There has been a lot written and said about hub- vs. belt driven skateboards – with which I don´t want to bore you.
Let me just wrap up the “must-know”-stuff:
First of all to get the wording straight: Both hub and belt driven skateboards rely on brushless electrical motors. Typically these motors are either directly part of the wheel (“hub”-driven) or placed underneath the skateboard deck with a belt that connects the motor to the wheels (“belt”-driven). There are some exceptions (hybrids) like “geared hub” which I do not consider here for simplicity.
At the beginning, ALL electric skateboards were belt-driven. The first electric skateboards with hub motors entered the market in early 2016. Since then, hub-technology has advanced but still the belt-driven systems seem to be more mature.
If you consider buying an electric skateboard TODAY, I`d consider the following pros and cons of hub-driven boards:
Pros
looks pretty much like a regular skateboard
not easily brakeable
less prone to wear out (critical parts are better covered)
often fully water resistant
skateable like a regular board when battery is empty
slightly higher efficiency esp. when it comes to braking
Cons
rather young and therefore less perfect technology
typically slower acceleration (no gearing)
cannot easily change wheels for fun
tendency for a harder ride (simply missing some suspension from a full wheel)
prone to heating or other failures (motor slipping inside the wheel)
noise can be an issue
There are exceptions and the pros & cons actually depend very much on the specific board.
So, before actually buying a hub-driven electric skateboard I recommend to do some further research.
Honest question here, who is this post for? I’m pretty confident most members of this forum have a decent understanding of the basic pro’s and con’s of hub vs belt. it’s been discussed in a million threads and continues to be discussed every day on here.
now I could see this possibly being useful in the esk8 reddit as it’s mostly less technical savvy consumers there and they might find this useful , but I doubt it’s needed here … and for you’re first post it seems a little odd
The acceleration is not slow!
My hub motors accelerate so fast that I fell off.
Most people have fixed the slipping issue too.
The hubs I have is better and faster then my 2200 watt belt system.
And the brakes are incredible good, so I will say there is no cons, it makes less noise too.
So my opinion is that the hub motors are better then the belt system.
I have 3 belt driven boards and 5 hub boards. Hubs will one day be more maintenance free but I can honestly say they are not per my experience with them this far. Ive broken every hub motor Ive owned at least once and some multiple times. They are still my preference though. Being compact, and simpler design will ultimately prevail as the products mature. Ive got really high hopes for the Carvin V3’s I just received.
Well from Jerry of course. If you havent already you probably missed your shot at them though. Hes already moving onto the V4s and I dont see anyone giving up their pair of V3’s anytime soon.
I was hanging out with him last night, it didnt seem clear that he was going to continue offering the V3’s. He’s found that larger wheels and pneumatics seem to be more popular amongst the general public. I think hes moving in that direction but it didnt seem he had made any final decisions yet.
The new version that are “competing” with the raptor 3 hubs, from AATorqueSystem, alextech. Looks 100% like the Jacob Hubs. They are okay, better exists.
No, I’m not certain. Rather, I’m surprised that he can be $3000 in debt to other members of the forum (in the form of expected refunds or unfulfilled orders) but also traveling on business trips and working on\ordering new parts. Everything about this issue is publicly known: Weren’t you active in this thread?: