AMYET vs EUNORAU: the widest gap on this site, and not only in price

The widest gap on this site, and not only in price

AMYET's three bikes cost $669, $689 and $1,049. EUNORAU's cost $1,699, $2,499 and $2,999. The gap between the cheapest bike in this comparison and the most expensive is $2,330, which is more than three times the price of the cheaper bike.

But price is the least interesting difference. Every AMYET is a hub-motor bike. Two of the three EUNORAU bikes are mid-drives, where the motor sits at the cranks and its output passes through the gears before it reaches the ground. That is not a better version of the same thing. It is a different mechanism, and it is the reason this page spends more time on drivetrain than on money.

AMYET: three hub motors and a large battery

The G60 and EB26 each carry a 1000W rated rear hub motor with a claimed 1500W peak. The S8 carries two 1000W hub motors driving both wheels, with a claimed 3000W combined peak. Packs are 960Wh, 720Wh and 1,200Wh. Claimed top speeds are 32, 28 and 32 MPH. Payload is 330 lb on all three. All three run 7-speed gearing. AMYET publishes no motor torque figure, no assist sensor type and no bike weight for any of them.

EUNORAU: one hub motor and two mid-drives

The META26 1.0 is a 48V 500W rear hub bike with a torque sensor, 55 Nm, a 720Wh Samsung pack and a bay for a second one. The FLASH 2.0 is a 52V 1000W Truckrun mid-drive claiming 220 Nm through a Shimano 8-speed, with full suspension and an 832Wh pack expandable to about 2,808Wh across three batteries. The SPECTER-S 3.0 is a 48V 1000W Bafang G510 mid-drive claiming 160 Nm through a SRAM NX 11-speed, with an 840Wh pack, two frame sizes and a 28 MPH top speed.

The money: $0.72 against $3.57

Price per nominal watt-hour is arithmetic, not opinion. Nominal energy is volts times amp-hours; divide the current asking price by it and you have what a unit of stored energy costs.

The arithmetic, all six bikes

• AMYET V9-G60, 48V × 20Ah = 960Wh. $689 ÷ 960 ≈ $0.72 per watt-hour.
• AMYET S8, 48V × 25Ah = 1,200Wh. $1,049 ÷ 1,200 ≈ $0.87.
• AMYET EB26, 48V × 15Ah = 720Wh. $669 ÷ 720 ≈ $0.93.
• EUNORAU META26 1.0, 48V × 15Ah = 720Wh. $1,699 ÷ 720 ≈ $2.36.
• EUNORAU FLASH 2.0, 52V × 16Ah = 832Wh. $2,499 ÷ 832 ≈ $3.00.
• EUNORAU SPECTER-S 3.0, 48V × 17.5Ah = 840Wh. $2,999 ÷ 840 ≈ $3.57.

The two flagships put it most sharply. The AMYET S8 carries 1,200Wh for $1,049. The EUNORAU SPECTER-S carries 840Wh for $2,999. That is $1,950 more money for 360Wh less stored energy, or roughly four times the price per watt-hour.

Across the whole ranges: AMYET's three bikes cost $669 + $689 + $1,049 = $2,407 and hold 720 + 960 + 1,200 = 2,880Wh. EUNORAU's three cost $1,699 + $2,499 + $2,999 = $7,197 and hold 720 + 832 + 840 = 2,392Wh. So $4,790 more, for 488Wh less.

Where the money actually goes

None of that is an argument that EUNORAU is overpriced. It is an argument that battery is not what EUNORAU is selling, and the SPECTER-S is the clearest illustration on this site of the site's whole spine. At $2,999 the cells are the least of it. What you are buying is a named Bafang G510 motor with a parts supply that will still exist in five years, an 11-speed SRAM NX cassette, an inverted 140mm fork and a 190mm DNM rear shock with both travel figures published, a torque sensor, brake levers that cut motor power, two frame sizes, a 5 foot 3 to 6 foot 4 fit range and a stated UL certification.

The FLASH is the exception that proves the rule from the other direction. It is the only EUNORAU whose headline is capacity: 832Wh standard, and about 2,808Wh with the optional 21Ah top-tube and 17Ah down-tube packs fitted — by a wide margin the most stored energy on this site. But those extra packs are a substantial cost on top of $2,499, and the standard bike still works out at $3.00 per watt-hour.

