Extra Battery

[LennyK]

Do You Really Need An Extra Battery?
Besides The Obvious - Extended Distances - Who Rides More Than 50/60 Miles In A Day?
I Realize That Some Trails Would Require Many Miles To Reach The Destinations
But Does Anyone Actually Ride Their Ebike Over 4 Hours Per Day
So Far For Me A 30 Mile Trip Has Been A Full Day - With Juice To Spare

The Reason I Ask Is Because I May Buy One If It Makes Sense

 

[pagheca]

you have to take into account the height differences. Where I live, a small volcanic island in the Atlantic, the roads are extremely steep and it is common to do 6-700 m of elevation gain in a few kilometers. Consequently, a range of 120 km easily becomes 50-60.

It is not common but in mountainous areas it can happen. If you live on a Mountain Top it may be hard to return back home.

 

[addertooth]

The desire for an Extra Battery is also driven by the speed you are riding at (as well as the elevation changes mentioned by Pagheca).
If I am maxed out on throttle, I only get 12 to 15 miles of distance at 30+ miles per hour (before I am down to one bar of charge left).

My battery is feeding two motors of 1 Kw each. The battery storage of the single battery currently installed is about 1 Kw. One hour of continuous flat out running, would require at least 2 Kilo Watt hours of battery capacity. This much storage would get me a distance of about 25 to 30 miles.

Keep in mind, the higher the current drain, the greater the sag in voltage of the battery. If I drop down to PAS2, it may recover to two (out of 5) bars of charge left. This may give me enough to limp home at PAS2. This would make the return trip (of a 30 mile run) a two-hour experience.

For the record, I normally don't run 30-35 MPH for most my rides. I usually stick to PAS3, and troll along at 21 MPH. But, it would be nice to have that higher-speed/longer-distance ability.

 

[LennyK]

I looked into buying a spare battery. Turns out, my butt wants off the bike well before the battery goes dead. Also, the batteries for my ebikes were one third the price of the bike.

I've also learned that my wife doesn't ride nearly as often as I do, and if I wanted to ride a long way, I could take her battery with me. On my current bicycle, that would give me a range of about 100 miles. That's something like 8 hours in the saddle, and there's no way I'd do that in a day. Not going to happen. Nope. My limit is about 4 hours on a bike trip, with lots of breaks in between riding.

On a normal day of riding, between 7 and 12 miles, I barely budge the battery. Last Sunday we rode about 35 miles, and put the bikes back on the bike rack with over 50% charge left. I was ready to be done with the ride. I could have gone further, of course, but 35 miles is a good enough day.

 

[Rambo_Of_PA]

@LennyK - "....Turns out, my butt wants off the bike well before the battery goes dead." = Just a thought....maybe you need a more comfortable seat??