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TECH NEWS
Shimano Q'Auto concept with Cues 1Shimano's Q'Auto automatic shifting technology touted to launch in 2025, as cycling components giant admits it "can't break Bosch's hold on e-bikes"
Shimano's plan to introduce automatic shifting appears to be progressing, with reports out of Japan suggesting the technology could be launched as soon as next year.
The concept was first aired to the public at Eurobike last year, the components giant turning heads with its stand displaying the Q'Auto automatic shifting alongside its newly announced cross-compatible CUES groupsets which will consolidate Claris, Sora and Tiagra under one name.
At the time, we were only told that the unreleased Q'Auto concept was in development and there was no official timeline for its release, although it now appears that a date may be edging closer with Nikkei Asia reporting it is "expected to hit the market as soon as 2025", something that we have since confirmed with Shimano.
In short, automatic shifting means the bike decides when to change gear, not the rider, a technology that has already been seen in some of Shimano's e-mountain bikes that feature Auto Shift, and the company has previously disclosed an example of an auto shifting control in a US patent dating way back to the year 2000.
As our man on the ground Tom Weijand noted when the Q'Auto concept was debuted at Eurobike last year, there's a capacitor in the rear hub that stores a little bit of power derived from the wheel's rotation, and automatically shifts gears for you. This is assisted by an inclinometer that works out if you're going uphill or downhill and can adjust shifting parameters to keep cadences higher or lower as required.
"The magic of this is about bringing battery-less power to a mechanical shifting ecosystem," he concluded.
At the time, Shimano was clear there was not a definitive plan for where it was going to go, even if tiny capacitors and batteryless-powered shifts were enough to get us quite excited. We contacted Shimano for confirmation of the touted launch date and were told the reports are correct and that while the brand wishes to remain tight-lipped on exactly when, we can expect to see it on bikes at some point next year.
However, the reports coming out of Japan suggest that the Q'Auto system, which uses a shifting mechanism, an 11-speed cassette and a wheel hub containing a chip, will likely hit the market in 2025.
The reports also stress the artificial intelligence angle to the tech, as Q'Auto is to be loaded with riding patterns memorised from test ride data and able to customise activity around a rider's habits, learning from speeds and inclines to select the correct gear.
According to Nikkei Asia, Shimano will be supplying Q'Auto bundles with pedals and brakes to western and Taiwanese bike manufacturers soon, the date reported as "2025" and a hint that the tech is expected to be fitted on bikes priced "at just under 200,000 yen (£1,035)" in a bid to make them a competitor to the e-bike market.
In a somewhat surprising admission, Shimano's Deputy President Takashi Toyoshima said: "We can't break Bosch's hold on e-bikes.
"In terms of having a lightweight feel and being easy to ride, Q'Auto bikes stand a chance."
So, will the possibility of more user-friendly gearing to get you up hills thanks to Q'Auto be a more enticing prospect than getting up them quicker with a (likely more expensive) motor-assisted bike? This remains to be seen of course, but we'll be enquiring about getting a Q'Auto-equipped bike in to try as soon as they become available.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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39 comments
Yup, sales of new bikes are way down, so out comes the latest highly unnecessary gadget to attract buyers back into the stores.
I knew auto shifting on bikes were going to come out over 15 years ago, it was just a matter of time before they got the bugs ironed out and reduce the weight.
Modern people don't like to use their brains anymore, with automatics in almost all cars these days, cars that can stop themselves if you get too close, cars that parallel park themselves, cars can drive themselves, this all part of dumming down people, along with the dumming down comes higher expenses to maintain and replace.
Just as I was being made fun of for being against electric shifting, I'll be made fun of for being against the holy grail of auto shifting, whatever.
The bicycle was created to be a inexpensive, simple, easy to maintain and repair, and a fun form of transportation, the biking industry in the pursuit of riches has completely taken that away some time ago, and it just keeps getting worse.
Next up is electric assist braking incorporating anti-skid technology.
Then bikes will have radar techology so if you don't respond to stopping the bike will do it for you.
What we really need is a crash protection system, that if the bike senses in emminent collision, a huge air bag will engulf the entire bike and the rider protecting both from injury and damage.
Alexa, what's the definition of irony?
"Sure, I can help you with that. Irony is ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife."
Thank you Alanis 😉
Totally agree with you (apart from your spelling). This seems utterly pointless.
This reflection is in a similar vein.
Oh look, yet more complicated crap to load a bike up with that we don;t need and which will increase the cost
I really can't see that gear changing is what persuades the majority of e assist-bike owners and potential owners to go that route. Whether you are in the "right" gear or not you're still on an analogue bike.
Not sure Shimano are totally on the ball with all their ideas.
I can see an ebike with auto gearbox being attractive. Not sure there's a large market for an auto geared pedal only bike.
Maybe the bike industry would be in a better position if it cut back a bit on the constant "innovations" and concentrated on where the majority of sales actually are. Seems there's always a lag in production of current kit and at the same time they're banging on about their newest thing.
Just a thought.
Auto shifting is not a new thing, it's decades old. How is this different to having an auto shift hub and a pedal assist motor up front??
"A bid to make them [Q'Auto bikes] a competitor to the e-bike market"
Seriously...
