Better Bike PEBL

[freebeard]

...about 40 pounds of stuff - sleeping bag, extra clothing and boots, food (for the weekend) and water.

Friday—Sunday. Does this make it an RV?

[NeilBlanchard]

It was a weekend retreat. But, I have commuted in it, and run plenty of errands, too.

[NeilBlanchard]

I rode my PEBL 87.9 miles, and the battery pack was at 44V. Cutoff is 42V, on the unloaded reading. About half of that was using the high power mode. I weigh about 235 pounds, and there are a fair number of hills around here; including the one my house is on. About half the time, I was in high power mode.

The starting voltage is 54.4V, and the nominal is 48V. The battery is 64Ah total, so it is roughly a 3 kWh pack. If you count the whole charge, that is still pretty sweet at 34.13Wh/mile aka 987MPGe! (33.7kWh = 1 gallon gasoline)


54.4 - 42 = 12.4
10.4 / 12.4 = ~84% so 987 + 16% = 1144MPGe

Not too shabby!

I have ridden it about 1225 miles, total so far.

In early August, I am planning a 167 mile trip (each direction) - day and a half each way for travel, with 6 days there. First day is about 94 miles (with a brief charge at halfway) and the second day will be 73 miles on one charge.

Total elevation climb going is over 6800 feet and the total drop is over 6500 feet. The reverse on the way home, of course.

[NeilBlanchard]

I rode 134.5 miles over 5 days, and I measured the charge with my Kill-A-Watt.

I went essentially all the way down on a charge - the unloaded voltage was 42.2V (after climbing my steep hill) and in a couple of minutes, it recovered to 42.5V. I wouldn't want to go lower, because I had to pedal very hard to get up the hill, and I had to drop it back to standard mode, because high power was draining the battery quickly, at the end.

It was 44.2-ish and it went down past 43V in just a couple of minutes.

I rode one charge for 135.5 miles! About 1/3+ was on high power mode, because most of it was on rail trails, which are generally flat and have gentle slopes. I also pedaled a fair bit.

I measured the charge with my Kill-A-Watt meter - it took 3.94kWh. Which is a fair bit of overhead loss - the battery is nominally 3kWh, but the charger, and the cells lose power to heat, during charging.

So, the math is 29.08Wh / mile - which is 1158MPGe! Which is really good, obviously.

[Stubby79]

And, for comparison's sake... my electric scooter/moped (no pedalling) rings in at 43 wh/mile and my hybrid/road bike (pedal assist) rings in at 17. Your being smack in the middle sounds about right, all things considered.

[NeilBlanchard]

What is the motor rating on the scooter? The relative weight and aero drag and motor power, all affect it.

The extreme low consumption I know of is C. Michael Lewis' Electrathon record run: almost 60MPH for (over?) and hour on just two 12V batteries - about 15.3Wh / mile - at that speed!

[Grant-53]

Scooters and e-bikes are prime candidates for streamlining.

[NeilBlanchard]

The motor / gearbox on my PEBL is is dire need of lubrication, as it it starts "screaming" after a few miles of riding. I will have to remove it, and open it up to do it right. I have tried getting it done, in place, but it didn't help.

Also, the company Better.Bike has effectively been sold to someone in Europe, and they are beginning to produce them over there. These units will be shipped to the US, apparently. So, we'll have to wait to see how it goes.

[samwichse]

How many miles do you have on the PEBL now?