What does your bike do with low battery?

Paul Wrighton

Pedelecer
Aug 6, 2018
84
24
65
I've had three Ebikes, all behaved differently:-
My Cyclotricity kit bike would flash zero and yet continue to power on, up o half a mile on the flat.
My KTM Macina would inevitably shutdown completely within yards
My Gocycle ceases to provide and motor power at TEN PERCENT! Saving the remainder to keep systems like dashboard, electronic shifting, running light, and night lights going.
 

vfr400

Esteemed Pedelecer
Jun 12, 2011
9,822
3,993
Basildon
My Gocycle ceases to provide and motor power at TEN PERCENT! Saving the remainder to keep systems like dashboard, electronic shifting, running light, and night lights going.
I wouldn't get two excited about it. 10% of what? The important thing is the cut-off voltage. Battery cells normally run from 4.2v down to 3.0v, so 10% up would be 3.12v; however, once you get to 3.2v there is virtually no charge left in the battery. The discharge curve isn't linear. It starts accelerating downwards from about 3.3v, so what they're saying is 10% might be closer to 1% of the actual charge.

Their battery is already pretty small by modern standards and battery capacity is a very significant characteristic for an ebike, so I can't see a company like Gocycle doing anything daft to compromise the range.

There are two controls for the battery cut-off point. The motor controller is normally set around 30v and the battery's internalmanagement system a bit lower. 2.5v is the start of the damage zone. It sounds like there's a bit of a margin, but at that point the discharge curve is almost vertical, so any use of the motor would take you straight down into it.

Most Chinese batteries will cut off when controller senses low voltage, typically when it's sagging due to high current draw. After a small rest, the battery will recover a bit and you can switch back on again and continue with a low power setting for maybe 5 miles or so depending on how much power you use. This is where current control controllers have an advantage because you can fix the current lower, while as speed control ones will still give max current at low speed, which causes the sag and another cut-off.

Here, you can see how typical batteries discharge:

 
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Nealh

Esteemed Pedelecer
Aug 7, 2014
21,084
8,621
61
West Sx RH
A good lcd /display will have a voltage readout for better user guidance, more accurate as a gauge then a simple battery bar indicator or led indicators. Ultimately the best option is a watt meter.
 

Scorpio

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 13, 2020
380
167
Portugal Algarve (temporary)
I've not tried many but every one I had behaved differently

A tired old 24v system would cut out under heavy load (up a hill), turn it off/on and it would show it still had 50% power.
A basic 36v system had 3 led's, the first went out before 50%, 2nd went out not long after, last LED stayed on a lot longer than I expected.
36v with a digital gauge was more like a mobile phone, bars on the "fuel gauge" worked fine, when the last bar started flashing you could still ride for a few gentle miles.