Hub motor against mid-drive

This is the part that actually decides the comparison, and it is worth being precise about the mechanism rather than repeating that mid-drives are better on hills.

Where the torque is applied

A hub motor is built into the wheel. Whatever torque it produces is applied directly to that wheel, and the gears on the bike sit between your pedals and the rear cog — they are downstream of your legs and entirely outside the motor's path. Change gear on a hub-motor bike and you change how hard you are working. The motor's contribution at the wheel does not change at all.

A mid-drive sits at the cranks and turns the chainring. Its output therefore travels the same road your legs do: chainring, chain, cassette, wheel. And that path has a gear ratio in it.

What the gears do to it

Torque multiplies by the ratio of the rear cog to the front chainring. In the lowest gear on a wide-range cassette the rear cog is much larger than the chainring, so torque at the wheel is a multiple of torque at the cranks. The wheel turns more slowly for each turn of the motor, and in exchange it turns harder. That is the whole trick, and it is the same trick your own legs have been using for a century.

So the SPECTER-S has 160 Nm at the cranks and a SRAM NX 11-speed cassette to multiply it, and the FLASH has 220 Nm and a Shimano 8-speed. On the AMYET side, a 7-speed cassette does nothing for the motor, because the motor is not upstream of it. Gearing on a hub-motor bike lets you add your own effort more efficiently, which reduces how hard the motor works, which reduces heat, which keeps it from cutting power to protect itself. That is worth having. It is not torque multiplication.

And what it costs you

Mid-drives are not free. All that force runs through your chain and cassette rather than through a sealed hub, so consumables wear faster and a snapped chain under load is a real event rather than a theoretical one. Mid-drives are more expensive to buy, more complex to service, and on flat ground they do nothing a hub motor was not already doing. A mid-drive bought for a flat commute is an expensive way to wear out a cassette.

Our guide to e-bikes for hills goes through the decision in more detail, and the single versus dual motor guide covers the other answer to the same question, which is the one AMYET has chosen with the S8.

Torque figures, and the absence of them

EUNORAU publishes a newton-metre figure for every bike: 55 Nm on the META26, 160 Nm on the SPECTER-S, 220 Nm on the FLASH. That is a spread of four to one within one brand, and it tells you honestly that the META26 is not a climbing bike — 55 Nm is the lowest figure on this site.

AMYET publishes no torque figure for the G60, the EB26 or the S8. The closest they come is a claimed 35-degree maximum slope for the S8, which is a gradient claim rather than a torque figure and appears on one of the three listings.

This is not us guessing that AMYET's motors are weak. Two 1000W hub motors driving both wheels may well haul a bike up a great deal. The point is narrower and harder to argue with: on the specification that predicts climbing, one brand has given you a number for every model and the other has given you none, so a buyer with a hill cannot make the comparison at all. Our motor wattage guide explains why the watt figure both brands do publish is the wrong one to lean on.

Weight: 110 lb against a blank

EUNORAU publishes a bike weight for all three: 68.4 lb for the META26, and 50 kg — about 110 lb — for both the FLASH and the SPECTER-S. AMYET publishes none for any model.

110 lb changes how you own a bike rather than how you ride it. You will not lift it onto a standard car rack, carry it up a flight of stairs, or pick it up alone if it goes over. It needs ground-level storage, a ramp if it goes in a van, and a hitch rack rated well above the usual 60 lb per bike. That is a serious constraint, and EUNORAU deserves credit for stating it plainly rather than leaving a buyer to discover it on the pallet.

The AMYET side of this is worse in a different way. What can be reasoned is direction, not magnitude: the S8 carries two hub motors, a 1,200Wh pack and full suspension, so it is clearly the heaviest AMYET; the EB26 has a high-carbon steel frame and 26-inch wheels, which makes it the most awkward to carry. By how much, AMYET does not say for any of them.

