. Their new attempt was a budget e-bike, the Suede, designed by themselves and using a long defunct US designed hub motor that was built by Sanyo. Their idea was that a cheaper bike (£600) would create a mass market, but of course it didn't so again it was a no profit venture. Not only that, the bike was flawed in some respects anyway, mainly through economies imposed.
So they've now tried to make a profit from electrics by upgrading the same bike twice (first as the Argue, then as the new Twist) and switching from a one battery 36 volt system to a twin battery 24 volt system, more than doubling the price at the same time. The result is that they are still flawed and aren't selling, some dealers heavily discounting just to get rid of them from stock. One member had a dealer shocked at him even asking about them and advised him not to buy!
The conclusion has to be that they aren't the right company to make e-bikes, and I think they should stick to the ordinary bikes they do best and only return to e-bikes when it becomes a big market and they can throw big money into getting it right.
You can read of their e-bike history
on my website link.
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hn
