£695 for 1100 charges at a conservative 70 miles per charge = 1.1 pence per mile.
Add charge current at 15 pence per unit, i.e. 0.17 pence per mile = 1.3 pence per mile total.
Lowest cost powered vehicle on the road.
Sourcing a Kalkhoff 18Ah Lithium Battery
- Thread starter eclectic_bike
- Start date
Add charge current at 15 pence per unit, i.e. 0.17 pence per mile = 1.3 pence per mile total.
Lowest cost powered vehicle on the road.
With due respect that does read rather like an advert - it is likely to be met by very few users.
One would have to cover 77000 miles to meet your cost per mile. If we assume a useful life of say five years that works out at an average of nearly 300 miles per week. I wonder how many people would average this?
I think, for the majority of e-bike users, the battery is likely to be time expired long before it’s reached its advertised maximum number of cycles. This applies to any battery, not just this particular one. It does look good in the advertising though.
I believe costs per mile could be more realistically calculated by dividing the cost of the battery by your total estimated mileage over the estimated lifetime, in years, of the battery.
There is also the matter of premature failure to consider. As we all know if a battery fails it’s more than likely that it’s impractical to repair and is written off. Perhaps, in the case of a battery, one should calculate costs over the guarantee period only.
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Looks good when you apply the maths, I thought my 37v 20ah lipo pack was expensive at £350.........
Of course it is best for high mileage users. In the e-bike market it is a problem that a large proportion only do quite low mileages, especially leisure users for whom ownership is often very expensive. That's an owner problem, not an e-bike one.
Although the price of the best batteries looks very high, as I've often observed recently, things are not always what they seem at first glance. There are still many much lower cost lithium batteries with much lower capacities and which struggle to reach two years of life and/or 300 charges. They might look a better bet at £200, but not so good against a four to five year 1100 charge battery.
Incidentally juhruk, 77,000 miles is the quoted mileage capability of the 18 Ah Kalkhoff battery and what I based the calculation on to be conservative. There wouldn't be much point in a low mileage user buying a 24 Ah battery in the first place.
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Although the price of the best batteries looks very high, as I've often observed recently, things are not always what they seem at first glance. There are still many much lower cost lithium batteries with much lower capacities and which struggle to reach two years of life and/or 300 charges. They might look a better bet at £200, but not so good against a four to five year 1100 charge battery.
Incidentally juhruk, 77,000 miles is the quoted mileage capability of the 18 Ah Kalkhoff battery and what I based the calculation on to be conservative. There wouldn't be much point in a low mileage user buying a 24 Ah battery in the first place.
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I wasn’t suggesting the battery’s not capable of 77000 miles, just that few users are likely to get that mileage out of it.
The size of battery required is related to the length of an individual trip, not the total mileage covered. I would class myself as a low mileage leisure user, but I require a large capacity battery because the trips I do tend to be quite long. Conversely a more regular user doing shorter trips might do a much greater total mileage, but get by with a smaller battery.
Returning to the guarantee I notice 50 Cycles advertise extended warranties, although I don’t know if this covers batteries. I normally steer clear of these when offered on household goods, but it could make battery cost much more predictable. One could then add on the cost of the extended warranty and do cost calculations over the extended period. The cost and length of extension would be an indication of the sellers confidence in the product.
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I wouldn't calculate in extended warranties since I think of them as you do
The wish for long trips but only intermittently is a problem, but as said, a user one and not a valid criticism of a price. I only do less than 700 miles a year in my town car, bought new, making it expensive on an annual basis, but I wouldn't dream of telling the manufacturer that makes his car price too high, that would be ridiculous. The Kalkhoff 24 Ah battery price is in fact not out of the ordinary in any way though.
Prices per watt/hour of a sample of ebike lithium batteries all rated at nominal 36 or 24 volts for comparisons, from the highest to lowest cost one on the market for genuine replacements:
BionX 10 Ah....................£2.92
Powacycle 10.5 Ah..........£1.24
Kalkhoff 24 Ah................£1.21
Wisper 14 Ah..................£1.04
eZee 14 Ah....................£0.99
Juicybike 14 Ah..............£0.76
Kudos 9 Ah....................£0.64
Average cost per W/h = £1.20, or excluding the BionX one, £0.91.
I would include more mainstream ones, but many don't publish their battery prices.
The comparison favours the Kalkhoff battery even more when one considers that at least one of those in the list is somewhat unlikely to get past two years life or 500 charges.
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The wish for long trips but only intermittently is a problem, but as said, a user one and not a valid criticism of a price. I only do less than 700 miles a year in my town car, bought new, making it expensive on an annual basis, but I wouldn't dream of telling the manufacturer that makes his car price too high, that would be ridiculous. The Kalkhoff 24 Ah battery price is in fact not out of the ordinary in any way though.
Prices per watt/hour of a sample of ebike lithium batteries all rated at nominal 36 or 24 volts for comparisons, from the highest to lowest cost one on the market for genuine replacements:
BionX 10 Ah....................£2.92
Powacycle 10.5 Ah..........£1.24
Kalkhoff 24 Ah................£1.21
Wisper 14 Ah..................£1.04
eZee 14 Ah....................£0.99
Juicybike 14 Ah..............£0.76
Kudos 9 Ah....................£0.64
Average cost per W/h = £1.20, or excluding the BionX one, £0.91.
I would include more mainstream ones, but many don't publish their battery prices.
The comparison favours the Kalkhoff battery even more when one considers that at least one of those in the list is somewhat unlikely to get past two years life or 500 charges.
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I wasn’t criticizing the Kalkoff battery at all and I didn’t suggest the price was too high - I just thought your cost per mile calculation a little optimistic for most users - and I’m trying to delay tiling the bathroom.
I started a thread last year to show comparison replacement battery costs per watt/hour. One of the problems I saw, as you point out, was that no account could be made for the quality, or length of life. It seems to me that batteries are often sold, or at least advertised, on their no of cycles with no mention of shelf life. As far as I know there is no real standard for a ‘cycle’, and shelf life is impossible to measure for a fast changing product.
The best guide would seem to be experience and perhaps somewhere on the forum where users could report this, in a standard form, might be useful - providing it was not abused.
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You are right and I've corrected the chart, thanks for putting me right. I'd just got too used to the idea of the new Panasonic and Impulse units being 36 volts and got carried away. Still not the dearest though.
I understand, my remark was aimed more generally at the several comments on it. Can't blame you for wanting to delay the tiling though, best left for the next resident after you move!I wasn’t criticizing the Kalkoff battery at all and I didn’t suggest the price was too high - I just thought your cost per mile calculation a little optimistic for most users - and I’m trying to delay tiling the bathroom.
You're quite right - I'm at the point where I rather wish I hadn't started it.
Much rather be e-biking - whatever the cost of batteries!
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