The first ebike I bought was 200€. You’re telling me two tanks of gas would cost more than my entire main mode of transportation did for the two years or so I used it daily (tbf, I had it maintenanced once for 50€)
200€ Ebike?? Was this in 1990? The cheapest I know of is 500€…
Nah, it was just second hand. It was built in 2011 and I bought it in 2023. Its original sticker price would have been like 2.5k, ebikes were pretty expensive at the time. The original owner actually bought the bike for his wife, who passed away around 2012. So it was barely used and he was very diligent about storing it properly. When I got my 2 years of usage out of it and the batteries started lasting less than 10km each I gave it away for free to a University student (that range is still plenty for small grocery trips). As far as I know, she’s still riding it to this day.
Being diligent about storing it properly may have preserved the mechanical parts but hurt the battery. If you store a rechargeable battery long time the second worst thing you can do is keeping the battery fully charged, greatly increasing the rate of detoriation. The only thing even worse would be to leave the battery fully discharched as it would eventually go into a deep discharge destroying it. For long term storage you should keep batteries about 60% charged.
???
That’s exactly what he did, because that’s what the manual for the bike suggested. Stored the batteries at 60% charge in a cool basement, checked on them and re-charged every 6 months as needed.
Sorry, but I’ve just seen way too many people that just keep the charger permanently attached, forcing the battery to stay at 100%, so I assume that happened here, too. Unless you do something harmful to it, the primary limiting factor of a lithium battery is the number of charge cycles, so I assumed something must have happened to the batteries so they degrade to such a minuscule range after being in use for just 2 years.
The first ebike I bought was 200€. You’re telling me two tanks of gas would cost more than my entire main mode of transportation did for the two years or so I used it daily (tbf, I had it maintenanced once for 50€)
200€ Ebike?? Was this in 1990? The cheapest I know of is 500€…
Unrelated side note, I have gone 10000km with mine, 120km for the 625Wh battery. About 0.3€ per kWh. About 15€ in electricity.
Compared to my diesel VW Passat with diesel 23km/L at lives now of 2€/L is 870€.
I saved 855€ over the past 3 years by biking to work and the store instead of driving, not to mention health benefits.
Nah, it was just second hand. It was built in 2011 and I bought it in 2023. Its original sticker price would have been like 2.5k, ebikes were pretty expensive at the time. The original owner actually bought the bike for his wife, who passed away around 2012. So it was barely used and he was very diligent about storing it properly. When I got my 2 years of usage out of it and the batteries started lasting less than 10km each I gave it away for free to a University student (that range is still plenty for small grocery trips). As far as I know, she’s still riding it to this day.
Being diligent about storing it properly may have preserved the mechanical parts but hurt the battery. If you store a rechargeable battery long time the second worst thing you can do is keeping the battery fully charged, greatly increasing the rate of detoriation. The only thing even worse would be to leave the battery fully discharched as it would eventually go into a deep discharge destroying it. For long term storage you should keep batteries about 60% charged.
???
That’s exactly what he did, because that’s what the manual for the bike suggested. Stored the batteries at 60% charge in a cool basement, checked on them and re-charged every 6 months as needed.
Sorry, but I’ve just seen way too many people that just keep the charger permanently attached, forcing the battery to stay at 100%, so I assume that happened here, too. Unless you do something harmful to it, the primary limiting factor of a lithium battery is the number of charge cycles, so I assumed something must have happened to the batteries so they degrade to such a minuscule range after being in use for just 2 years.
It’s of course still much cheaper than guzzoline, but aren’t you forgetting the price of the elctricity you need for recharging it?
It’s honestly quite negligible.
An ebike consumes around 0.5kWh/100km.
Its cheaper, healthier, and more eco friendly in every way. And its super fun.