Distance and charging battery cost ?

[Bill Snow]

I am thinking of switching from some reliable and nice looking gas motorized bikes I have put together over the years to an equal quality electric bike. Will probably convert one of my gas bikes to electric using a quality rear hub motor. I will use the light weight batteries I have been reading about, like those sold by a person called Ping. Maybe 48v.

It was brought to my attention today, charging a battery will take a lot of power and leave me with a pretty high electric bill at the end of the month. I know they are raising the electrical rates in my area and the more electricity I use the higher the rate. I am not a commuter, just enjoy a hour or two ride on a nice day in a select area. I know I will not have the range of a gas bike, if I put it together with quality equipment and a good size battery pack the range maybe o.k. for a two hour ride ( without pedaling ).

Is a two ride at 18 to 20 mph asking too much for a good electric kit ?

Charging a large 48v battery pack costly on our electric bill ? I have no figures in mind only except what I was told: If I did much riding I could see a $30.00 or more increase in my electric bill.


Bill Snow

Fresno, Ca.

 

[itchynackers]

For my electric bill to increase $30/month, I would need to ride 10,000miles at 20mph...per month. This is based on 0.15c/kwh rates. Lets see, 10000mi/20mph = 500 hours of riding.

500hrs/30 days = 16.7 hours riding per day.

That leaves 7.3 hrs for sleep.

Totally doable.

 

[dogman dan]

It will cost you plenty, but that's to buy the battery. Charging it can be about 10 cents, and even a huge battery only 50 cents per trip.

At 18 mph, a 48v 15 ah ping should take you for about an hour and a half of riding, and go about 30 miles. At 20-25 mph, more like 20 miles and one hour. That's on a bicycle, and pedaling but not pedaling hard.

Converting a small motorcycle, you'd likely be heavier, possibly have more drag, lose 50-100w per hour of pedaling, and very very likely be built more for 30 mph. That could double or triple the energy used, especially more speed. My longtail cargo bike is pretty similar to that, big, heavy, and goes 30 mph. With that, I get about 10-12 miles at 30 mph from the same size battery, and can drain it in half an hour.

48v 15 ah ping only holds about 750 watt hours. Including extra time the charger runs to balance the pack (even overnight), it never takes much more than 1 kwh to charge it. In my town, this costs about 12 cents for 1 kwh. So an hour and a half at 18 mph costs at the very most, 12 cents.

So if you figured the worst case scenario, a 30 mile ride at 30 mph, you still come in under 50 cents electricity for the ride. Gas might cost as much as a buck and a half for the same ride. So it's not the charge that busts your ass.

Making a mistake, and ruining a battery early is what costs you plenty, when you get into EV's. So don't undersize your battery for the motor and controller strength, and murder the thing. If you will be carrying a very large battery, a ping can be fine. But don't try to run 40 amps controllers on a 15 ah ping.

 

[Tommy L]

For my electric bill to increase $30/month, I would need to ride 10,000miles at 20mph...per month. This is based on 0.15c/kwh rates. Lets see, 10000mi/20mph = 500 hours of riding.

500hrs/30 days = 16.7 hours riding per day.

That leaves 7.3 hrs for sleep.

Totally doable.

After reading this, my SMILE cannot get any bigger! Just Awesome!

As itchynackers has pointed out, once one knows real world usage, and knows cost of that usage, electric is a no brainer.

Tommy L sends......

 

[Tommy L]

As itchynackers has pointed out, once one knows real world usage, and knows cost of that usage, electric is a no brainer.

One must also factor in the expense of the battery pack too. If you ride daily and spend 700.00 on a pack and you ride for
5 years......... 365 x 5 = 1825 days ......700 / 1825 = 38 cents
10 years......365 x 10 = 3,650 days....... 700 / 3650 =19 cents


5 years .38 + .50 to fill is 88 cents per ride for 30miles.........about 3 cents a mile
10 years .19 + .50 to fill is 69 cents per ride for 30 miles..... about 2 cents a mile

No oil to change, no spark plugs, Nice and quiet

hmmmmmmm no brainer!

Tommy L sends....

 

[Bill Snow]

Thanks

Your answers are very clear and a big help to me.

I did not mean to imply that my gas bikes are motorcycles. One is a Tour Easy recumbent, also a recumbent type Trike and the others are cruiser bikes. My thoughts are: The trike and the Tour Easy should do pretty well with large battery packs. This maybe over kill but I have thought of installing two large battery packs of Ping batteries. The idea of course is to switch to the second pack as pack #1 looses power. I like the idea of being able to switch to the second pack, for me it seems simple and I think I have more control.

Simple, quality, and reliability is my up most interest. I am not sharp enough to design my own system, so will count on a good company to deal with. That is where guidance from this forum is very important to me. The form is so well put together and there seems to be some pretty sharp people here.

My thanks for taking the time to answer questions on this post.

Best Regards

Bill Snow
Fresno, California














t

 

[Tommy L]

Hi Bill,

I have a few electric bikes.
One being a Catrike Very efficient with it's profile to the wind.
You will use less watt hours with your trike over a conventional bicycle

Also, It is less stress on the battery if you build one large one than having 2 smaller ones and switching.

Having as many cells in Parallel as possible spreads the stress out. Hence, using a 12s2p as one pack is better
than using 12s1p and switching over to the other 12s1p. S is for Series and P is for parallel.

