Battery charging, how often

[BazP]

Apologies for what is of necessity a long answer:



Indeed Andy, and I like this comment from Autocar magazine:

Purveyors of pure-electric cars have learned many lessons since they started selling in earnest and one of the biggest has been the unexpectedly strong buyer appeal of the silence, smoothness and ease of driving only a pure-electric car can bring.

I've always known e-cars were superior, even when they didn't exist! In the 1900s and 1910s they were the car of choice, infinitely better in every respect than the steam and petrol competition. But of course the severe battery limitations at the time meant short range, so they got no further development and ic gradually improved over the decades.

But e-drive didn't disappear, milk floats and the refined large electric vans that Harrods and John Lewis continued to use right through to the 1960s showing that. And of course trains and trams long since gave up on ic engines. If I was asked to design the worst possible engine to propel a vehicle, it could well be the ridiculous ic engine.



Battery life has been surprising everyone, not least the manufacturers. Being nervous about this originally with some negative indications from other applications, Nissan cautiously settled upon a 5 year warranty setting the scene for others and starting the falsehood about poor battery life. They quickly changed that to 8 years as evidence came in but are now having to think again with many batteries even still at full capacity at 10 years old.

The mistake they'd made was judging from existing applications with high density cells under high load, e-bikes for example!

Their e-cars use large low density cells, and of course they spend most of their driven life at a tiny fraction of their potential power so are never stressed. Nobody floors it in their drive taking off at a constant 90mph plus to the supermarket. Add to that a moderate charging regime and battery life just isn't a worry.

Of course they will need changing eventually at around £8k at today's prices, but against that is a fuel cost of up to 400 mpg equivalent. That still won't fully pay for a battery, but stopping doing what we've been doing to this planet was never going to be cheap. We've in effect been living on a future cost for a long time in every respect, just like PFI (private finance initiative) to pay for our infrastructure, leaving our kids to foot the bill.

As for e-cars only being for the wealthy, no manufacturer can keep up with demand over the last two years and it's currently going through the roof. Expect to wait a year for the most popular models.



True, but they don't begin to solve the problem so will also be banned shortly. The target is zero carbon, and even that is not enough since we really need to reduce what we've already produced. And of course hybrids are far more expensive to both buy and run with their two drive chains and fuels. They'll get more difficult to fuel too, we're already down to under 6000 petrol stations, nearly half what it once was. Meanwhile UK e-cars already have this, 11,600 charging locations with 18,600 charging points with 32,300 connectors and expanding rapidly by many hundreds a year.



Fully agreed Andy, and it's never even been once for me with my trade experience.
.

Re the point about E-cars and the wealthy, with the Leaf starting at £26,800 myself and many friends would consider this to be an expensive car. How perceptions have changed.

 

[D C]

Re the point about E-cars and the wealthy, with the Leaf starting at £26,800 myself and many friends would consider this to be an expensive car. How perceptions have changed.

It does seem a lot, I've noticed that cars are now mainly on display on forecourts with only the cost per month visible. Maybe it's an age thing, my first car cost £40 in the 60's.
To put it in perspective though, it's only 6 times the cost of our two Giant e bikes!
Dave.

 

[flecc]

Re the point about E-cars and the wealthy, with the Leaf starting at £26,800 myself and many friends would consider this to be an expensive car. How perceptions have changed.

It ws a very expensive car to me too, BUT:

I paid £25,500 since Nissan's price has risen and the government reduced the grant since. It is almost top of the range equipped, only leaving out something I definitely didn't want. It is Ford Focus sized. The top of the range Ford Focus was over £26,000 at the time so dearer when like was compared with like.

And then there's some much lower ownership costs. 200mpg equivalent fuel cost using night rate electricity. Far less services with the cost per service much lower since there's little to do on an e-car. No "road tax". In London's case, no £15 a day congestion zone charge and no £12.50 a day ultra low emission zone charge. And for me it's a car for life and I'll never need to buy a battery.

And anyway it isn't an expensive car where I live. I'm surrounded for tens of miles around by cars costing well over £35k, with many at well over £50k and far, far more. There's BMW X5s everywhere at £57k currently and Porsche are commonplace here. Even the quite ordinary Mitsubishi PHEV was £10k dearer than my Leaf at the time.
.

