Upgrade Cargo bike Babboe

Hi, I have got a Babboe city-e (https://www.babboe.co.uk/babboe-city-e) with a rear motor GWA 250W, 40Nm.
The bike works fine in flat situations but the performance up hill is very poor and I’m considering to upgrade aiming for a better support in this case. I don’t mind about speed or range, I just would like more assistance up hill.
Reading through other posts I understand upgrading the controller may help in this case but I can’t find a suitable solution.
Battery: https://www.babboe.co.uk/gwa-battery-r37-375-wh
Controller: https://www.babboe.co.uk/babboe-controllerbox-gwa-r37


As it is a cargo bike if needed I could easily accomodate a big battery.
Thanks in advance for any help

Best, M

To climb hills faster, you'll need more power, which your controller can't provide and your battery or motor might not be able to withstand. That's a tiny battery that is probably a close fit for a 250W motor and controller.

If you can tell us the amp rating for your controller, and the cruising speed you reach on the flat, we can reckon how much actual power you have to work with. My guess is that no amount of re-jiggering the system you've got will turn that big heavy bike into a capable hill climber. I think you'll need a more powerful controller, battery, and motor.

Thank you very much for your reply.
Normally when full loaded (let’s say 120 kg + bike) in the flat i can reach 26 km/h.
I’m not sure how to get more info on the controller in addition to the general specs from the website.
I was hoping to get a bit more “kick” up hill with limited intervention....
Cheers
M

Well, lots of more powerful rear hub motors out there. But they will need the new more powerful controller to run it. Which will murder your smaller battery quickly.

The only really good news is that your bike can carry a bigger battery, much bigger than you will need for a modest increase in power, say 1200w max.

Your best bet would be either a mid drive motor kit, or a direct drive rear motor kit, 48v, with 1000w of rated power. These typically have 500w rated motor, but easily handle up to 1500w. And of course, a new battery for it, preferably 12-15 amp hours in size.

Another way to go, would be to add an additional low power motor kit to the front wheel, with its own battery and controller. One throttle can control both. this in effect, doubles your motor power.

What specifically are the hills you need to climb? What slope (% or grade), and how long are they?

What do you consider "poor" performance, and what exact performance do you want out of it?

What speed do you get out of it now? And what speed do you want out of it, on the worst-case hill, with the worst-case headwind you will ever encounter?

WIth that, and your total weight (you and the entire bike and the heaviest cargo you ever carry), the power needed to do what you want can be calculated or at least guesstimated.

Without that information, and any other specific details you can provide, we can really only say "you need a bigger motor, and a bigger controller to run that motor, and a bigger battery to power the system".

The more general your answers, the less information we have to work with to help you.

The more specific and inclusive of information your answers are, the more help we can provide.

If for some reason you cannot provide the information, you can go to http://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html and use that to setup systems similar to yours under conditions similar to yours, and tweak them until you get similar results to what you get now. That will show you some of what is happening that causes your problem. THen you can alter the system to see how things interact, until you find a system that does what you want it to do.

Hi,
The hills i’m referring is about 1-2km long with an average of 8% (5% up to 10%). The motor assistance is not enough without putting a lot of effort in pedaling (just to clarify sometime with some extra 5-10 kg weight, I need to walk it up).
Would be good to have enough assistance to go up with limited effort and I don’t actually mind about the speed.
Total load is usually 120kg + about 60kg of the bike
Thank you very much
Max