Just when we thought DJI had killed off the mid-power e-bike with its uber powerful, yet compact and lightweight DJI Avinox drive unit, than a new player pops up with a motor and battery that could breathe new life into the lightweight market. Shown at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, the Urtopia system uses a dinky Quark DM1.2 motor that makes the compact TQ HPR50 look like a big-block Chevy V8.

Small and mighty, the Quark DM1.2 motor promises both low weight and decent power.

With a footprint that fits in the palm of your hand, the concentric motor weighs just 1,180g, nearly 700g less than the TQ, yet pumps out a claimed 60Nm of torque, 10Nm more the the German rival. Urtopia says the three key features of the motor are lightness, power, and precision, and if the stats measure up in the real world, this could be a game-changer for the lightweight e-mtb. The brand goes on to say that ‘torque sensors and magnetic encoders ensure smooth, precise assistance, offering an effortless control and a natural ride on any terrain’.

With compact dimensions, it should make the job of packaging the motor and battery much easier for designers.

As we found out in our SL E-Bike of the Year test, the lighter motors just don’t have the muscle to cut it against the full power units at present, while weight saving with smaller batteries just means too much compromise on range. This Quark motor would be virtually imperceptible without close inspection, giving bike designers greater freedom to package the drive unit in their frames, helping to optimise geometry and suspension kinematics.

The solid-state battery offers a 30% improvement in energy density.

But that’s not all. At CES Urtopia is showing the Quark drive unit mounted inside a 3D-printed (sorry Atherton Bikes, I mean additive manufactured) titanium road bike, with a solid-state battery inside the down tube with an energy density of 300Wh/kg. If that is actually the case, and not some concept mock-up for the show stand, this battery has the potential to bring significant weight savings to the e-bike system.

Currently the best cell technology used on e-bikes gives around 215Wh/kg, so 300Wh/kg would be a big improvement, leading to the possibility of a 600Wh battery that weighs 2kg. Compare that to TQ’s latest 580Wh unit found in the Trek Slash+ that weighs 2.71kg and you have a potential weight saving over the TQ system – one of the lightest mid-drives on the market currently – of 1.5kg, but a range that should suffice for an all-day ride with decent assistance. But given that it’s unlikely we’ll see solid state batteries in cars before 2027, we may have a long wait before this big leap in battery tech makes it to e-bikes.

Gievn that the Urtopia titanium concept bike seems to have a standard Shimano Ultegra crank bolted to it, it seems unlikely that this is a working concept.

There are some huge caveats to this of course. One being that we have no idea whether this concept bike actually works, what the power figures are, whether it’s any good, and if it will ever make its way into a mountain bike, but it does show what’s coming down the road. And the idea of a sub-15kg e-mtb with 65Nm torque and enough range for a big ride sounds very appealing – we just might have to wait a while to get it.