E-Bikes & Bikes Customised to You
Hey guys, Dustin here, CEO of sixthreezero. I want to talk to you today about eBike batteries, and more specifically, how long will my eBike battery last? This is not an easy question to answer. I can't just tell you straight away, two years, one year, two months, one month. Hopefully, it won't last one month, but with that said, I'll talk a little bit about lithium-ion batteries and a couple of things that I think that people aren't really aware of generally speaking as consumers.
So, lithium-ion batteries, they're everywhere and that's also what the battery is for eBikes. Inside of the eBikes, usually it's a casing and inside of that, there are many battery cells. A lot of times they look like little double A batteries. The cells can also look different than that. And those are all wired together to form one battery, typically speaking. So, you're going to find lithium-ion battery in everything you use, including your cellphone, computers, your laptops, wireless vacuums, iPads, things of that nature. It's the same concept in an eBike.
And so, I think one thing a lot of consumers don't know, is that without a doubt your battery will die, in any product that uses a lithium-ion battery. Just as a double a battery is going to die that you buy from Home Depot, your lithium-ion battery will die in your phone. It will die on your laptop, at some point in time.
Now, the question is, how long will that take? Or what can I do to preserve the battery? We can talk a little bit about that today as well. But I think this is something that a lot of people don't know with their cell phones. Your phone starts draining down and then all of a sudden after a year your phone doesn't hold a charge. Then after two years, it doesn't hold a charge at all.
And they make it like impossible to change your battery. And no one really tells you, well that's just what to expect and they don't make it easy to replace those batteries. Same is going to be true in your bike. The question is, how long will it last? Broadly speaking, it's going to last for about a thousand cycle charges. Now, that really is very broad. It's going to depend on what brand of cells you're using. Panasonic makes batteries. There are lots of off-brand batteries in lithium-ion as well. But that's a general concept of how many times you're going to be able to take that battery from zero to 100%. Generally speaking, you should never drain your battery down to zero. So, when we talk about one cycle charge, if you only charge the battery from 40% to 100%, that's not a full cycle charge.
That's only a 3/4th cycle charge basically because you're taking it from 40% to 100%. If you're only using a little bit of your battery at a time, and then you're charging it back up, that battery is going to last you obviously quite a bit longer. If you're draining it down almost to zero and then charging it back to 100%, that battery is obviously not going to last as long and that's one cycle charge. You're only going to get 999 more cycle charges. There are other things that affect the battery. So how much usage is being placed, how much energy is that battery having to exert, every time it's being used? If you're a heavier rider or if you're in windier conditions, you're obviously going to be draining that battery faster on the rides that you're taking. If you're constantly riding on flat land and it's not requiring a lot of energy to power the motor, the battery is going to be preserved, which is going to allow you more cycle charges over time, and you may be able to have that battery for three, four, five years plus. Again, I have laptop batteries that have died in six months. I have laptop batteries that have lasted for three years.
The same is going to be true of your eBike battery. The one thing I can say with 100% certainty, there will come a point in time when you will need to replace your battery. I repeat. There will come a point in time when you will need to replace your battery. Now that might be in two years, it could be in five years, but I think it's important that everyone has the expectation that that's something you would need to do.
And wherever you are buying your eBike make sure that they offer or have available batteries to purchase as back up. Because if they don't, and it comes the time where you need to replace your battery if you can't find the specific battery that will fit in your battery housing, that could be a problem for you and you may just have to buy a new bike. The idea here is you can keep that bike and that motor hopefully for a long time and only need to replace the battery if everything else is working. If your battery dies you don't have to go out and get a new bike. The same thing is true with a cell phone, right? It's like, your battery starts dying and most people think, oh it's time to buy a new phone. I think that's a trick on the part of the phone companies, to be honest. They want people to think, oh you have to buy a new battery. They also make it impossible to actually pull off the back and make it something at home users can do. But in the case of the eBikes, I want everyone to know that, that's something that you should expect to have to do, just like a car battery.
Car batteries have to be replaced over time. So, circle back to the question here of, how long will my battery last? I would say a general average assumption around your eBike battery, how long it will last, is going to be about two years. I would say that's going to vary depending on how you ride the bike, where you're going, how many times you charge it, things of that nature. Some quick tips, once it's done charging take it off the charger. Don't overcharge it. If you can, never drain the battery to zero. Try to charge it from like 20-30% up to 100%. Another thing is to use the pedal assist mode. If you have an eBike that has the pedal assist, try to use the pedal assist mode. It will put less strain on the motor and the battery and give you more life out of that. But again if you just want to go full throttle all the time, every ride, the battery is going to drain a lot faster. The lifetime usage of that battery is going to decrease. So, sorry there's no simple answer. I would say another thing when you buy your battery look for the type of cells. Look up reviews on lithium ion, different types of cells in the batteries may have better experiences around how long they last, how long they don't last, things of that nature. But again, no easy answer. There's no clear cut dry thing, the idea of how long the battery will last. I think the same is true of cellphones and laptops. But again two years is a good baseline level of where I think they'll last, but you could get three, four five years out of it or you might kill that battery in six months.
So, if you have any other questions about eBikes or other bikes, please don't hesitate to reach out. Email us theteam@sixthreezero.com, or call us, 310-982-2877, and please enter your dimensions into our body fit calculator, your height and weight. It will give you thumbs up, thumbs down, what bikes are the right fit for you. And if no bikes are a fit, please reach out. We can figure out a way to customize something for you. Go ahead and check out our eBikes on the top navigation of our website. We've got some models there, Around the Block and the EVRYjourney, I think they can be a good fit for you. Put in your dimensions, well find out. Our goal here at sixthreezero is to help find the right bike for you.