When it comes to electric bikes, the market is flooded with various models that promise to enhance your commuting experience and make cycling more accessible.
However, not all e-bikes deliver on their promises.
While some electric bikes offer exceptional performance, convenience, and reliability, others need to improve in build quality, battery life, and overall value.
The problem is that most of us rely on and get excited by video reviews of any electric bike that comes to the market.
What we should know is that most of the retailers provide the best bikes that have passed thorough QC tests to reviewers to give the impression that theirs is the perfect e-bike for the money.
Sadly, reviewers test such models when they are brand new, and detecting any problems at that point is daunting.
We made it our commitment to ensure that we do things differently and provide the finer details that reviewers and retailers don’t want you to know.
Now, based on our research interviewing different owners on our group rides and based on social posts, these here are the worst electric bikes and brands:
Super73 E-bikes
Super73 arguably has some of the best-looking e-bikes out there.
Sadly, owners don’t care too much about beauty as compared to durability and price-to-spec ratio.
Having been in the market for long and made a huge name from it, Super73 seems to recently ride too much on its brand name than addressing the concerns raised by the riders.
The issue of poor customer service has stood out with a 1-star review of their Z Adventure Series SE from Rajesh showing on the official site, “You obviously have a bad quality check in place as you missed the part in the original shipment and on top of that you have made it frustrating customer service experience. I just hope you will correct it soon and have someone reach out or help with the request put in.”
Another issue about their bikes is the frame cracking. Skewbie, a social user reports, “I own an S1 and while it’s a great bike I have already felt the need for an upgrade. The frame cracks in their most expensive model paired with really bad customer support for said issue is what made me steer away from them.”
About parts breaking, too, this is what another user had to say, “My rear axle on my Super73 RX (475 miles on it) broke right at the hub, replacement cost is $600.00. You have to replace the whole rim with a motor, the second most expensive part of the bike. I am hearing now it is an issue with Super73. It is my son’s bike and he said it happened going off a curb. Expensive bike in the first place! Pretty bummed!”
In any of the 1-star ratings on the Super73 website, you will also notice that most complaints are based on bad customer service. Mostly, non-responsiveness whenever a customer raises an issue.
RadCity 5 Plus Ebike
While some Rad Power electrically-assisted bike owners have confessed to loving their rides, many have also complained about the ride quality, customer support, and durability of their City 5 Plus model.
To begin with, let’s start with owner reviews from the company website.
Stephanie bought the RadCity 5 Plus 18 months ago. She says, “This company is terrible!! I bought this bike for my husband 1.5 years go and it’s broken 7 times. Some parts have been replaced (especially the controller) and it’ll work for a week and break. All over again. The company refused to replace it when it was under warranty. DO NOT BUY!”
Anthony, who also purchased the City 5 Plus for his wife says, “Purchased a new bike for my wife and didn’t get 70 miles on it before the motor stopped working. Looking at the reviews looks like the warranty is going to be a nightmare. We have 3 Rad bikes and this is the newest one. New one has the most problems”.
When we come to social platforms, this is what Lilou has to say about this specific ebike, “I can’t believe I feel the need to warn others to avoid a company, but my experience has been so awful with Rad Power Bikes, that I don’t want anyone else to go through this.
I have a brand few faulty bike, the RadCity 5 Plus, that I haven’t been able to use in 2 months now, and there seems to be no end in sight.
I had the RadCity 5 Plus delivered (and pro-built) mid June 2023. It stopped working completely mid July. I first reached out to the company at the end of June before it completely died.
They placed an order for a controller on Aug 1st; afterward I learned that it was actually out of stock. They are supposedly looking to get some transferred from the US to Canada, but there is no ETA.
Today (Sep 12), I asked if the brand-new faulty bike could be replaced instead and they declined. I’m expected to just keep waiting with the hopes that someday this controller might arrive.
To add salt to the wound, I requested a warranty code for the replacement parts so they could be pro-installed, as I paid extra to have the bike pro-built initially. Instead, they provided me links, broken links actually, to install them myself.
When I reached out via chat on Sep 1st she said she was not getting an immediate response back from her team and asked if she could follow up with me by email shortly, to which I agreed. I never got a response.
