Eight of the best electric cargo bikes | electric bike reviews, buying advice and news
From helping with the school run to carrying the weekly shop or walking the dog, people find cargo bikes a boon for making living life easier locally.
Want to jump straight to our recommended cargo bikes? Here they are:
- Tern GSD, £4,000
- Kona Electric Ute, £2774.25
- Tern HSD S8i, £3,900
- Babboe Dog-E, £2,399
- Riese & Müller Packster 40 Vario, £3,900
- Babboe Slim Mountain — £3,549
- Riese and Muller Load 75 Touring, from £5,779
- Orbea Katu-E 10, £2,499
Cargo bikes come in different shapes and sizes and can weigh anything from 20 to 40kg; cheaper ones are normally heavier. On top of that you might put another 30-40kg of children, dog food, cement or whatever on top of your beast of burden, so getting the right bike and the right gearing for your local terrain is critical. A non-electric cargo bike can work really well even fully loaded if you live somewhere flat, but start to add hills and growing children and you begin to need help.
The emergence of decent electric motors for bicycles comes at a time when the number of manufacturers of cargo bikes is at an all-time high. This is obviously a good and exciting thing: Helping you do more by bike are what cargo or utility bikes are all about, and an electrically assisted cargo bike can flatten the hills and shorten distances. The advent of reliable and powerful e-bike systems has been a gamechanger for the cargo bike. You might find you can ditch that second car!
The cargo bike isn’t a specific thing. There’s a wide range of bikes available, both in terms of their design and their price. Below we’ll discuss the four main styles of e-cargo bike, talk a little about motors and batteries, and finally give you our top current e-cargo recommendations if you’re thinking of making one of the most useful purchases you will ever make… (trust us on this!)
Box bikes (or Long Johns)
These two wheelers are probably what springs to mind when someone says ‘cargo bike’ to you. They have a front wheel that’s moved forward, with a low slung box in front of the rider. The steering is operated via cables or a linkage. First made in the 1920s in Denmark it is perhaps the most useful load lugger and most are capable of carrying two kids or a big supermarket shop.
Two bikes spin this on its tail by putting the box at the rear: the Madsen (no longer made), and the Mike Burrows 8 freight. The advantages and disadvantages are well-argued, but the consensus is that box forward is the preferred style because you can see your cargo. That’s especially important if your cargo is kids or dogs: it’s nice to have eye contact.
Longtail (or Beavertail)
Imagine a conventional bike with the rear wheel pulled back a bit, with a longer rear rack. This is originally an African load-carrying design, made popular by a group of young men in San Francisco who created the xtracycle and the Yuba Mundo (from a German design). The longtail can take plenty of cargo in custom panniers, or you can strap stuff to the extended rack. It’s the most versatile bike for carrying two children once they are able to sit in a child seat, and you can easily carry another adult too. In between a normal bike and a longtail there’s the midtail Min’Ute from Kona, which is just that little bit longer for carrying more shopping.
Tricycles
royal mail etrike, credit Will Norman on twitter.png
There are delivery trikes made in the UK by Maximus and Iceni with two wheels at the rear and one at the front. The one above is currently being trialled in London, Birmingham and Cambridge by Royal Mail, and has solar charging capabilities. In most cases, e-trikes are primarily used as Pedicabs and by delivery companies.
Whatever you’ve got!
The fourth style of e-cargo bike blurs the line; many e-bikes can be put into service as e-cargo bikes, it could just be your daily ride with a rack on! We are used to pannier racks at the front and the rear but the porteur style rack – where the front rack is attached to the frame rather than the fork – is a way of adding a flexible platform on which to place a laptop bag or a few bits of shopping.
Raleigh’s Roundsman uses porteur racks on a standard wheelbase bike
Because the load is separated from the steering it doesn’t affect the handling as much, and the rack gives useful extra capacity but without adding to the bike length or much to the weight. Winora, Civia, Soma, Omnium and Bicicapace are some of the companies currently making porteur-style bikes.
Drive systems
On top of the choice of cargo bike style, there’s also a decision to be made about what kind of drive system to use. There’s three basic options.
Front wheel hub motor
Front hub motors are the cheapest to fit, and they can be retrofitted to more or less anything. However, they’re not so good at pulling a weight up hills at anything but their optimum speed. What tends to happen is that as you slow up a hill, the motor give you less push/pull. And the last thing you want is to run out of oomph halfway up the hill back home! Front motors can also struggle for grip if you have a bike that’s heavily weighted towards the rear.
