Hello Alex, what do you think is a reasonable price that consumers here will most likely accept?Serious ?... that's such a rip-off it's hard to comprehend.
MS.
Another battery question-please can you help?
- Thread starter mountainsport
- Start date
MS.
Mountainsport - I don't know about other consumers but the max I'd pay for a 15Ah battery is £499 and for that I'd want a high-end one. Completely frankly - I personally that's all they're worth and about double the cost of a 20Ah chinese battery that'll likely do most people 2+ years.
Over a grand for a puny sub-10Ah battery is a complete joke !
Over a grand for a puny sub-10Ah battery is a complete joke !
Thank you Alex for speaking your mind. Sorry, do you mean £449 from the actual makers themselves (abroad) or £449 from a dealer here in England? Sorry Alex for being a pain in the anadin.
MS.
No idea MS ... that's just the max I'd pay as any more would be a rip-off. Imho ! No idea whether you'd be able to get one either here or abroad for that .. would depend what battery you were trying to source and whether compatible with the relevant motor / controller you're trying to hook it up with.
Was just answering your question with a personal opinion as to what ought to be the price consumers are willing to pay (for what you actually get out of it) rather than the price they roll over and pay because the retailers / manufacturers demand it !
I'm personally indifferent as to whether stuff's bought from here or abroad. If UK retailers won't sell for a comparable price to landed cost from foreign suppliers then I'd import. UK business rates and wages are sellers' problems not buyers' !
The price yes, but that battery certainly isn't puny. Set a 350 or 500 watt BionX unit to level 4 (max) power to sail up steep hills and that battery will deliver all the high current that's demanded and still last for years. Few batteries of much larger capacity will do better or even match it, and those that do haven't lasted as long.
Very much one for the well heeled who just want the battery to perform and not to be bothered with frequent replacements. Goes with the Bentley and the Sunseeker yacht. That said, we have members with them and one even imported his whole kit with that battery direct when they weren't available locally.
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But set a 500W unit on max and I'd hazard a 9.5Ah battery won't last very long at all ... and that's the main point - its capacity is puny ! If you draw 30A+ it's going to go down fast and 9,5Ah is really small capacity. To me there's not much point in a spending thousands of pounds on a powerful bike that goes phut or starts sagging after 12 miles if you use its capabilities.
18 miles if continuously on level 4, but that's not necessary since that's only needed on very steep hills. Most do the majority of their riding on level 2 with an odd burst on level 3 for average hills. Also this is a regenerative system with several switched levels of regen available, so there is appreciable energy recovery possible in hillier territories. Those in flatter areas need only use levels 1 and 2 so still with good range. Make no mistake, it is a good system, refined and silent with good performance.
I'm sure it is a good system else it wouldn't sell. However I think it's way overpriced. Having used a pretty powerful hub motor and a less powerful crank drive motor tuned up I realize now that for restricted bikes there's only so much the manufacturers can come up with in terms of both battery and performance in restricted modes. The best part of my rides are my downhill descents and there's no way I'd want my 30+mph stretches sold out to battery charging. Just shove some more cells in the pack and enjoy your biking !
I'd question the 18 miles if there's meaningful climbing involved but at a push my guess is that would likely flatten it and a 9 mile radius for a round trip is very short for a bike you wouldn't want to ride unpowered - and will experience power drop well before the capacity is exhausted. They all do. When you say most do the majority of their riding on level 2 with the odd burst on level 3 that's presumably assuming 17.5mph restricted bikes.... and perhaps in a number of cases it is more representative of the fact they choose to drop the assist levels because they can't complete their journeys without running out of juice rather than because they choose to !
If bikes are derestricted (which presumbly the 500W ones are) then if you have the power available I'm sure many would choose to use it. My feeling has been for a while now that 30Ah - 40Ah is what derestricted bikes should be equipped with at 36V to allow decent length rides of 25 mile radius especially in hilly areas. There are plenty of them when you move beyond the usual cities and many of the Southern and Eastern counties.
I for one have never done a ride anywhere in 10 months that I have charging facilities for a return journey. So half the range is the max distance I can go. On BionX higher powered range, that's about £3,000 - £4,000 worth of batteries at BionX prices or maybe £450 at Chinese prices. When you start multiplying it all up the differentials become even more ridiculous.
