Some More Proof That EVs Can Benefit From Transmissions

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Last Updated on: 19th March 2025, 03:21 am

For years, I’ve been arguing with EV enthusiasts about transmissions. While EV manufacturers can get away with just one gear ratio, the benefits of extra gears are obvious to people familiar with automotive technology. Torque multiplication at low speeds can help with towing, pulling up hills, and just accelerating a lot faster. Using taller gears at highway speeds can increase efficiency and even allow cars to have similar performance with smaller motors that consume less power. Even Tesla has long been secretly been getting into the multi-gear action by having different gear ratios in front and rear drive units, so the benefits are definitely real.

My first experience with a full-sized EV that had gears was a Jeep Wrangler 4xe we reviewed in 2021. I did a lot of driving around town in EV mode, and noticed pretty quickly that the electric motor was switching gears as I accelerated in normal driving. Because the electric motor basically replaced the torque converter, it sent power to the wheels through the transmission just like the gas engine did.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had actually reviewed an EV with multiple gears a year earlier when I got sent a Townie Path Go! e-bike. Unlike basically every other e-bike that I’ve driven around, this one did not have a hub motor. Instead, it had the motor in between the pedals (a mid drive), where the power from the motor would be transmitted through the bike’s chain instead of directly into the rear wheel. The bike seemed to be very responsive, especially in the highest pedal assist setting, despite only having a 200-watt motor.

Sadly, I didn’t think about this too much because I don’t ride in the city much. I generally like to go out on adventure rides out in the desert or up in the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona, and a townie-style bike just didn’t serve well in that role.

Later, when I was testing a Snapcycle R1, I ran into the biggest downside of hub motors: trying to climb a really steep hill with a rough surface. Even with 1200 watts of peak power and in first gear pedaling like mad, I couldn’t quite get up the hill and had to dismount when a bump took the angle just beyond what the bike and me could handle.

This led me to doing more research on what kind of e-bikes would be capable of this kind of exploration riding. Bicycle trails generally avoid this kind of steep terrain to keep things enjoyable, but my goal is to get out and see things on jeep trails and other terrain that’s better suited to a dirtbike. At the same time, though, I don’t want to have to get a motorcycle license, registration, and insurance on top of paying for an expensive electric dirtbike, so I wanted to figure out something that was still an e-bike.

My “Duh!” moment came when I was researching this on YouTube. After years of riding e-bikes with hub motors, I completely forgot what I should have remembered about torque multiplication. When a mid drive bike puts its power through a low gear, its ability to climb the hill with less power is greatly increased. Even using power levels that are still considered e-bikes under California’s latest strict rules, a mid drive bike can zip right up steep hills.

Going back to electric cars and trucks, there’s really no reason to avoid transmissions other than cost. But for smaller locally-oriented EVs, the ability to use a smaller motor like an e-bike could greatly help expand the EV market into lower segments via cost savings on batteries. But this would require a more open-minded approach to EV design that goes beyond “copy the Tesla formula.”

Featured image by Jennifer Sensiba.