Mega-Range, Affordable Hauler: ENGWE LE20 Electric Cargo Bike Review

Unlike other segments in the cycling industry, there is healthy competition at the lower end of the electric bike market, with numerous brands battling for the affordability crown. ENGWE is one of those brands, and the LE20 cargo bike is one of its latest models.

This long-tail electric cargo bike is quite similar to many other budget-friendly competitors in looks, features, and performance, but ENGWE went all in on range to set it apart from the crowd while undercutting most of them on price. 

I’ve been testing the LE20 for the past 3 months and am impressed by its smooth ride, powerful motor, cargo-carrying capability, and outstanding range. With a 750W rear hub motor capable of class 3 speeds and a total weight capacity of 440 pounds, this bike can haul everything from groceries to human passengers and potentially replace or reduce your dependence on a vehicle. 

In short: The ENGWE LE20 (single battery: $1,499, dual battery: $1,799) is an affordable electric cargo bike that stands out for its massive battery capacity and impressive range. It is one of the best values on the market, and it’s a particularly compelling option for those traveling longer distances, hauling heavier loads, or anyone who doesn’t want to deal with range anxiety. This bike is smooth, fast, and can literally go the distance without completely draining your bank account.

Shopping for an electric cargo bike? Check out GearJunkie’s guide to the Best Electric Cargo Bikes.

ENGWE LE20 Assembly

ENGWE sells its bikes directly to consumer, and LE20 arrived at my house in a characteristically large and heavy box. The unboxing and assembly process was a lot like other DTC e-bikes. It was mostly done, but several steps remained to finish the job. ENGWE includes a small kit with all the tools you need, along with printed instructions — or an online video — detailing all of the steps in the process.

The remaining assembly included installing the handlebar, front fender, headlight, front wheel, seatpost, and pedals. I referenced both the printed instructions and the assembly video; both were quite basic but adequate.

While it was all relatively straightforward, it was a bit more involved than some other models — the Lectric XPedition arrives fully assembled, for example — given the number of steps. It took me about an hour and a half to complete, and I’m quite familiar with assembling electric bikes.

If you aren’t as mechanically inclined or don’t have the time, taking the LE20 to a local bike shop to complete the assembly would probably be a good idea.

ENGWE LE20 Design

Not surprisingly, the LE20 looks a lot like other long-tail cargo bikes. It has a sturdy 6061 aluminum frame with a long, integrated cargo rack over the rear wheel. It rolls on smaller, 20-inch wheels and has a low step-over height, making it very easy to mount and dismount the bike.

Those 20-inch wheels come with plump 3-inch wide tires with a relatively smooth, fast-rolling tread. It also has a 50mm travel suspension fork to take the edge off larger impacts.

The LE20 has a tall handlebar that users can fold to reduce the bike’s overall size for storage. The handlebar is height adjustable to position it for your needs.

The seatpost also has a sizeable adjustment range. The brand claims the bike fits riders between 5’0” and 6’4”. I’m 6’0” tall with extra-long legs, and it fit me very well with plenty of seatpost to spare.

It also worked great for my wife, who is 5’7” tall, and was straightforward to adjust between us with the quick-release clamps. Regardless of rider height, the seated position is upright, casual, and comfortable.

The bike’s frame houses the primary battery. The secondary battery mounts relatively discreetly behind the seat tube. Both are easy enough to remove for charging off-the-bike using the included keys, and the seat even flips up and out of the way with the push of a lever.

A sturdy two-footed kickstand supports the bike when you’re not riding, and it has rubber feet that won’t scratch floors. It also has fenders and front and rear lights — the rear light works as a brake light and turn signal. 

The welded rear rack comes with seat cushions and protective plastic side panels installed. ENGWE also offers several accessory upgrade packages for a slight price increase. The options include passenger accessories like a guardrail and footrests or cargo-carrying options like baskets and bags.

While ENGWE’s accessory selection isn’t quite as developed as some other brands, it offers everything you need to carry kids, groceries, or other gear. The LE20’s total weight capacity is 440 pounds, more than enough for most people’s needs.

I set up my test bike with the passenger kit, including the guardrail, backrest, footrests, and a large zippered cargo bag attached inside the rail. These took some extra time to install but dramatically improved the LE20’s cargo-carrying functionality for my needs.

Motor System

As is typical of budget-friendly electric bikes, the LE20 has a rear hub motor. The 750W motor puts out 75Nm of torque and up to 1,300W of peak power. It comes with a twist throttle that helps start you from a complete stop. It can push you along at up to 20 mph on flat ground. 