Having Parallel cells is much better and easier on the battery. 1p is no cells in parallel with 12 cells in series.
If each cell has a value of 3.3v then you have 12x 3.3v for a nominal voltage of 39.6v. And the 1p means that if a cell in a battery configuration can handle 5C (5x amp hour rating) and lets say the amp hour rating is 2.3ahr, then you should not ask the pack to do more than approx 10amps at 36v or 360watts on a continued basis (it might handle some peaks).
Now if you have a 12s2p then you can place 20amps at 36v or 720watts of stress on the battery pack.

I use 24s4p so I have 79volts and my 4p is 9.2amp hours so 5C x 9.2 is approx 45amps and 45amps x 79v is approx 3,500 watts
of continued stress my pack can handle. It will do short peaks of 250amps (5 to 10 seconds worth) for 15,000watts. My set up does not allow for peaks that high! lol

So understanding the "C" of a battery pack, you can then size Battery Pack to your set up and not stress out the pack.
It's a big expense, so be kind to the pack and size appropriately.

Tommy L sends....

 

[SamTexas]

One must also factor in the expense of the battery pack too. If you ride daily and spend 700.00 on a pack and you ride for
5 years......... 365 x 5 = 1825 days ......700 / 1825 = 38 cents
10 years......365 x 10 = 3,650 days....... 700 / 3650 =19 cents

Even the 1825 cycles is overly optimistic. That's possible with the best LiFePo4, but definitely not with LiCo.

 

[Tommy L]

One must also factor in the expense of the battery pack too. If you ride daily and spend 700.00 on a pack and you ride for
5 years......... 365 x 5 = 1825 days ......700 / 1825 = 38 cents
10 years......365 x 10 = 3,650 days....... 700 / 3650 =19 cents

Even the 1825 cycles is overly optimistic. That's possible with the best LiFePo4, but definitely not with LiCo.

SamTexas,

Yes you are most correct on the LiCo. My Bad...... I was referring to A123 LiFePO4 and I should mention
that I automatically size my pack not to use more than 50% DOD and most of the time I only use the first
25% apparently giving the best possible cycle life. I also size to keep the least amount of stress which also aids
in cycle life

Tommy L sends....

 

[LSBW]

Never mind ebike

Let's see how much it cost to charge 16 KWH batter pack of Chevy Volt, good for 64 km, shall we?

http://gm-volt.com/chevy-volt-reasons-for-use-and-cost-of-operation/


If we use the average, the cost to recharge the Volt will be $0.85, and the range for 2007 will be from 48 cents to $1.34 depending where you live.

Enough said

 

[dogman dan]

Ahh, somehow I got the idea they were 90-150cc motorcycles. I guess it was the no pedaling comment made me think pedaling impossible.

Get a 48v 15 ah ping, and see how it goes with just that. Easily has 2 hours of riding in it at sub 20 mph. 48v 20 ah is hard to carry on most bikes, but two 48v 15's should carry ok on the trike. Or it's possible to carry one in each pannier of a regular bike.

But just one 48v 15 ah ping will carry well on nearly any bike, and get you 20-35 miles of range. Start with one, and see if you really need another. Another nice trick for range extension is to carry just 5 ah more in the form of RC lipo type battery. Small, light, easy to carry, it can be the perfect reserve tank for just in case.

For your desired, slower speeds, look at EM3ev for the slower versions of the Mac motor. Like the 10T. Then run 48v. It will run naturally more efficient than a fast motor run at half throttle.

Oh, btw, Justin rode from ocean to ocean across Canada on like 5 bucks of electricity.

 

[Ykick]

NYC's where I primarily commute and electricty is roughly 30 cents/kWh after tax which is probably at least double what many folks pay around the country. My 50V 30A bike costs 2 cents/mile to recharge here in the land of Bloomberg and $12 Beer. I ride 200-250 miles per month which adds roughly $4-5 to my monthly bill.

Fresno? It may depend how close you currently get to the "allotment" ripoff. I know in San Diego, when you go over what some bean counter thinks you should use per month they double or even triple your kWh rate. But, that will probably never reach the 30 cents/kWh ConEd sticks NYC customers.

 

[dogman dan]

Wow, I thought we had high rates here, at about 12-13 cents. Using about 1 kwh at most per day shouldn't bust your chops too much.

If it puts you over some limit where your bill goes way up, look into your house. Surely you can save 30kwh a month somewhere. If you were living eco, you wouldn't be so close to the limit I bet. Look at cooling costs particularly. A few shade cloth screens on south windows could be all you need, or setting a thermostat different. Insulate if you can.

 

[Bill Snow]

Well, thanks to you all my thinking has really changed

Tommy, you and Dogman took a lot of time to help me with details for this project, I plan to follow your suggestions about one large pack rather than two smaller packs. The motor and trike sounds good also. My trike is not as low slung as Tommy's, It has two 2 - 20" wheels in front and 1- 20" in the back. I had it made in southern California, I think it is called a "American Trike". It's strong so should do well with a large battery pack.

Best Regards
Bill Snow

 

[Tommy L]

Bill,

You are most welcome! Also, for low centre of gravity, keep that battery pack as low as possible! :wink:
Some have found room under their knee/lower thigh area. Some have found room in front of the rear wheel.

I'm happy with your decision on running as much battery as possible. Keep the stress off your pack!
When possible, never use more that 50% of your pack. I only use between 25 and 50% and my A123 stay very well
in balance.

Learning about "C" rate and understanding how to size your battery pack is key to battery pack longevity.

Hope to see you back here soon Bill. Nice to see reports

Tommy L sends....