 

[JohnDaBike]

An interesting read from a diverse range of knowledgeable individuals.
Please would someone be kind enough to prepare a simple guide based on the consensus of the opinion shared above?
For example
1 Charge your battery when you reach 1 bar on your battery indicator
2 Charge your battery to full and leave on for 1 hour after full charge has been reached to allow for some cell balancing.
3 Measure the average time it takes to reach full charge , add 1 hour and set a mechanical timer to cut power after that time.
4 Do not run your battery completely flat
5 During long periods of non use store your battery with at least 75% charge
6 Try not to "top up charge" often
7 Do not leave unattended while charging your battery

Something like this would be helpfull to us less qualified new Pedelecs amongst forum members.
Kind regards to all the contributors to this thread.

 

[Gavin]

An interesting read from a diverse range of knowledgeable individuals.
Please would someone be kind enough to prepare a simple guide based on the consensus of the opinion shared above?
For example
1 Charge your battery when you reach 1 bar on your battery indicator
2 Charge your battery to full and leave on for 1 hour after full charge has been reached to allow for some cell balancing.
3 Measure the average time it takes to reach full charge , add 1 hour and set a mechanical timer to cut power after that time.
4 Do not run your battery completely flat
5 During long periods of non use store your battery with at least 75% charge
6 Try not to "top up charge" often
7 Do not leave unattended while charging your battery

Something like this would be helpfull to us less qualified new Pedelecs amongst forum members.
Kind regards to all the contributors to this thread.

I think you're in danger of re-igniting the fires of disagreement with your question John!!

Everything up to post #7 seems to be a good guide to follow + don't charge it if it's freezing cold.

One point to note about battery indicators- they're not always accurate. If you want to be scientific about storing your battery at 50% charge, wire in a voltmeter or use a multimeter on the battery.

Other than that, just ride it and enjoy it

 

[mike killay]

I think you're in danger of re-igniting the fires of disagreement with your question John!!

Everything up to post #7 seems to be a good guide to follow + don't charge it if it's freezing cold.

One point to note about battery indicators- they're not always accurate. If you want to be scientific about storing your battery at 50% charge, wire in a voltmeter or use a multimeter on the battery.

Other than that, just ride it and enjoy it

Have to say that I have a 9 year old Phyllion battery which is now used as a spare. It still seems to have about 70% capacity.
I have always stored it (months at a time) at full charge as I have no real way of getting it down to 70%.
My guess is that good quality batteries are far tougher than we think.

 

[BazP]

It does seem a lot, I've noticed that cars are now mainly on display on forecourts with only the cost per month visible. Maybe it's an age thing, my first car cost £40 in the 60's.
To put it in perspective though, it's only 6 times the cost of our two Giant e bikes!
Dave.

£40 wow, mine cost me £55 in the 60’s, an Anglia van. You found a good deal there.

 

[BazP]

It ws a very expensive car to me too, BUT:

I paid £25,500 since Nissan's price has risen and the government reduced the grant since. It is almost top of the range equipped, only leaving out something I definitely didn't want. It is Ford Focus sized. The top of the range Ford Focus was over £26,000 at the time so dearer when like was compared with like.

And then there's some much lower ownership costs. 200mpg equivalent fuel cost using night rate electricity. Far less services with the cost per service much lower since there's little to do on an e-car. No "road tax". In London's case, no £15 a day congestion zone charge and no £12.50 a day ultra low emission zone charge. And for me it's a car for life and I'll never need to buy a battery.

And anyway it isn't an expensive car where I live. I'm surrounded for tens of miles around by cars costing well over £35k, with many at well over £50k and far, far more. There's BMW X5s everywhere at £57k currently and Porsche are commonplace here. Even the quite ordinary Mitsubishi PHEV was £10k dearer than my Leaf at the time.
.

I appreciate that the cost of cars and things are relative so you will have to excuse my tightness as the prices of pigeons up here in the north have gone through the roof.

 

[flecc]

my first car cost £40 in the 60's.

£40 wow, mine cost me £55 in the 60’s, an Anglia van. You found a good deal there.

They actually got more expensive as one went back in time, due to the shortage of cars post WW2.

My first car at 18 was a Vauxhall DX which in 1954 cost me £100. It was the same age as me. The classic example below wasn't mine:

 

[flecc]

I appreciate that the cost of cars and things are relative so you will have to excuse my tightness as the prices of pigeons up here in the north have gone through the roof.

Here we don't keep them, we shoot them!
.

 

[vfr400]

I appreciate that the cost of cars and things are relative so you will have to excuse my tightness as the prices of pigeons up here in the north have gone through the roof.

I've got some that come in my garden and steal all the birdseed that I put out. You can have them at a knock-down price, as I want rid of them. Let's say half the price of a northern Pigeon? If cash is still a bit tight up your way because of the lockdown and the price of rhubarb, I'd consider a swap for something useful, like a wife that likes cleaning and cooking.