"A new era of urban ebikes": Bosch launches its first hub motor for electric bikes

For over a decade Bosch has built its e-bike empire on mid-drive motors that sit at the cranks — the Performance Line and Active Line units you'll find on most premium European commuters. The new Hub Line is a clean break: a motor that lives in the rear wheel hub, the layout Bosch had so far left to rivals like Mahle.

The pitch is a lighter, simpler, better-looking city bike. With no bulky unit at the bottom bracket, frames can be slimmer and the bike barely reads as electric. Alongside it, Bosch also refreshed its Active Line Plus mid-drive — more torque, less weight — so buyers now choose between two very different philosophies under one badge.

The headline is restraint. At 45Nm and 250W continuous (the EU legal ceiling, with a 400W peak), Hub Line trades the grunt of a mid-drive for a clean, low-drag package — motor and battery together weigh just 4.4kg. Above the 25km/h assist limit the motor fully decouples, so the bike rolls like an un-powered one with no resistance, according to New Atlas.

Smart sensors read your cadence and effort to feed in help where city riders want it — early acceleration off the lights and gentle support on moderate inclines — and the system talks to electronic and automatic shifting, blending gear choice with motor output in real time. The 68mm-wide PowerTube 360 is Bosch's slimmest battery yet, narrow enough to hide in a near-standard down tube.

The refreshed Active Line Plus shows why mid-drive isn't going anywhere: torque climbs to 60Nm (from the previous generation's 50Nm) and a 600W peak, while the motor sheds weight to 2.7kg and shrinks 17%. Bosch also claims a 50% lower manufacturing CO2 footprint via recycled aluminium and plastics. Pair it with the 720Wh PowerTube and the brand quotes up to 185km.

So the choice is genuine: Hub Line for a featherweight, discreet commuter that's easy to carry up stairs; Active Line Plus when you need to haul loads or climb properly. As BikeRadar put it, "Bosch looks to be coming after Mahle's systems" — but it's keeping its mid-drive customers, too.

Both systems plug into Bosch's Smart System via an enhanced ConnectModule: GPS plus Bluetooth Low Energy tracking (to pinpoint a stolen bike even in weak-signal spots), a motion sensor, an audible alarm and a digital battery lock, all managed in the eBike Flow app with over-the-air updates and navigation. The module is even retrofittable to compatible existing e-bikes. A new LED controller is 65% smaller than before and adds a USB-C port that pushes up to 10W to your phone.

Hardware is only half the story — the bikes make it real. Canyon's Roadlite:ON CF (€2,999 (~R56 200)) is a carbon, singlespeed, Gates belt-drive commuter weighing just 13.9kg with up to 90km of range, per BikeRadar — light enough to shoulder up a flight of stairs. Gazelle's Curb (from €2,399 (~R45 000)) comes as a belt-drive single-speed (C1) or Shimano Cues 9-speed (T9), a Red Dot Design Award winner that, in Electrek's words, "barely looks electric at first glance". Vello's folding VIA+ (€2,990 (~R56 100)) rounds out the early adopters. (Prices are European launch figures; South African pricing and availability are still to be confirmed.)