Real mileage/battery figures??

[RoyP]

Hi folks, just picked up 2 new ebikes, a Cube nutrail fatbike and a Lapierre full suspension, both Bosch CX. loving all the new fangled stuff but seriously disappointed with range.
500W battery fully charged and the Lapierre was empty after 33 miles day 1 and 34 miles day 2. the cube on the same route had about 20 miles range left. Route was a 70/30 mix of road/trails with 1800 feet of climbing (not a lot), almost all on eco and tour with a wee play in sport but seeing the rapidly diminishing range this was brief.
Is this normal? what are people really getting in real life riding, not what the brochures say?

 

[Gubbins]

This is the ultimate unanswerable question as the variables are many.
My full sus scott 500w will do 40 miles climbing 3000ft and is used mostly in sport mode. If I use tour or eco and avoid hills I can get up to 60 miles. 75% road. 25% trails

 

[Deleted member 4366]

How far you go has little to do with the bike. It depends a lot more on you and your rides.

What anybody else gets from theirs also has little relevance without knowing how heavy they are or how hard they pedal.

On my bike, on the same journeys, I get a range of 15 miles if I'm lazy or 169 miles if I make a bit of effort.

Most statements about range are absolutely meaningless because most people, even unfit ones, have enough power to ride an electric MTB without the power switched on, which means infinite range. The Bosch and similar controllers takes at least 700w from the battery, which means your bike can run at full power for 43 minutes in theory - probably closer to 30 minutes using full power, so a heavy person not pedalling very hard up a long steep hill at 10 mph would get 5 miles.

You can therefore say that any range between 5 miles and infinity is normal.

 

[D8ve]

Leigh ping it's not funny it's true. On a crap bike I got around 17 miles range.
On my current bike I was getting 150 miles without sparring the horses. I could get more as I have done over 400 miles without charging the battery, it's sitting in its protective case in the garage while I await a motor repair.

 

[IR772]

Allow me to continue being meaningless

Yamaha, 400 watt battery on the 2nd and 3rd of 4 power settings have done 34 miles on and off road, very steep hills as well and have 30 % battery left at the end. This a general range I regularly achieve.

I would say your Lapierre is poor especially with a 500 watt battery.

You have done a valid comparison of your two bikes as you and the route are constant the results are very different. 5 or 10 % ish either side would be Ok.

Gubbins also has results in the same ballpark as mine and your Cube.

See where I am going with this ?

There are enough of us on here with similar battery size mass built ebikes to be able to give a very good understanding of battery range for our most excellent bikes.

 

[IR772]

What would be good is to swap batteries and see if the Lapierre is inefficient or the battery poor.

You have the luxury to obtain an even better conclusion for us

 

[EddiePJ]

As D8veh has said, there are too many variables to ever be able to gauge available range/mileage from one fully charged battery.

Subject to terrain and wind/weather conditions and being realistic, I'd guess that the average range for my use is 27-30 miles with about 3,000ft of climbing. Sometimes this can be way more in both respects, and sometimes way less. That is using a CX motor and 500wh battery.
I also get more range from the bike when out riding with non EAPC riders than I do when I am out on my own, but from my experience the motor system really doesn't like the sustained low cadence level that is required to ride with non EAPC, even when in eco mode.

I'd get about the same using the Performance Line motor and 400wh battery. My take is that a Performance Line motor and 500wh battery would currently give the optimum range for a bosch system.

 

[RoyP]

Great answers guys and thanks for the input.
3rd day in a row and went out for a real short sharp spin on the cube. The harder you push the more it responds and lasts! 25 miles done with 1500 feet climbing and 2 KOM's (strava thing- deleted), on enduro loop and infamous climb! The cube didnt drop below 15 on any climb, same route i was down to 9mph on lapierre. Range went as low as 15 indicated miles in sport whilst blitzing the hills, but a leisurely eco 10 miles home saw me back with 40 Range still left!!! So 65+ on a hard mixed dayThis thing is magic! Battery swap not fully tested but lapierre is going back to dealer for replacement. Update soon. Thanks again

 

[RoyP]

 

[Gubbins]

Don't take much note of the range figure.. if it was written on paper you could wipe your btm with it.

 

[soundwave]

i cant see much point taking it back tbh as you have no error codes and you are getting the range most of us get with it with a 500w batt.

the range on the bosch bike system is all over the place as it only uses the last 30 mins of a ride to decide what is left in the batt.

my screen can say 4 miles left with 3 bars left on the screen pmsl.


so you really need to drain the batts till there flat on both bikes as both look the same waight ?

 

[Gubbins]

I find my Giant Yamaha more informative as instead of guessing how far it thinks you might be able to go it just shows a decreasing percentage of battery left.

 

[Trevormonty]

Great answers guys and thanks for the input.
3rd day in a row and went out for a real short sharp spin on the cube. The harder you push the more it responds and lasts! 25 miles done with 1500 feet climbing and 2 KOM's (strava thing- deleted), on enduro loop and infamous climb! The cube didnt drop below 15 on any climb, same route i was down to 9mph on lapierre. Range went as low as 15 indicated miles in sport whilst blitzing the hills, but a leisurely eco 10 miles home saw me back with 40 Range still left!!! So 65+ on a hard mixed dayThis thing is magic! Battery swap not fully tested but lapierre is going back to dealer for replacement. Update soon. Thanks again

To check batteries, test both on same bike over same circuit and power setting.

 

[Kinninvie]

Great answers guys and thanks for the input.
3rd day in a row and went out for a real short sharp spin on the cube. The harder you push the more it responds and lasts! 25 miles done with 1500 feet climbing and 2 KOM's (strava thing- deleted), on enduro loop and infamous climb! The cube didnt drop below 15 on any climb, same route i was down to 9mph on lapierre. Range went as low as 15 indicated miles in sport whilst blitzing the hills, but a leisurely eco 10 miles home saw me back with 40 Range still left!!! So 65+ on a hard mixed dayThis thing is magic! Battery swap not fully tested but lapierre is going back to dealer for replacement. Update soon. Thanks again

Join the Strava ebike club https://www.strava.com/clubs/EAPC and save your rides as "ebike" and you wont need to delete anything.
We have 61 members all over the world.
You can make your own segments as well which will help you figure out battery use by comparing times/speed over the same terrain.