Basically, it’s just what you find on e-bikes, scooters, or motorcycles. You can twist the throttle or push the throttle in some cases, and it just delivers power. It can deliver power generally proportional to how you twisted or how hard you pushed. Actually, throttle has been around for a pretty long time.
But the kind of evolution happened like pedal assist. Pedal assist is basically the other type and becoming probably the most popular type these days, particularly in New York. Basically, this technology is what it is: you’re pedaling, and it delivers power proportionate to your pedaling.
In the early days of pedal assist, it was pretty rudimentary. You had, what’s called, a cadence sensor, and the sensor just senses how fast you’re pedaling. The challenge is that it will sometimes produce somewhat unpredictable results, so the engineers, who worked on this problem, were trying to find different ways to deliver power a little bit more predictably. They introduced an additional sensor, and this sensor is called a torque sensor.
The torque sensor senses how hard you’re pedaling, so now you know how fast you’re pedaling and how hard you’re pedaling. With that data, you can produce a lot better results. Still, these days we’re seeing it more common that there are actually three sensors that are being used, and the third sensor is a speed sensor. It senses how fast the bike is going overall, and based on all this information, you can provide a pretty seamless result.
There are throttle, pedal assist, and some bikes have got both. Most of the cheapest bikes have got throttle on them. It’s great to push button and enjoy it. It’s much better for plenty of reasons. And still, you can have pedal-assist e-bikes with a throttle. It’s up to you.
Let’s move on to the conclusion.