The point is that you only need a powerful motor if you want to ride fast and/or climb steep hills. In either case you'll be using a great deal of Wh/mile. A 500W hub motor will likely be reading over 1kW up steep hills and you won't be riding much faster than a regular eBike would go on the flat. Running mid-20mph speeds will also take out about 19-20Wh/mile. A 250W crank-drive bike with a dongle or equivalent running to its powered capabilities will also be delivering no more than about 18 miles off a 10Ah battery.
Longer distances are not a major issue if you run these bikes on full assist - many people would likely manage 40-50 miles in a day. Hours in the saddle is a major consideration when gauging how far you are happy to ride in a day. Up the speed and decrease the hill effort and further distances are attractive because the journey time is shorter and the ride less strenuous. But the batteries just don't deliver the capacity. I personally think you should bank on having about 20-25% left in the battery to cover contingencies on a ride and in that context especially 9,5Ah is just so light for a powerful bike it seems totally incongruous. The solution to longer distance rides should not be to use less power / more eco modes and drag them out at lower speeds as we're always being told we should. The solution is more battery capacity to forget about how much power you're using over a decent range. Honestly, you'd think we were being sold caviar sometimes the way Ah are dished out. It's only a few more cells on top of a necessary BMS, case and technology that you need anyway. There's a limit to what that costs - even with very high quality cells.
I hear what you're saying above but am wholly unconvinced personally. Anything much less than 20Ah on a 500W bike or 15Ah on a derestricted 250W one riden anywhere apart from canal paths and flatlands and a regular user will likely be wanting more capacity. And the manufacturers know it. Basically it's all rigged to flog more expensive spare batteries and screw the consumer - as per usual. You can argue it whichever way you like but in the end most people buying bikes with higher performance capabilities want to use those capabilities as much as they can. Cutting out all the political correctness and spin, and setting aside benchmarking based on the (highly convenient) speed restriction rules manufacturers and retailers are having a laugh at their expense and basically exploiting them. It's black & white in my eyes but I'm not one for shades of grey ... there are far more than 50 in the consumer-spanking game !
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You don't have to use the 350 or 500 watt ones, they also do the 250 watt versions including an HT high performance model. That 18 miles I quoted is from an owner's experience of trying it out continuously on the high power mode, not a guess or a manufacturer figure.
Obviously it doesn't suit you Alex, but I'd be very happy be with one and I've ridden numerous e-bikes. They all have their plus and minus points but this is one of the better ones.
As for prices, there's many strategies for making a profit and the high price and quality/small market one is just one option. Every company is out to make as much as it can, no matter what the marketing strategy. There's a place for Tesco and a place for Fortnum and Mason and long may there be such choices.
Obviously it doesn't suit you Alex, but I'd be very happy be with one and I've ridden numerous e-bikes. They all have their plus and minus points but this is one of the better ones.
As for prices, there's many strategies for making a profit and the high price and quality/small market one is just one option. Every company is out to make as much as it can, no matter what the marketing strategy. There's a place for Tesco and a place for Fortnum and Mason and long may there be such choices.
It's not the bike or quality I'm having a bash at it's the battery capacity and the inevitable extrapolation of that to what the machine it's fitted to can deliver. It seems crazy that these high end manufacturers (apart from Kalkhoff on their non-Bosch offerings) insist on sticking to low capacity batteries - the number one factor limiting the usefulness of eBikes. Even if you fork out for a spare let's be honest, who wants to carry it around (along with a charger) ?
There's only so much power a limited 250W bike is likely to draw. But even with one of those 15Ah is the minimum I reckon they ought to be supplying. 9,5Ah on a 500W bike is realistically about 45minutes of run time to flat, especially if you used it with a lot of stopping and starting. Put in that context I wonder how many people would in their heart of hearts think that was enough after buying one.
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Sorry for mentioning this name to some of the members on here, but I've had my Life Cycle Mountain sport for at least two years and a bit now and at that time it had been priced at £2000 and now a reduced price at £1699.
The battery is a Lithium-ion 37v 17ah, the new Life Cycle Strada which is priced at £2700 minus one pound to be exact is a 37v 24ah Panasonic make battery (that's down your corridor flecc), bearing in mind that they are both exactly the same bikes but with different type of batteries.
