Max speed and max range on your Electric bike?

[northpole]

Hello! I would like to buy an electric bike, but on a lot of web sites there is nothing about the maximum speed or the maximum distance you can ride on a single charge. To me this is one of the most important things to know about an ebike when spending a large sum of money.

I would like to know the range people are getting with their ebikes, and also the top speeds?

Thanks

 

[riley]

The manufacturers claims of range and top speed are usually over hyped or use best case scenarios. Electric bikes rarely go the ranges they are claimed to go. There are so many variables with electric bike range such as:

• How much you weigh
• How fast you ride
• How much you stop and start
• How fast you accelerate
• If you ride in hilly areas or on the flat
• Your pedal assist settings

All of these things can make a huge difference to your range. Top speed may be a little bit easier to determine than range, as all you need to do is pin the throttle on a flat section of road to see how fast it goes.

 

[Michael]

Here are some more factors that will effect the range of your ebike:

• Frontal area (drag coefficient)
• Density of the air (depends on temperature, altitude and humidity)
• Rolling resistance of your tires (depends on your tire pressure and the weight of the bike an rider)
• Terrain
• Wind speed
• How much leg power you use

 

[popekr]

Hello! I would like to buy an electric bike, but on a lot of web sites there is nothing about the maximum speed or the maximum distance you can ride on a single charge. To me this is one of the most important things to know about an ebike when spending a large sum of money.

I would like to know the range people are getting with their ebikes, and also the top speeds?

Thanks

I would think it would depend a lot on how you ride and where you ride. Or if you have a bike that's pedal assist or throttle? I have a pedal assist. My bike cuts the motor out when I reach 20mph or faster. I suppose I could modify that, many people do but I don't see a reason to do that. I don't have a throttle so the motor kicks in when I choose but as a pedal assist I need to be pedaling too. I push the button for the motor when it's uphill and that's about it. The range is listed at 20 miles and the store warned me that it's pretty accurate so if I have the motor on the entire time I won't have the motor once I reach the 20 mile mark and the battery will be used up. I have noticed that's pretty accurate. But I use the motor about 3 or 4 miles for hills each trip so my battery only gets charged a couple times a month. But I am sure you wanted more technical advice.

 

[RoostChucker]

Buy a bike with the highest voltage and largest Amp Hour battery you can afford. I wouldn't buy anything less than 15AH nowadays unless you are trying to go super light.

You should be able to reliably get about 20 miles of range on just about any set up that has a double digit amp hour battery. My bike has 750 watt hub motor at 48v and a 20AH battery. I easily get 20 miles, all on throttle with very little pedaling, and still have more than 50 percent left. Like the other guys said, all the manufacturers lie and there are a dozen things to consider but even for a big guy, at least 20 miles of range (10AH+) is pretty much a given nowadays even on very low end bikes.

 

[Smaug]

@popekr , @RoostChucker : This post is from four years ago. You bumped a zombie thread and @northpole probably has his/her answer. ;-)

 

[m@Robertson]

uhhh... this thread died in 2020 and the user who started it showed up and left, never to return, that same day.

But in the spirit of information sharing:

ALL ebike manufacturers lie like a rug when it comes to their range estimates. No exceptions. You can not believe anyone. And furthermore, there are so many variables in play (bike wheel size, bike weight, wind is big, rider weight is big, and much, much more) that you cannot have any hope of getting a general answer. Your best bet is to find a user group for the exact bike you want to buy and ask its owners. And then still you're only going to be able to ballpark it.

Get the biggest battery you can, and if there is a double-battery option, get that. You can always leave one home.

ALSO try and stay away from batteries that have that sexy look that goes with the battery being built into the frame. When that battery dies, you are beholden to that one manufacturer to sell you a replacement... and LOTS of times we see that is the time when the ebike hits the scrap yard because either the manufacturer wants ransom for it, or is out of business, or out of stock. Do some homework ahead of time and find a path forward post battery-end-of-life if you want to keep the bike for more than about 4 years.