The LE20 can hit 28 mph (class 3) using the pedal assist in its highest output mode. Five levels of pedal assistance provide a good range of pedaling support for varying preferences and riding scenarios. You can also adjust the top speed through the controls and display to comply with local regulations. 

A torque sensor gauges pedal assistance. I found it did a surprisingly good job of delivering power smoothly in response to pedaling input. Instead of the jumpiness often associated with affordable bikes and rear hub motors, the assistance came on slowly and ramped up nicely in response to my pedaling effort. 

The controls are situated next to the left grip in a location that is easy to reach with the thumb while riding. The button layout is intuitive, and switching between PAS levels or activating the turn signals is very straightforward. The display is smaller than some, but I found it to be adequately sized.

The color screen was vibrant, crisp, and easy to read, with all of the pertinent ride info you need at a glance. I especially appreciated that it displayed battery life as a numeric percentage, providing an accurate and easily understandable reading.

ENGWE also has a free companion app that owners can use. It has several functions, including maps and activity tracking, and it includes links to the product manual and instructional videos for assembly and making changes to settings through the controls and display.

Assuming you retain all of your order information — a picture of the order page, the order number, and the order date — you can also sync the bike to the app. Since I did not have any of that information, I could not connect the bike to the app, so I can’t comment on what functions it serves.

Battery and Range

ENGWE sells the LE20 with a single battery for $1,499, or you can choose the dual battery option for a bump in price to $1,799. On its own, the single battery packs a whopping 921.6 Wh (48V, 19.2Ah) of storage capacity, which is already huge.

Adding the second battery doubles that to a genuinely massive 1,843.2 Wh and theoretically doubles the bike’s range potential. For comparison, the Lectric XPedition 2.0 with dual long-range batteries has the next largest battery capacity that I’m aware of at 1,680 Wh.

With the single battery, ENGWE claims a range of up to 109 miles, which may be possible under ideal test conditions — PAS mode 1, 75kg rider, no additional load, and flat terrain. With dual batteries, that claimed range goes up to a mind-boggling 211 miles.

Since “ideal” test conditions don’t align with the way people ride electric bikes, those figures are completely unrealistic, just like the claimed range of most other bikes. Still, it does provide a baseline of comparison against other bikes’ claimed ranges. 

Since most riders don’t weigh precisely 75 kg, will occasionally use the throttle, ride in mid- to high-PAS modes, slow down and accelerate, and travel over terrain that isn’t perfectly flat, we all burn through power more quickly. Dividing those numbers in half gives a more reasonable range estimate that riders could expect. 

I’ve spent more hours than I care to remember mindlessly riding electric bikes for “standardized” range tests, and, unfortunately, I couldn’t muster the motivation to ride the LE20 continuously for as long as it would take to drain those two batteries.

On various test rides, I rode around 20 miles at a time using higher PAS modes, a bit of throttle, and cruising up and down gradual hills. Those tests only used about 15% of the battery. I believe I could ride at least 80 miles with the dual batteries before worrying about plugging the LE20 back in.

All that battery capacity means that it takes a while to charge the batteries — 6 to 8 hours using the standard charger. Fortunately, ENGWE sells a FlashCharge accessory, which I tested, that cuts the charging time in half.

Additionally, when on the bike, both batteries charge simultaneously, so you don’t need to charge them separately. One odd thing worth mentioning is that the batteries use separate keys, which is annoying to keep track of if you remove them with any frequency.

ENGWE holds certifications for UL 2849 and EN 15194, specific to electric bikes. The batteries themselves, however, are not certified separately from the bikes and electrical system, but ENGWE informed me that they plan to obtain separate certifications for their batteries in 2025.

ENGWE LE20 Ride

Having ridden many long-tail electric cargo bikes, the ENGWE LE20 aligned with my expectations for how it would handle. Like similar bikes, the LE20 is long and heavy — 88 pounds with the single battery and passenger accessories installed.

This contributed directly to a stable and calm feel, particularly when traveling in a straight line or making medium- to long-radius turns. It was predictable, composed, and very easy to get along with at speed.

At lower speeds and in shorter turns, the 20-inch wheel size was noticeable, and the handling felt a touch twitchy and nervous. The same holds true for most other bikes with smaller wheels that I’ve ridden.

It’s not a handling issue, per se, but it feels a bit different compared to larger wheels. It’s also quite bulky and heavy, but I found it fairly easy to navigate through tight spaces.

The suspension fork absorbed the brunt of major impacts from potholes and less-than-perfect pavement and contributed to the smooth, comfortable ride feel. The 3-inch-wide tires were fast-rolling with great grip on paved and concrete surfaces, and the higher volume provided additional cushioning and damped the ride further. For such a budget-friendly bike, I was also impressed by how quiet it was, with no annoying rattling, vibrations, or clunky noises.

