You can easily call a battery the heart of any electric bike. It adds up the most weight to the two-wheeler, but it’s the crucial part of this vehicle. With that in mind, your battery needs not only proper maintenance but a careful approach as well.
Besides, having an electric-powered vehicle instead of a fuel-powered one is way more affordable, especially when it comes to electric bikes. And while modern eBikes like Delfast TOP 3.0i have very long driving ranges on a single charge of ebike, it will never hurt to know how much your eBike battery will last. Many factors influence it, and the first is a proper charging process.
How and where to charge an electric bike?
The process of charging always depends on the manufacturer, but the main principle is always the same: detach the battery, place the charger or put the battery in the charger bay, and plug it in. Easy as that!
The best thing about electric bike batteries is their versatility ‒ unlike electric cars that need a proper 220V power outlet, electric bikes are fine with 110V to charge pretty fast. With that in mind, you can charge your electric bike battery nearly everywhere: at home, in the garage, or at any charging point in the USA. Basically, to charge bikes in the USA, all you have to do is have an access to a power outlet. Even in you stopped at a diner or gas station, you can just ask permission to use an outlet if you don’t plan to order anything. Besides, some gas stations have charging points for electric vehicles ‒ most of them are adapted to recharge your battery pretty fast.
How much does it cost to charge an eBike?
If you are not the person to go on long road trips with your electric bike, preferring to use it for the daily commute, chances are high you will charge your electric bike battery at home. This will, of course, cost you some money ‒ not a lot though. You can even calculate the cost of charging your eBike battery based on local electricity rates and your battery parameters.
To learn your local electricity rate, you can take a look through your bill, contact your local power company, or just use the average rate over the state you live in. The other pieces of information you need are provided by the electric bike manufacturer ‒ just check the user manual or the battery itself to learn the voltage and Ah of the batter. If anything, you can easily google these parameters for your eBike model.
Now, let’s calculate the cost of 1KWh worth of charging your eBike.
- First, you need to get Wh (watt-hours) for your electric bike. To do that, multiply the voltage and Ah. For this and further calculations in this article, we’ll use the specifications of Delfast TOP 3.0i. It has a battery with 72V and 47 Ah, meaning you get 3384 watt-hours. That’s a lot more than other electric bikes because the motor of TOP 3.0 allows it to slide under the Class 2 category.
- Now we need to get KWh. To do that, we need to divide watt-hours by 1000. With our example, we get 3.384 KWh.
- The last step is to use your local electricity rate and multiply it by the KWh value from the previous step. Let’s pretend we’re in California and our average price per 1 KWh is 23.22 cents. As a result, one charge of your Delfast TOP 3.0 in California will cost you roughly 79 cents. Compared to fueling your car or motorcycle, this is more than affordable.
Now we know the price for a single charge, a new question arises: how long will this one charge last?
How long can an eBike drive on a single charge?
A lot of factors influence the range, actually. Everything from terrain conditions to the weight carried by your two-wheeler affects the distance it can ride on a single charge. But you can still calculate the average ‒ we’re talking about a single-charge range in perfect conditions (smooth terrain, perfect air pressure in tires, no extra weight carried by electric bike, average speed).
First, we have watt-hours. As we’ve discovered earlier for TOP 3.0i, it has 3384 Wh for its battery. Depending on conditions, 1 mile takes from 4 to 35 Wh of power. Taking the average of 16 Wh per mile, a battery with 3384 Wh will last for around 200 miles. This is the actual single-charge range stated by Delfast.
The more Wh your battery gives out, the shorter your range becomes. So, if you’re planning a long drive and you’re not sure if you’ll have enough stops to charge your electric bike, it’s better to know what kind of actions can shorten your range:
- using high pedal-assist modes or a throttle power for too long;
- riding with deflated tires;
- improper maintenance and disruption of charging cycles;
- storing your battery or riding an eBike in cold weather.
Keep in mind that an electric bike battery needs attentive maintenance to last longer and provide you with a good range. If anything, you can always carry an extra battery with you.
Knowing how to charge bikes in the USA, how much it costs and how long can your eBike go on a single charge will help you prepare better for your rides and take better care of your electric bike.
