Would fast charging make much difference?

[AntonyC]

I like this idea by @mr_ed that I've lifted from another thread:

"Similarly with fast-charging.... I don't think it has to shorten battery life or cause fires. It works ok for Tesla where they can recharge something like 50% in 20 minutes. If I could do that on my e-bike I could carry a much smaller battery and go on much longer leisure/touring rides without having to use hotels to charge overnight. Again, I think currently its a case of e-bike batteries & chargers not being designed for fast charging [...]"

I can picture coffee and cake at a bike friendly cafe with a fast charging connector on an outside wall. But would fast charging see widespread and/or regular use or is it too niche to count? Would it actually make a difference?

 

[guerney]

I can picture coffee and cake at a bike friendly cafe with a fast charging connector on an outside wall.

The battery could then sink into a sand pit deep underground via an elevator, in case it bursts into flames burning your croissant and evaporating your coffee. This could work ok, but if the sand pit isn't sandy enough, the fire could ignite a nearby coal seam burning your town from beneath, with all the EVs exploding to help out.

But would fast charging see widespread and/or regular use or is it too niche to count?

Insurers will hate it. Seems they hate us already.

 

[matthewslack]

Needs some numbers to illustrate.

I use three different effective charging rates, depending on circumstances, and the fastest of them gives me 80 miles per day capability with touring gear, in the winter.

Slow: standard Shimano 1.8A charger. No use except at home.
Medium: Shimano 4.6A charger. Puts one bar out of five into the battery in 25 minutes (418Wh).
Fast: Two batteries, two 4.6A chargers, total 9.2A.

Take an hour for lunch in a cafe, and an hour in a pub for dinner, that's 18.2Ah or 655Wh charging per day.

If you have a 625 or 750Wh battery then for a day ride you probably don't need it. But a couple of added bars at lunchtime is very useful for the rest of us.

 

[guerney]

Take an hour for lunch in a cafe, and an hour in a pub for dinner, that's 18.2Ah or 655Wh charging per day.

Is there a map of ebike battery friendly cafes and pubs? If they're less than 40 miles apart all over the country, I could camp out and travel anywhere for the price of coffees, croissants, pies and beer... if I bought a fast charging battery and fast charger. Perhaps such a map could spark a national trend? Eat Out To Camp Out And Pedelec About.

 

[AntonyC]

There'd be an online zap map for low power (ebikes, trikes and mobility scooters). Each charging point could display addresses of other nearby points, although that's not much help without a satnav.

A single 2A charger adds only 9 miles of range each hour, so adding 80 miles in 2 hours is good going. Is this something you'd rely upon if you had a new 400Wh Shimano battery?

 

[Az.]

If you want healthy and safe battery, charge it slowly.

 

[thelarkbox]

But it only takes one cafe manager/owner to start charging £££s for the privilege of connecting to the power once everyone has invested in low mass batteries with high power input capacity bms systems for everyone to be scuppered with another leeching , ever increasing cost burdon.

With the aid of a motor, the added mass of upto 10kg+ for batteries is inconsequential to performance.. (if you allow the motor to pick up the slack.. )

I would rather pay a little more upfront and lug the power i need with me than rely on 3rd party providers motivated by profit.

Im sure faster charging will end up in the ebike world too but i hope not in the manner envisaged in this thread 'shudder!!'

 

[guerney]

A single 2A charger adds only 9 miles of range each hour, so adding 80 miles in 2 hours is good going. Is this something you'd rely upon if you had a new 400Wh Shimano battery?

With a 2A charger, it takes 10 hours to charge my 36V 19.2Ah battery from flat. It'd be nice if I could safely fast charge a 20Ah battery with 16A.... 4A per 5Ah module, by somehow isolating and charging each 5Ah module separately, reconnecting the modules when done. It'd be simpler carrying four 5Ah batteries and fast chargers between ebike charging friendly cafes and pubs.

Would fast charging make much difference?

I guess for most ebikers, fast charging isn't important because most journeys are short ie totalling <40 miles a day? Therefore manufacturers won't be bothering to develop ultra-fast charging ebike batteries for non-commercial use.