Rear wheel hub motor
Rear hub motors usually work with a derailleur gear system which is light and commonplace. Derailleurs can give you a good range of gears and the motor working with the derailleur is usually more efficient. Most of your weight is over the motor, too, and the steering of the bike isn’t affected. Rear hub motors are relatively easy to fit, so they’re ideal for retrofitting to a cargobike.
The main disadvantage of a rear hub motor is that they do not allow for you to use a hub gear system like the Shimano Alfine, who strengths include low maintenance but also allowing you to shift gears when stopped, which can be a big bonus when riding a heavy bike that might stop suddenly in top, and not be able to shift gear without moving.
Mid motor (crank drive)
This is becoming the norm for good production cargo bikes, as well as more expensive e-bikes generally. The motor sits in a specially designed frame where it replaces the bottom bracket, driving the chainring directly. Mid-motor systems are generally smooth, powerful and a pleasure to ride. The main manufacturers are currently Bosch and Shimano, with other manufacturers eagerly trying to gain a foothold in a growing market. Mid-motors will work with any gearing system including hub gears, with Bosch generally matched very nicely with an Enviolo Nfinity infinitely variable hub drive and Shimano Steps motor using Di2 technology with its Alfine hub.
Retrofittable mid-motor
If you have a non-powered cargo bike with a standard bottom bracket, you can still retrofit a mid-motor system to your existing ride. The two main systems from Sunstar and Bafang are both capable of propelling you and your gear up the steepest of hills. Either system fitted to Shimano Nexus, Alfine or Sturmey Archer Hub gears can cause you problems because shifting under load will stress the gearbox and can damage it irreparably; for that reason Shimano’s Di2 hub gears, when integrated with a Shimano or Bosch mid motor, will ease off the power when shifting. For retrofit crank drive systems it’s a good idea to play safe and budget for an Enviolo hub straight off the bat; these hubs don’t have set ratios and work really well with a mid motor.
Bafang’s MM G31 motor can be fitted to a normal frame
The choice of mid motor cargo bikes available in the UK at the moment is limited but fortunately what’s around at the top end price wise is good, each with their own character and strengths.
Batteries
Battery choice is also important for any style of motor, although unlike the motor it’s something that you can easily upgrade as your ownership continues. When buying an e-bike you tend to be limited to what comes as standard, although some manufacturers are now adding the option of a range of battery sizes so you can spec the bike according to your needs. A bigger battery means that you get a little extra range with a little bit extra weight, although the extra bulk is not really an issue on a heavy cargo bike.
The general rule of thumb with all things battery is that that the higher the number, the further your potential range. The battery is the most expensive single part of the bike, though, so extra range will cost you more money.
E-bike batteries range from around 200Wh to over 600Wh in size; in fact Spanish brand BH have recently introduced a 720Wh battery to the UK market. For a cargo bike you really want a minimum of 400Wh. This will last you about 20-25 miles, and a bit less on hilly or heavily loaded rides. Lots of owners are not going to need a massive range anyway. The school run might just be a few miles, and the nearest supermarket isn’t usually far away.
Our top e-cargo bike buying recommendations
Where possible, we only recommend bikes that our trusted reviewers have already tested thoroughly and awarded high scores. Here are our top choices.
Tern GSD – £4,000
Its huge bags a racks and massive versatility have made the Tern GSD a popular choice
Receiving a hallowed five star score from our reviewer, we found the Tern GSD to be infinitely useful and lots of fun to ride. The seat means you can carry the kids, and there is loads of storage up front and in the rear pannier bags that come included. In terms of replacing a car, it does a better job than most. And it does that without being a massive bulky unit that you need a double garage to store. There’s also the more compact and highly recommended HSD S8i (see below), which is not quite so long and costs £100 less.
Read our in-depth review of the Tern GSD
Find a Tern dealer
Kona Electric Ute – £2774.25
The Kona Electric Ute is a solid choice in electrically assisted longtails
If you’re looking to carry a lot more than your sandwiches then the Electric Ute (there is also a non-electric version) has plenty to recommend, and it could genuinely replace a car for many people. Built around 650b wheels and a 6061 aluminium frame, it’s solid and dependable with a 250w Bosch Performance Line motor and a 500Wh battery pack for plenty of power and range. The lighting system isn’t the best and we’d swap out the tyres if we were buying the bike, but otherwise this is definitely a solid contender if you’re looking for a longtail e-cargo bike for running errands.
The link above goes to the 2019 model. The 2020 bike appears to be identical but for a new bright yellow paint job.