How does this thing know how my legs/knees are feeling, though?
Cadence.
But sometimes I feel like spinning slower, and sometimes faster. If it just keeps changing gear to stop me, that would be quite annoying.
Just like e-bikes and cars, it might come with 2-3 settings like slow/normal/sport?
(Automatic) cars are different - you can determine a fixed desirable relationship between speed / power output / gearing.
I might ride the same bit of road twice with the same power, but have two very different preferred cadences, depending on what I've done before that and just how I happen to be feeling on the day.
I'd suggest
a) you dont do this as often as you think you do.
b) You'll probably not the target market for a ride and forget local commuter bike.
The thing is cars still can't do it after years of development.
Engineers and software developers looking for something to do--as is the case with so many developments in modern technology.
Why, when entire industries need to be phased out if we're going to avoid ecological and climate catastrophe, is one of the few that is part of the solution, the bike industry, desperate to turn their products into future e-waste?
Oh yeah, I forgot, capitalism.
Start with an exagerrated strawman and then complain that Shimano cant meet it.
Do industries need to make significant change? Yes.
Are entire industries going to be phased out - Hard Nope.
Thats hairshirt back to the cave greenie talk. Mankind would rather go extinct than implement that. The only way out and though these existential threats is via technology.
Well if the tech means we eat all our resources (faster) our populations will collapse, just like any other species. And we get "back to the cave" for free. As for "hairshirt" it appears that technology is imperfectly correlated with happiness (if that is a useful "goal" - still disputed!)
Much of humanity's "development" appears to increase our exposure to existential threats. For one - an important goal / side effect of our technological cleverness was allowing humans to massively increase our population and longevity...
However I agree, it's - almost * - unheard of that people get off the "more complex tech, more / additional resources used" escalator.
* The examples I'm aware of are where people moved to places with more limited resources, or following the collapse of more "advanced" cultures. However over time this generally goes badly for those who "unadopt" technology as at some point other people arrive - and in at least one case ate them.
Nearly all resource issues are a result of local minima. (eg Water at Ankor Wat).
We have effectively infinite energy from the Sun and Wind and the means to adopt at a Global scale. The rest is just engineering.
Au contraire: many if not all issues are a result of humans; it's psychology, sociology and politics, not engineering really. In the small humans desire to have a bit more than other humans; groups of elite humans aspire to have significantly more resources than other humans (that's what makes them elite after all). Or even demand that other humans have less than they might want.
Ultimately "trying to fix human / relationship / political issues with technology" might be said to be a hallmark of civilisation.
Additionally we need a significant range of other materials - principally other organic life to eat. Currently that is ... putative silicon-based robot successors might differ and there's quite a lot of silicon handy in the planet . On the other hand we might bioengineer the ability to photosynthesize which would reduce food requirements but not, I suspect, food desires...
We also need materials to harness those energy sources - again currently from limited or difficult to make both cheaply and sustainably.
On the other hand - why worry? Relatively, everyone posting here is living in (technological) happy times! And we're all quite likely to die (again barring new tech...)! And probably before the more ... interesting consequences appear. Adopting a more considered approach to resource usage patterns literally requires a global "conspiracy" also.
Anyway ... this is well in the weeds from automatic bike shifting. Personally I won't be declaring the end of sanity and retreating to live on mud and seaweed until I notice general adoption of, oh, ABS on bikes. Er... I'll get my blanket.
"Any reasonable interpretation of previous histories, current trends, and complex systems dynamics would hold that global modern techno-industrial culture is beginning to unravel and that the one-off human population boom is destined to bust."
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/4/3/32
You get a "clean cockpit", though...
Not sure why they went Rear mech when a Hub would have been cleaner and a single part to service. They already make DI2 versions so not a massive leap.
Also minor correction - Full Autoshift is only available on 11Sp DI2 with a Steps motor.
12 speed XT DI2 (with steps) only gets Freeshift which is an auto kickdown/up when not pedalling and your speed changes. It doesnt auto change whilst you are pedalling.
Presumably this would use the autokick down to keep in the right gear before the capacitor drains 60secs after the ride.
True, especially on something aimed at mass-market consumers, a hub gear requires minimal and infrequent maintenance, particularly when paired with a belt drive. I've got a commuter ebike with Enviolo AutomatiQ hub driven by a belt, it's great for start/stop trips, just set your preferred cadence and pedal.
Also, hub gears can generally shift gears without the rider needing to pedal, which simplifies the controls.
I note that many of the high-end cargo-oriented e-bikes now seem to go with the Enviolo - presumably with extra power the lack of efficiency and added weight become irrelevant (when you're loaded / heavier bike anyway)?
For non-power-assisted utility use I'm very happy with my belt / Alfine 8 combo. Certainly one of the gears is quite inefficient but the one I use more frequently is effectively direct drive - but then I'm not racing. AND I save lots of time on fiddling / cleaning. Probably could get away with "ride until the belt breaks, then get a new one" but I do chuck some water over it occasionally. Plus it has dynamo lights so not taking them on/off to charge.
Yep, the bike is around 26kg, and as well as an adult rider, capacity for 27kg on the back rack, and 10kg on the front, the efficiency or otherwise of the drivetrain is compensated by the power assistance.
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