What each brand publishes, and what it hides

AMYET's three absences

Torque, assist sensor type and bike weight are missing from all three AMYET listings. The sensor gap is the one buyers underestimate: it decides whether the bike waits for the cranks to turn and then pushes at a fixed level, or measures how hard you are pushing and scales to match. EUNORAU states a torque sensor on the META26 and on the SPECTER-S. Rider height is another AMYET blank across all three; EUNORAU publishes 5 foot 4 to 6 foot 3 for the META26 and 5 foot 3 to 6 foot 4 for the SPECTER-S.

EUNORAU names its parts

EUNORAU's listings name components rather than describing them generically: Bafang for the SPECTER-S motor, Truckrun for the FLASH, SRAM NX for the 11-speed, Samsung cells in the META26 and LG or Samsung in the SPECTER-S, a DNM rear shock, KENDA and Innova tires, a KZ-209 rear shock on the FLASH rated to 1,000 lb. Named parts matter years into ownership, when the question is whether anyone still sells the replacement.

The FLASH payload gap

EUNORAU is not uniformly better, and one omission is worse than anything on the AMYET side.

Every other bike on this site publishes a payload rating. AMYET publishes 330 lb on all three of its bikes; EUNORAU publishes 286 lb on the META26 and 300 lb on the SPECTER-S. The FLASH publishes nothing.

The FLASH also publishes no assist sensor type, no charge time and no rider height — which puts EUNORAU's most expensive-to-run bike in roughly the same documentation position AMYET occupies at a third of the price. And on payload specifically, AMYET wins the comparison outright: 330 lb across the range beats both of EUNORAU's published figures. Our guide for heavier riders explains what that ceiling is actually protecting.

Certification, bike by bike

Certification varies inside both brands and cannot be reported by brand.

• AMYET V9-G60 — AMYET states UL 2849 certified.
• AMYET EB26 — AMYET states UL 2849 compliant, with an IP65 battery.
• AMYET S8 — no certification claim on the listing.
• EUNORAU META26 1.0 — no certification stated.
• EUNORAU FLASH 2.0 — no certification stated.
• EUNORAU SPECTER-S 3.0 — EUNORAU states UL certified, without naming a standard.

UL 2271 covers the battery pack. UL 2849 covers battery, charger, controller and motor tested together as one system. The distinction is the entire point of the paperwork, so a claim of "UL certified" with no number attached is weaker than it looks. On this measure the $669 EB26 makes a more specific claim than the $2,999 SPECTER-S. An unpublished claim is not evidence that a bike is uncertified, and we do not read one across from a sibling model in either direction — but if a building manager has asked you for certification in writing, ask the brand which standard applies before you order.

Which brand for which rider

Buy AMYET if

Your ground is flat or rolling and stored energy per dollar is what you are shopping for. On flat tarmac a mid-drive's advantage does not appear — there is no gradient for the gearing to multiply against — so the SPECTER-S premium buys you a cassette to wear out. The G60 gives you 960Wh and a UL 2849 claim for $689. The S8 gives you 1,200Wh, all-wheel drive, full suspension and hydraulic brakes for $1,049, which is $650 less than the cheapest EUNORAU.

Buy AMYET also if payload is tight. 330 lb across the range beats the META26's 286 lb and the SPECTER-S's 300 lb, and the FLASH does not publish a figure at all.

Buy EUNORAU if

You have a hill you dread, and you want the machine to answer it rather than the marketing. The FLASH at 220 Nm through eight gears and the SPECTER-S at 160 Nm through eleven are in a category no hub motor here occupies, and they are the only bikes in this comparison whose climbing you can judge from the listing before you buy. The META26 is the other reason: a torque sensor, hydraulic brakes with motor cut-off levers, and a second battery bay that turns 720Wh into 1,440Wh by simple arithmetic rather than by optimistic claim.

Buy EUNORAU also if you need the bike to fit you. The SPECTER-S is the only bike on this site sold in two frame sizes, and on a full-suspension frame that is not a detail you can fix with a longer seatpost.

What EUNORAU is not is a range buy. At $2.36 to $3.57 per watt-hour, stored energy is the most expensive thing in the box, and the AMYET S8 holds more of it than any standard EUNORAU pack for a third of the SPECTER-S price. Our guide to claimed versus real range explains where the headline numbers come from, and how we review sets out that every judgement here rests on published specifications rather than on riding the bikes.