Although the price of the old bikes/ batteries have dropped by £300 they are still of the same type, so basically let us work according to the low end figure to date, we are looking at the new Panasonic battery costing a £1000 more. What do you reckon flecc, any justification for this over the top figure or am I miscalculating something wrong here? I need to hear from the professionals and I will definitely not be asking my friend Alex this same question because I'll deserve getting a hot slap in the face
The good thing that I will say though, is at least their batteries are warranted for two years, but now being of Panasonic make another year and a bit should have been added onto it to prove much greater confidence .
MS.
I'd certainly never give you a slap in the face MS By the way ....
Slightly off-topic but out of interest, MS - do you know what the peak output is from that hub motor ?
By the way ....Price questions aside, I didn't know they'd upped the capacity to that extent - 888Wh is much more sensible for a 37V bike. Quite the exception and very sensible to do that with the off-road button. Sounds like they know they have a niche offering and are cashing in on that. Now if they managed to frame mount the battery to suit the current fashion and change its profile they'd likely sell like hot cakes
Slightly off-topic but out of interest, MS - do you know what the peak output is from that hub motor ?
D
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Unfortunately your logic isn''t correct. They made other changes to the bike, which have pushed the price up: The Strada has Acera gears with 11T top, which probably means cassette gears, which then means a different motor - probably the same Dapu motor as the BH E-Motion Neo; brakes are a higher spec; forks are hydraulic; and there's probably other changes.Sorry for mentioning this name to some of the members on here, but I've had my Life Cycle Mountain sport for at least two years and a bit now and at that time it had been priced at £2000 and now a reduced price at £1699.
The battery is a Lithium-ion 37v 17ah, the new Life Cycle Strada which is priced at £2700 minus one pound to be exact is a 37v 24ah Panasonic make battery (that's down your corridor flecc), bearing in mind that they are both exactly the same bikes but with different type of batteries.
Although the price of the old bikes/ batteries have dropped by £300 they are still of the same type, so basically let us work according to the low end figure to date, we are looking at the new Panasonic battery costing a £1000 more. What do you reckon flecc, any justification for this over the top figure or am I miscalculating something wrong here? I need to hear from the professionals and I will definitely not be asking my friend Alex this same question because I'll deserve getting a hot slap in the face
The good thing that I will say though, is at least their batteries are warranted for two years, but now being of Panasonic make another year and a bit should have been added onto it to prove much greater confidence .
MS.
Overall, it looks like a good solution for a high speed decent range bike as long as it has the Dapu motor or equivalent.
As you acknowledge, the mainstream manufacturers don't fit the capacity extremes you seem to need. There's a reason for that, it's what satisfies the majority and makers aren't daft, they know their market.
However, you simply cant extrapolate run time from the marketing capacity figure. What you aren't taking into account is that capacity figures are the same as the length of a piece of string, and I know that physically large BionX battery is conservatively rated.
A to B neatly illustrated the variations with a test some while back. They took a typical well known make Chinese 37 volt 10 Ah rated battery and rode it at different power usage levels. At the very lowest level of usage it gave up the full 10 Ah capacity over the full charge emptying. Subsequent rides at steadily increasing power levels to empty a full charge gave reducing capacity returns and when ridden at full power non-stop for the whole charge the capacity realised was only 7 Ah.
That's the mainstream of our batteries, rated for marketing purposes to show the highest capacity, even though most users don't have a cat-in-hell's of realising that in practical circumstances.
Now turn those 10 and 7AH figures upside down for an expensive conservatively rated battery, and you'll find that can show the BionX 9.6 Ah one to be equivalent to almost 14 Ah by direct comparison with the mainstream cynically rated product. And as I've quoted you from user experiences, the largest 9.6 Ah BionX battery does perform at that level.
Puts a different light on the issue Alex, since I'm sure if BionX had rated their big battery the cynical way you'd feel happier about the capacity rating of 14 Ah at 37 volts.
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it's still too expensive.
Batteries are the most reliable component in an e-bike, requiring no support. Suppliers can factor in 2% per annum failure rate - that would put a 37V 17AH battery with 3 year warranty about 110% of CIF - easily marketable at around £400-£450.