 

[matthewslack]

There'd be an online zap map for low power (ebikes, trikes and mobility scooters). Each charging point could display addresses of other nearby points, although that's not much help without a satnav.

A single 2A charger adds only 9 miles of range each hour, so adding 80 miles in 2 hours is good going. Is this something you'd rely upon if you had a new 400Wh Shimano battery?

Bear in mind the 80 miles in 2 hours is because I am charging two batteries with two chargers, which means there is a spare battery as well as the two chargers to carry. About 5kg.

I would have no concerns on charge rate as these are official Shimano chargers, so designed for this use. 4.6A into the 418Wh / 11.6Ah battery is only 0.4C, so not 'fast' in the way an EV fast charger or phone fast charger is.

They do '80% in 30 minutes', which is 1.6C, 4 times as fast. Imagine that!

 

[Nealh]

Differerence between fast charging a Tesla and a EAPC batteyr is night and day, the forma having 1000's of more amps to with stand any faster charge current .

 

[AntonyC]

So imagine that 0.8C isn't a stretch. For longevity you'd charge at home mostly and keep fast charging for further afield.

To visit somewhere 20 miles away averaging 10Wh/mile you'd need a 400Wh battery, or a 300Wh battery and a 25 minute top-up. 30 miles distant would need 75 minutes charging, a long lunch. 40 miles needs 2 charge stops, or about £420 for a second battery at Shimano rates.

If fast chargers were some 10 miles apart how many of us would use them?

 

[AntonyC]

> it only takes one cafe manager/owner to start charging £££s

Too true, but what if the online zap map shows popularity i.e. how much usage each charger gets? The moderately busy ones probably aren't expensive or broken. Usage fees are up to the provider, but with more customers being the reward in many cases there's an incentive not to charge.

 

[flecc]

Is there a map of ebike battery friendly cafes and pubs? If they're less than 40 miles apart all over the country, I could camp out and travel anywhere for the price of coffees, croissants, pies and beer... if I bought a fast charging battery and fast charger. Perhaps such a map could spark a national trend? Eat Out To Camp Out And Pedelec About.

> it only takes one cafe manager/owner to start charging £££s

Too true, but what if the online zap map shows popularity i.e. how much usage each charger gets? The moderately busy ones probably aren't expensive or broken. Usage fees are up to the provider, but with more customers being the reward in many cases there's an incentive not to charge.

As so often said, there's nothing new under Sun, see this link about such a company jointly created byPedelecs members Morphix (Paul) and funkylin (Linda) and financed by members, including myself:

Final mile eBike solution

The problem that I see is that you will have to leave an expensive battery in a public place for 6 hours or so. My bike takes a lot less than that to charge and sometimes you don't need a full charge just a little boost to get you where you need to go and back. There can easily be compartments...

www.pedelecs.co.uk

.

 

[AntonyC]

Brilliant flecc, thanks... last seen here around 2016, they / he'd been trying to develop the concept, company, website, app and recycling business... hmm.

Maybe it's good for this to resurface every few years, these days the tech side's easier and who knows, a CIC might entail less overhead. I wonder if Paul would put the website etc. on github for 'next time around'.

As your links and the responses here show it's the potential interest and these practicalities that make or break, so keep it coming.

 

[guerney]

There'd be an online zap map for low power (ebikes, trikes and mobility scooters). Each charging point could display addresses of other nearby points, although that's not much help without a satnav.

Oh no! As usual it's a horrible data slurping app which requires the creation of an account, to enable even more data slurpage (to sell your data) before you are allowed to see what the yellow house icon means, after you search for a 3 pin charging facility on the Zap Map. I'm also annoyed that it's useful! For a particular 76 mile journey between a city an a town I'm considering ebiking regularly, there's a yellow house icon of currently undefined meaning (I haven't created a Zappo account) at the 36 mile mark. Perhaps I can ask the owner if I can sleep on their lawn for 10 hours to slow charge my 19.2Ah battery at 2A? There may be an additional sleeping bag lawn yawn/wear fee, but f they charge by the Kw, this could be cheaper than a AirBnB. Slow charging is all I'd trust with my particular somewhat aged battery composed of LG MH1 cells. After which I can spring up all vertical and jump on my ebike to pedal (max assisted, as usual) the remaining 40 miles, if my three year old battery still has the range.

