Cycling World Magazine June 2017 | Page 33

Advice on buying an electric bike June 2017| 33 from the Technical Experts: How Much Range Will I Get? The most common question asked when choosing an electric bike is, “How much further can you go on it compared with a normal bicycle?” No one can really tell you the range in miles… The short answer is that your range in miles really depends on a number of things. Annoying I know, but it’s true! On a standard electric bike, the distance you go before the battery runs out could be anywhere between 15 and 60 miles. It depends on many factors, including, of course, how hard you pedal, but also the way in which you use the motor, how much drag do you get on your bicycle, the kind of terrain, how much wind is blowing... The list goes on. Even the temperature can have an effect, because lithium ion batteries can carry more charge when warm than when they are cold. power before it runs out, or two hours at medium power. So your range in hours is easy to estimate, the question is how to translate this into an expected range in miles? Well, assuming you never go faster than the legal limit of 15mph, then your maximum range is simply 15 miles multiplied by your range in hours. We’ve crunched these numbers for you in the table below to help you quickly estimate your maximum range. Don’t be fooled! These days, almost every eBike says it will give you a “30-mile range” even if the battery capacity is tiny. Don’t just believe the range that you see on an advert. Sense check the quoted range of an eBike first using the table below as a guide. BUT! We can tell you the range in hours The main factor that affects your range is obviously the battery capacity, which is usually measured in Amp- hours (Ah), not to be confused with Amps (A) which is the discharge current. If your battery capacity is 8Ah, then this means you can draw 8A of current for one hour before it runs out. At full power (250W), a motor will draw about 8A, so this means you get one hour of full How Much Range Will I get? - Range Estimator Tool Contact the experts at Panda eBikes for more info www.pandaebikes.com Hotline: 0115 888 2270 [email protected]