On the website, ENGWE shows the LE20 used on non-paved surfaces. With the plump tires and front suspension, I could see it handling smooth dirt or gravel roads and paths relatively well, but I’d keep the speeds conservative and avoid rough, rocky terrain.

One of the biggest surprises with the LE20 was the feel of the pedal assistance. Until recently, less expensive electric bikes often had a jumpy on/off feel to the pedal assistance due to the use of cadence sensors. They worked, but it made the bikes feel cheap and unruly. Fortunately, the LE20’s torque sensor provided a more natural and refined feel to the power delivery.

Instead of blasting me with full power when the pedals started turning, the pedal assistance came on progressively, ramping up as I put in more pedaling effort and gained speed. This was a major plus for me, as I prefer electric bikes to still feel like bikes rather than mopeds.

On flat ground, I had no problem getting up to 28 mph and staying there using the highest level of pedal assist. Hills were flattened and basically felt nonexistent with plenty of power from the 750W motor.

The simple but functional controls made it straightforward to change PAS modes. Monitoring ride stats like speed, distance, and remaining battery life was easy on the small but vivid color display. 

Maintaining control is incredibly important on a heavy bike capable of carrying significant cargo and traveling up to 28 mph. Thankfully, the hydraulic disc brakes with 180mm rotors front and rear were adequate, with plenty of bite and power. 

Like any cargo bike, the LE20’s cargo-carrying capability was greatly enhanced by adding some accessories to dial it in for my needs. I mostly used the LE20 for cruising around town, running errands, and trips to and from the grocery store.

The passenger guardrail with the cargo bag inside worked great. The guardrail provided structure for the bag, which can hold a significant amount of stuff inside. Full grocery hauls, including 12 packs of beer and 20-pound boxes of kitty litter, were easy to zip inside, and I didn’t need to worry about anything bouncing out or littering a receipt on the way home. 

The zippered cargo bag also unzips so kids’ legs can fit through to sit in the back without the need to remove the bag. I’m sure I never came anywhere near the bike’s total weight capacity of 440 pounds, but it handled everything I hauled with ease.

ENGWE LE20 Review: Potential for Improvement

Like many similarly priced electric bikes, the LE20 has lower-tier drivetrain components to keep the price down. The seven-speed Shimano drivetrain was perfectly functional, but another harder/higher gear would be nice when I got up to top speed. The drivetrain’s thumb shifters didn’t have the best ergonomics, and they just felt clunky and cheap compared to trigger-style shifters.

And, while the front light certainly made me more visible to motorists, it wasn’t quite bright enough to light my way in the dark. The same is true of the stock headlights on many bikes, and I would want to add a brighter aftermarket bike light if I was riding much after the sun went down.

One gripe I had about the accessories I tested was that they didn’t come with installation instructions. I was scratching my head trying to figure out how to put some of them on the bike until the folks at ENGWE shared an installation video with me. Once I had the video, it was quick and easy, but I couldn’t find it online without requesting it from the company.

Of course, there was also the size and weight of this bike to contend with. With the single battery and accessories installed, my test bike weighed 88 pounds — add another 10 pounds or so for the second battery.

I didn’t find it unwieldy while riding, but it made it pretty awkward to transport anywhere I couldn’t. With a 50-inch wheelbase, it wasn’t much longer than non-cargo models. With the guardrail and cargo bag installed, it was a bit wider, so it took up more storage space in my garage.

ENGWE LE20 Conclusion

If you’re interested in reducing your dependence on your car, many great electric cargo bikes can get you and your stuff between points A and B. You could easily spend as much on a premium model, like the Urban Arrow Family Cargo, as you would on a decent used car. But you certainly don’t need to. Testing bikes like the ENGWE LE20 reviewed here makes me realize that the performance gap is narrowing while pricing at the lower end of the spectrum remains reasonable. 

When set up with the right accessories, the LE20 could easily replace a vehicle for many people. This bike is fast, smooth, comfortable, easy to ride, and has a class-leading range that should be more than adequate for most riders’ daily needs. If you go for the dual battery option, you’ll likely never have to worry about running out of battery on a ride ever again.  

That’s all great, but what’s most impressive is how affordable the LE20 is. At $1,499 for the single battery and $1,799 for the dual — currently discounted at $1,249 and $1,549, respectively — this is easily one of the best values on the market. At prices like that, this bike could quickly pay for itself with the money you saved by putting less gas in your vehicle. If prices have you on the fence about buying an electric cargo bike, the affordable ENGWE LE20 might be worth climbing down for.