 

[Smaug]

...

ALL ebike manufacturers lie like a rug when it comes to their range estimates. No exceptions. You can not believe anyone. And furthermore, there are so many variables in play (bike wheel size, bike weight, wind is big, rider weight is big, and much, much more) that you cannot have any hope of getting a general answer. Your best bet is to find a user group for the exact bike you want to buy and ask its owners. And then still you're only going to be able to ballpark it.
...

Well, that's going a bit far.

Let's look at Lectric's XP Lite 2.0 page: https://lectricebikes.com/products/...8XHaVzIXtP-ks9_jxlxHAI4Lh90wHv24qsXc3eO5cq6GC

If we select 'Standard Battery' it goes to '45 mile range'.
If we select 'Long Range Battery' it jumps to '80 mile range'.

The folks who don't read further will be misled, and I think that's what you mean.

HOWEVER, if we read the fine print and elsewhere on the page:

• Just below the bike pic, it says "up to 80 mile range". This is accurate, and should alert the discerning reader to dig a little deeper.
• Under 'Features' > 'Battery Power', it says "up to 80 mile range*" with the asterisk being a footnote callout. Again, the discerning reader will look for that that means, having a suspicion they're playing The Ratings Game. If we scroll down a bit, that is defined as such:
  "* Range can vary due to weight load, terrain, weather and other conditions."
• Under 'Specifications' > 'Battery', they also add the † callout, and the footnote has a link telling us about battery safety.

Lectric used to have a table for each bike defining how they got to the range estimates. They've blasted that from their page, which is a darned shame. They got a bit more shady when they did that. It said something like: "With 150 lb. rider, 45 psi tire pressure, flat ground, on PAS1 and rider assistance."

Aventon just prints "Up to xx mile range" with no footnotes, but if we google, we find they wrote a nice article on eBike range:

Ebike Range: How Far Can You Go on One Charge?

Do you want to know your ebike range and go farther? ✓ Learn more about the different factors that affect your electric bike battery range with Aventon!

www.aventon.com

Some excerpts:

electric bike distance - how far can electric bikes go?​

On average, electric bikes can travel between 25 - 45 miles (~40-72 KMs) on a single charge. However, this will vary depending on the bike's battery size, the terrain, and the rider's weight.

↑ No lies there, but it's VERY general. I think it sets up reasonable expectations.

But if we’re talking about a new-ish battery we can calculate roughly how many miles one can get on a single charge. It has been estimated, and tested, that the average ebike battery, with all other factors being neutral or average, can travel about 1 mile per 20-watt hours.

↑ I haven't compared my findings with this calculation, but it sounds reasonable to me. They go on to give examples, including the math! Your thoughts m@?


Most manufacturers, and especially the mushroom Chinese brands are not this forthcoming, and they are sometimes not even consistent on their own product advertising pages!

So yeah, buyer beware, but I wouldn't say that "they all lie."

 

[m@Robertson]

The folks who don't read further will be misled, and I think that's what you mean.

I think its more useful advice to warn that every estimate from someone trying to sell you an ebike is borderline useless than to try and single out the one or two sellers who at least take a stab at being less inaccurate.

I know of one bike company that used a 100 lb female rider for their range estimates, and kept quiet about it. Not quite a lie but certainly a lie in spirit. And by no means were they the only ones who did that. If you watch this space often enough you will see plenty of range estimates that are obviously utter nonsense. So I am sticking with 'everyone lies' as advice to people who haven't got the experience to be able to sniff out the BS.

Hell... you can't even count on bike weight reporting. Sondors under-weighed a couple of their bikes by 20 lbs.

