Battery life (again)

[Rod Tibbs]

Can someone tell me - guess it will be Flecc!- how you tell what capacity is left in a battery. If a guarantee is going to specify 70 per cent it seems important to be able to measure that accurately.

Is capacity left something you can work out for yourself or does it need specialist equipment?

 

[flecc]

To work it out accurately for yourself Rod, you need to start at the outset with a reliable device like the Cycle Analyst to check it while using it new. Then at any later stage it can be rechecked while being used. Unfortunately those devices are very expensive and have to be wired into the bike, the CycleAnalyst around £100, though some are a bit cheaper.

More practical and cheaper is to first condition the new battery, then check the range to empty on a course which you note. Then at any future point you can re-run the same course in roughly the same conditions of wind and temperature and get the proportional distance covered. The chosen course should have fairly consistent characteristics along it's length of course, fairly even ups and downs etc.

Although it's true eZee had a very bad period with the Phylion batteries that they were using, they've moved on since then, and no longer use Sanyo cells either. The types they now use have been proving very reliable and perform much better.

I personally don't worry about the six month guarantee. If they upped it to one year that would still be a very unsatisfactory life for an expensive battery, so that makes the guarantee period a bit academic in practical terms unless it becomes at least two years. That's so far outside of the norm for batteries that I can't see it becoming commonplace at present. One very good reason for that is the way that batteries are at the mercy of the consumer, the manufacturer having no control over the usage. A customer using an unsuitable charger can greatly shorten a battery's life for example, the manufacturer having no protection against that.

There have been much shorter warranty periods, 3 months on CRT tubes for televisions throughout most of the existence of those, thermionic valves also, the manufacturers insisting both these were consumable items.
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[Hooligooner]

More practical and cheaper is to first condition the new battery, then check the range to empty on a course which you note. Then at any future point you can re-run the same course in roughly the same conditions of wind and temperature and get the proportional distance covered. The chosen course should have fairly consistent characteristics along it's length of course, fairly even ups and downs etc.

Wonder if CERN would let us use their LHC when they're finished with it?

 

[cogs]

This thread makes discouraging reading.

Short battery life seems to be normal, influenced by use.

Question for the ebike boffins:

Assuming an average of 4 outings per week of roughly 20 miles each outing, with exemplary charging methods, will the battery's life still only be roughly a year (at best)?

 

[HarryB]

I personally don't worry about the six month guarantee. If they upped it to one year that would still be a very unsatisfactory life for an expensive battery, so that makes the guarantee period a bit academic in practical terms unless it becomes at least two years. That's so far outside of the norm for batteries that I can't see it becoming commonplace at present. One very good reason for that is the way that batteries are at the mercy of the consumer, the manufacturer having no control over the usage. A customer using an unsuitable charger can greatly shorten a battery's life for example, the manufacturer having no protection against that.


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Unfortunately electric bike manufacturers will struggle if they keep to this line. Sure there may be a few rare users who wreck their batteries possibly with the wrong chargers but this could happen with many different types of electronic gadgets. If the cells are any good then the vast majority of users will not claim in a year and the manufacturer will keep his profits.

Spreading the cost of the small number of failures over a larger group of consumers make much more sense - to me it seems crazy that the risk of a premature cell failure is borne solely by one consumer at a cost of £410.

 

[flecc]

Assuming an average of 4 outings per week of roughly 20 miles each outing, with exemplary charging methods, will the battery's life still only be roughly a year (at best)?

Where did you get this from cogs, batteries generally last far more than that?

I'd expect most of today's lithium batteries to last two years, and the better ones can last a lot longer. Some BionX owners have reported very little loss of capacity at two years old. NiMh can last even longer, and I used two NiMh batteries for over four years, one of them then passed on to someone else as a backup with still half it's range available.

Range matters in this respect. If someone uses nearly all the battery's capacity on a long journey every day, after a year they'll find it can no longer do the distance. That doesn't mean it's dud, it just means the trip will have to be done as a two battery journey. The person who only uses one third of the battery per round trip will be ok for over two years, and the person who uses their bike for shopping and local trips of up to 3 miles might be using the battery several years later.
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[flecc]

Unfortunately electric bike manufacturers will struggle if they keep to this line. Sure there may be a few rare users who wreck their batteries possibly with the wrong chargers but this could happen with many different types of electronic gadgets.

That was only one example Hal, there are other circumstances that affect things.

For example, because the standard Panasonic setup and software protects the batteries so well, they are able to give a two year warranty. However, we now have a high proportion of users changing rear sprockets, often to the extreme of a 16 tooth, and suffering lots of range loss as a result. That range loss is due to the battery working far harder of course, and certainly far harder than the designers intended.

The consequence of that is that a number of batteries may fail to reach past two years, which in turn would mean the manufacturer withdrawing the two year warranty in future. That's what I mean by being at the mercy of the consumer. As every manufacturer knows, products can be mercilessly tested until deemed perfect, but once the public gets their hands on them, they soon find ways to bust them.

The few e-bike companies who have tried a two year warranty on any battery type have all quickly changed their minds, and that will almost certainly be the position until the lithium iron phosphate batteries with their 2000 charge plus potential arrive.

Trying to warranty for two years on battery types that can only accept 400 to 500 charges at best is fraught with the possibility of excessive warranty claims, given the 730 days in that two years.
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[HarryB]

That was only one example Hal, there are other circumstances that affect things.

For example, because the standard Panasonic setup and software protects the batteries so well, they are able to give a two year warranty. However, we now have a high proportion of users changing rear sprockets, often to the extreme of a 16 tooth, and suffering lots of range loss as a result. That range loss is due to the battery working far harder of course, and certainly far harder than the designers intended.

The consequence of that is that a number of batteries may fail to reach past two years, which in turn would mean the manufacturer withdrawing the two year warranty in future. That's what I mean by being at the mercy of the consumer. As every manufacturer knows, products can be mercilessly tested until deemed perfect, but once the public gets their hands on them, they soon find ways to bust them.

The few e-bike companies who have tried a two year warranty on any battery type have all quickly changed their minds, and that will almost certainly be the position until the lithium iron phosphate batteries with their 2000 charge plus potential arrive.

Trying to warranty for two years on battery types that can only accept 400 to 500 charges at best is fraught with the possibility of excessive warranty claims, given the 730 days in that two years.
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Yes I do accept that 2 years could be problematic but I think a year would some give added security. As someone who has now had 3 battery failures I couldn't take the risk with a 6 month guarantee.

 

[JohnInStockie]

I must admit I do wonder how Panasonic are going to deal with this in 12 months or so. As these batteries are being used on the Flyer series too, giving 150% assistance upto 45khm in Germany, and yet still have a 2 yr warranty???

Flecc do you have any information on this?

John

 

[flecc]

I don't John, but I'm fairly sure the two year warranty isn't universal to all brands of these Panasonic motored bikes. I've only actually heard of it on the Kalkhoff bikes, so may be it's them taking a risk to establish the brand, which is new to e-biking. Maybe one of our Continental members will know more.

 

[flecc]

Yes I do accept that 2 years could be problematic but I think a year would some give added security. As someone who has now had 3 battery failures I couldn't take the risk with a 6 month guarantee.

Yes, I understand your position Hal, the Matsushita one on top of the two earlier eZee ones being incredibly bad luck. As you know I suffered three of the dud eZee batteries, but I accept that as an isolated case of one battery maker falling down on the job.

As I've just come back in and the present battery is now on it's 258th charge at 3782 miles, I know that the eZee battery position has changed and that battery has already gone well past a year's commuting use.
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