Is Kings Lynn to John O Groats possible using yellow house icons, the ones with cheap lawns for hire?

 

[AntonyC]

The key to the icons is in the top right corner. I'm seeing full addresses, business names and charging status without being logged in, nice, although not contact details.

Zap-Home charging network guide - Zapmap

Zap-Home charging network guide - Zapmap

The Zap-Home charging network guide from Zapmap. See Zap-Home] network costs, how to use the Zap-Home network, as well as how to find Zap-Home points on Zapmap.

www.zap-map.com

Good luck with the new girlfriend

 

[flecc]

The key to the icons is in the top right corner. I'm seeing full addresses, business names and charging status without being logged in, nice, although not contact details.

There's more information about pan European Ebike charging in this article by Powerunity:

Finding an e-bike charging station: keep your e-bike fully functional

Where is the nearest e-bike charging station when the battery runs out? We tell you which tools and apps you can use to find it! ▷ Read now!

powunity.com

.

 

[saneagle]

So imagine that 0.8C isn't a stretch. For longevity you'd charge at home mostly and keep fast charging for further afield.

To visit somewhere 20 miles away averaging 10Wh/mile you'd need a 400Wh battery, or a 300Wh battery and a 25 minute top-up. 30 miles distant would need 75 minutes charging, a long lunch. 40 miles needs 2 charge stops, or about £420 for a second battery at Shimano rates.

If fast chargers were some 10 miles apart how many of us would use them?

How about this. Instead of eating a a big lunch, which will cause you to permanently carry extra weight, you carry a spare 10ah battery, which weighs only 2kg - approximately the same as the lunch and beer you'd be carrying in your stomach. When you get to the destination, you swap them over, or better still, use a 20ah battery.

 

[lenny]

"Supercapacitor-powered bikes like those from Ostrichoo offer a shorter range – about 70 kilometers per charge. However, this is offset by their rapid charging capability, with Ostrichoo claiming up to 80 percent charge in just eight minutes using specific chargers."

https://www.gizmochina.com/2023/12/28/ostrichoo-e-bike-ultra-fast-charging/

 

[mr_ed]

The reason I originally asked this question/mused this future development is because I've been doing some longer trips on my e-bike whereby I need to use the power sparingly to get the range I desire, or plan accomodation where I can charge overnight.

I have a BBSHD with a 17.5Ah battery and a 2A charger. It'll do 50 miles fairly comfortably using a nice amount of power.

For one example, I cycled to Bath along the Kennet & Avon canal, this was 50 miles and I got the train back and then had enough power to cycle from the train station back home. I subsequently observed I could probably have found a 3-pin plug on the train and added 2-3Ah during the return journey, but no guarantees. I'd have happily locked the bike up for a couple of hours in Bath and recharged such that I could cycle full journey home.

For another example, I cycled from home to the Isle of Wight (~45 miles), recharged overnight in a Travelodge, then did a full lap (85 miles) of the Island, then recharged overnight again in the Travelodge, then cycled home again. I'd have rather camped but there would've been no charging available then. On the 85 mile day, I was really pushing it on range and so was using minimal power. I'd have been much happier if I could've fast charged 8Ah or so over lunch or a cake break. I did observe there were some 3 pin plugs available on the 1 hour ferry crossing.

I know I can buy a 10A charger, although possibly my battery (an EM3EV) wasn't really designed to be charged at that rate. I went in a few Cafes and possibly I could've asked them if it was ok to charge for a bit, but there's no guarantees they'd be happy with that.

....so that's what got me thinking. There's now a pretty amazing network of public fast chargers for cars. Cars and mobile phones can do something like 50% charge in 30 mins. It'd be great if an e-bike battery was developed that could fast charge and use the network of public car chargers.

There are some obvious physical constraints, like the charge connector that cars use is huge!

I'd not realised that Zap map also listed 3-pin plugs. That could be useful and a step in the right direction!

p.s. I'm not sure this is available even for motorbikes yet... A colleague of mine got a parking ticket for charging his electric motorbike in an 'electric cars only' parking space.