I have been incredibly patient and polite (yet firm) with them throughout. They don’t care. I feel like I’m just being taken advantage of. Now I have to explore all other options, including legal.
PLEASE, PLEASE spare yourself the frustration, expense, and time, and take your business elsewhere.”
You can follow these threads [1], [2], and [3] to see owner complaints and concerns about this ride.
Addmotor
Many owners have criticized Addmotor for using cheap generic battery cells in their rides.
One of the particular posts that caught many people’s attention on social is where Taro talked about one of the models catching fire.
This is what he had to say, “This morning, a caller requested to stop by for a repair estimate for an Addmotor trike.
The etrike was stored on a rack on the rear of his RV. He was inside watching TV last night when he began to smell something that he described as an electric fire smell.
When he got up to investigate, he heard a popping sound outside.
Upon opening the side door, he saw an orange glow at the back of his RV. He grabbed a fire extinguisher and ran back to see his ebike engulfed in flames.
After emptying 2 fire extinguishers on the flames, the fire went out momentarily but roared back worse then ever, with battery cells cooking off and shooting in every direction like bottle rockets.
Luckily, a neighbor had a hose and doused the flames, which only went out once all the lithium cells had been consumed.”
At this point, it’s also worth mentioning that we didn’t see any review less than a 3-star rating on the Addmotor website. This is undoubtedly weird as social reviews show otherwise.
Aventon
While Aventon has been a go-to seller for most riders looking for affordable solutions, it looks like they invested too much in marketing than customer service.
Several Aventon e-bike owners say that Aventon rarely gets back whenever customers have issues.
MainParamedic, a social user had this to say about this brand, “We have had a terrible
time getting honest and helpful responses from customer service.
They are an online bike company and when things go wrong, they are hard to get and never offer a solution.
Our battery died and they would not respond to requests for help even to pay for a new battery. The whole summer went by and never got help replacing our battery.”
On the reviews section of their top-selling Aventure 2 E-bike, Brock says, “Have to give a poor rating because the bike does not work properly right out of the box.
The speed and distance do not register on the bike computer. In addition, customer support has not replied to my service ticket for 3 business days. My initial email request for service never got a response. I had to call in to begin a warranty/service claim. A friendly customer service call was quick and immediately triggered an email to make a warranty claim. However, the process has since stalled for 3 business days (and a weekend).”
Lectric XP 3
Lectric has been a top-selling brand for a long time, but according to owner reviews, one of its worst models is the XP 3 Model.
According to Manuel, who gave this ebike a 1-star rating on the Lectric website, “We purchased our XP 3.0 last month and have only had it for a few weeks.
It is now at the bike shop for the 2nd time. The first time was due to deburring that was needed on the rear rim. Not fun to get a completely flat tire, that will not inflate while out on a ride. Now, it is in the shop again because the control/display console is no longer working, which doesn’t allow the bike to turn on.
Again this happened while on a long bike ride. At this point, we are concerned that if we take our bike out again, something else will happen. The bike shop is waiting to hear back on the warranty work. Unfortunately, I do not have the confidence in this product to recommend it to anyone.”
An online user also shared his sentiments and one of the complaints touched on this ride’s battery. According to him, “The first issue I had was removing the battery.
It fit so snugly and something inside scraped the sides of the battery. It also removed the sticker pads on the battery. Now the battery will randomly go from 100% on the indicator and then drop to 3 bars within the first minutes of a ride.
This is after the indicator not dropping at all during the previous ride. I’ve also noticed that the bike doesn’t seem to provide additional voltage or amps with pedal assist 4 and 5 despite only going <17mph. Even in pedal assist 5 the bike does not increase speed with the throttle.”
You can read these threads to get a better overview of this specific ride: [1], [2] and [3].
This thread also shows that Lectric had to recall thousands of this model due to ineffective mechanical braking systems.
In Summary
Not every e-bike model lives up to the hype or meets the expectations of its owners. As we’ve explored in this article, certain e-bikes have fallen short in areas like build quality, battery life, customer service, and overall performance. Potential buyers must be aware of these shortcomings to make informed decisions.
While these reviews highlight the challenges and frustrations some owners have faced, they also serve as a valuable reminder of the importance of thorough research and firsthand experience before making a purchase.