Batteries are the most reliable component in an e-bike, requiring no support. Suppliers can factor in 2% per annum failure rate - that would put a 37V 17AH battery with 3 year warranty about 110% of CIF - easily marketable at around £400-£450.
^^ flecc, I'm not looking at quoted ranges purely battery Wh capacities and extrapolating to CA-measured Wh/mile which I've seen the CST 500W hub motor consume used to its performance capabilities. what I think you're implying is that for example a 20Ah Chinese battery is a misrepresentation and it's actually more like 15Ah whereas a BionX is rated 9,5 and is actually likely 14Ah ? Find this somewhat unlikely to be honest. A 500W / 1260W peak hub motor used with a reasonable amount of stop/start, with some significant hills (it'll draw 35W on downhills if bike's adequately geared without regen so barely worth counting and this counteracts the high power draw uphill to some extent) but otherwise average conditions will use around 17-21Wh/mile. That gives around an 18 mile range which broadly correlates to your BionX example.
Having put a Chinese 36V 20Ah battery through 25 miles of this, CA indicates about 12Ah used and residual measured voltage of 36.8V. By then, top speed then starts dropping about 1.5mph Perhaps it's possible to predict low voltage cutoff and hence proxy 'true' Ah from this ? I'd be surprised if you didn't get at least another 12-15 miles off the battery. What's clear though is that you're getting more out of the battery than a £1k BionX one would deliver, and it cost about £200. Might only last half the time but then you can afford to buy 5 for the same price.
I don't think Kalkhoff overstate their battery capacities though ... and I do know that a 540Wh battery would get depleted to noticeably lower power levels in around 25 miles using a 'tuned' 250W crank drive motor at higher speeds with hills. You notice power drop much more on a crank drive. Even if you could squeeze 10 more miles home on the flat in 'eco' it's definitely not performing nearly as well.
Having put a Chinese 36V 20Ah battery through 25 miles of this, CA indicates about 12Ah used and residual measured voltage of 36.8V. By then, top speed then starts dropping about 1.5mph Perhaps it's possible to predict low voltage cutoff and hence proxy 'true' Ah from this ? I'd be surprised if you didn't get at least another 12-15 miles off the battery. What's clear though is that you're getting more out of the battery than a £1k BionX one would deliver, and it cost about £200. Might only last half the time but then you can afford to buy 5 for the same price.
I don't think Kalkhoff overstate their battery capacities though ... and I do know that a 540Wh battery would get depleted to noticeably lower power levels in around 25 miles using a 'tuned' 250W crank drive motor at higher speeds with hills. You notice power drop much more on a crank drive. Even if you could squeeze 10 more miles home on the flat in 'eco' it's definitely not performing nearly as well.
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Alex when you say peak output what do you mean, the size of the motor or by working out peak output through calculation?I'd certainly never give you a slap in the face MS
Price questions aside, I didn't know they'd upped the capacity to that extent - 888Wh is much more sensible for a 37V bike. Quite the exception and very sensible to do that with the off-road button. Sounds like they know they have a niche offering and are cashing in on that. Now if they managed to frame mount the battery to suit the current fashion and change its profile they'd likely sell like hot cakes
Slightly off-topic but out of interest, MS - do you know what the peak output is from that hub motor ?
MS
It's all to do with the c rating Alex.
For example - my lipo pack is 12ah and rated @ 25c - I can draw 100amps from it constantly and I will get the full 12ah from it. However try pulling 100amps from a 10ah Ping and you'll be lucky to get 5ah out of it. Nearly all chinese generic batteries are rated @ 1c. Most motor/controller combinations draw at a higher rate than 1c.
The Bionix batteries have a high c rating and they rate their batteries at something like 5c (i.e. 50amps draw on a 9.6ah battery). If you draw at something like 1c (i.e 9.6amps) then you could well pull somewhere in the region of 13/14ah out of it.
For example - see the batteries cellman sells - 50V 10.25Ah Samsung Rectangular Pack - he rates them at 4.5c. So it's quite feasible that if you draw @ 1c you'll get more than the 10.25ah cellman conservatively rates the pack at.
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