 

[Andrew D]

Aventon's " Lie " , as you know , is that you can go 28 MPH after you adjust ur settings in the app . But they don't tell you that you have to go up to PA 5 and PEDAL for it . You won't access it thru the throttle . You have to learn somewhere else , that class2 bike throttles are limited to 20 MPH .
the battery life issue , is that when you are 75-100% charged your battery drains slower . but if u go the same distance when the battery is 40% or less , you'll lose power faster . you can coax 45-50 miles out of the battery , but you'll have to use mitigating tactics . Like coasting on all downhills ( which can add a few %s of power back ) or wherever possible , and no use of throttle once you get low

 

[Andrew D]

so no company will tell you those things , in order to not risk turning you off
Caveat Emptor !

 

[popekr]

@popekr , @RoostChucker : This post is from four years ago. You bumped a zombie thread and @northpole probably has his/her answer. ;-)

Oh for heavens sake. I need to be more alert......

 

[BiggKidd]

My Ridstar E26 Pro advertises as having a 31mph max speed. I weigh around 200lbs and mine does 33-34mph according to GPS. Far as range I have milked 46 miles and might, maybe be able to push it to 50 miles on a single charge staying in PAS1 and pedaling the whole way with the motor. Which their advertisement quotes 50 to 80km is possible. IRRC 50 miles is about 80 km. So they appear to mostly tell the truth. They also claim the power at 1000 watts per wheel and they are 48V with 28A MAX controllers so that 1000w is possible but in reality the controller runs at about 12 amps nominal and peaks I would guess somewhere around 1000W for brief periods from what I've experienced.

I can turn the amps and power assist up through the display getting quite a bit more torque / take off power but I found it a bit dangerous off road in less than perfect conditions. So I put the amps back to 12 from 18 I can go as high as 20 and the assist level back to 3 from 5. This is not the same as the PAS levels this is a different setting that adjusts the acceleration power on or at all levels of assist. Changing the amps didn't seem to make much change but changing the assist from 3 to 5 was a big change and promptly went back to 3 the first time I got squirrely going up my driveway. It caused the rear tire to spin out to easy even considering I was in PAS1. My driveway is fairly steep and has some gravel and plenty of mud! lmao

 

[Smaug]

Oh for heavens sake. I need to be more alert......

It has happened to all of us at one point: We Google our question, and a forum thread pops up with the exact question and relevant answers, so we get all excited, register an account and post, only to overlook the original post date. Is that how you "fell for it"?

 

[1BenjaminC]

If it’s any value from real world experience, I own an Aventon abound (672 W hour battery). Your range will be primarily determined by your weight, speed, elevation change and frontal area.
I’m in Winnipeg Manitoba, with boost at the first two levels and running mostly at top speed (32 km/hr), no headwind, I’m good for 45 km per charge. My partner has a Radwagon 4, well kitted but stock. She’s good for about 50 km but can run up to 45 km/hr

 

[1BenjaminC]

That being said, I did a 40 km ride with some friends who were riding acoustic bikes yesterday, and I had about 20 km of range left afterwards (much slower speed)

 

[TrekElek]

Hello! I would like to buy an electric bike, but on a lot of web sites there is nothing about the maximum speed or the maximum distance you can ride on a single charge. To me this is one of the most important things to know about an ebike when spending a large sum of money.

I would like to know the range people are getting with their ebikes, and also the top speeds?

Thanks

On single track and sewer trails, you can ride aggressively for over 5 hours. I am 200lbs on a mtb with a Bafang BBSHD. I am pedaling like on a normal bike. The bike is assisting with about 200 watts on average. The speed is typically faster than on a non emtb. On the road, I want to ride at road bike speeds. with an assist of about 500 watts. (30 kph). Today, I rode mostly on trails for about 2.5 hours. I rode home about 6 miles on road. I was at ~70-80%. I only have a battery image several estimated levels. My peek speed is 72 kph down a slight grade. My off road tires are roaring.

 

[popekr]

It has happened to all of us at one point: We Google our question, and a forum thread pops up with the exact question and relevant answers, so we get all excited, register an account and post, only to overlook the original post date. Is that how you "fell for it"?

Probably mostly I think.