Read our in-depth review of the Kona Electric Ute
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Tern HSD S8i – £3,900
Tern’s HSD is a very easy cargo bike to live with, and has some surprising tricks up its sleeve
Tern’s GSD remains our favourite everyday cargo bike, but the HSD is a bike you should definitely consider if you don’t need the GSD’s huge load capacity. The HSD kis compact, you can still carry loads of stuff, and it folds down for storage. It’s a great addition to the range and for many people will be more attractive than the larger GSD.
Tern has worked with Suntour to develop a custom short-travel suspension fork for the 20-inch wheels. You can lock it out if you want to, but we didn’t ever bother, because it goes about its business in a pretty unobtrusive way. Suspension forks on e-bikes often suffer from flex fore and aft under braking, but because the small wheels mean short stanchions it’s not really an issue here. The bike is better for having the fork, which isn’t always the case.
The larger GSD is the kind of bike that you’d buy because you wanted to replace a car. The HSD you’d buy just as a city workhorse, and then eventually you’d realise that it was capable of doing 90% of the journeys your car did.
Read our in-depth review of the Tern HSD
Find a Tern dealer
Babboe Dog-E – £2,399
The ultimate niche cargo bike? The Babboe Dog-E is specifically adapted for carrying canines
What if the cargo you want to haul is a dog, or even several? Cargo bikes with shallow-sided load areas so a dog can just jump in fit the bill, but there’s always the danger of Fido deciding to jump back out again. Enter Babboe’s Dog-E, which is Babboe’s Big-E kid-carrier adapted for canine customers. The deep box has a fold-down front panel so your dogs can just walk in, and there are attachment points inside for leads.
The relatively low-torque rear hub motor means this is very much a carrier for flat terrain, but it’s a lot of fun simply because of the attention a big wooden box full of dogs attracts.
Read our in-depth review of the Babboe Dog-E
Find a Babboe dealer
Riese & Müller Packster 40 Vario – £4,099
Riese & Müller’s Packster 40 Vario is a mightily impressive vehicle for carting loads of stuff
Our reviewer was mighty impressed with just how practical this e-cargo machine from Riese & Müller is, describing it as “a glorious thing to ride.” Despite its size we found it to be pretty flexible as a daily driver, and the mostly top-of-the-range components make things even easier. It’s definitely more of a ‘vehicle’ than a ‘bike’ as such though, so don’t expect it to handle like a standard two-wheeler. If you run a business and are looking for a no emission last mile delivery solution, or just regularly need to cart a lot of stuff around, the Packster 40 Vario is certainly one for your shortlist.
Read our in-depth review of the Riese & Müller Packster 40 Vario
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Babboe Slim Mountain – £3,549
The Babboe Slim Mountain is ideally suited to carrying small humans
The Slim Mountain has become quite a common sight on the continent, and if you primarily want a bike for transporting the kids, this could definitely be the one. The bike has a ‘Long John’ design, with the cargo bay in front of the pilot. That means that the small front wheel is controlled by a linkage system. The first time you hop on the bike you need to adjust your filter to take account of where the front wheel is, and how the bike steers, but it’s not a difficult machine to ride once you’ve put a few miles under your belt. Carrying cargo that isn’t small humans is a bit tougher than some other options we’ve tested and we found the Enviolo shifter a little stiff, but the motor system is great and the transmission requires very little maintenance.
Read our in-depth review of the Babboe Slim Mountain
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Riese and Muller Load 75 Touring – from £5,779
The Riese & Muller Load 75 Touring is a superb and versatile cargo/family bike for those with big garages (and deep pockets)
It’s mighty expensive at £7,000 with a decent selection of add-ons, but also a mighty investment that is incredibly versatile and customisable according to our tester. This is one of the few e-cargo bikes we’ve seen with full suspension, and it makes for a very smooth and comfortable ride. The Bosch CX Performance motor will get you up any incline, and the rain cover allows you to keep passengers comfortable, out of the rain and cold. It’s a very impressive piece of engineering and one of the best around if you want to carry lots of people (up to three) and gear alike.
Read our in-depth review of the Riese and Muller Load 75 Touring
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Orbea Katu-E 10 – £2,499
Orbea’s Katu-E 10 is a compact urban e-cargo bike with great acceleration
A different proposition to some of the heavy long e-cargo monsters listed here, the Katu-E 10 is a compact cargo bike with 20-inch wheels (like Tern’s GSD S00) but with plenty of load-carrying ability. We were impressed with its acceleration, and although it’s fairly light it is capable of carrying heavy loads. It’s specifically designed for front-load carrying, with the large basket attached to the frame, and it has the super powerful Bosch Performance line CX drive system. If you’re after something a bit easier to store indoors that is nippier around town than most e-cargo bikes, the Katu-E is worthy of your attention.
Read our in-depth review of the Orbea Katu-E 10
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