Electric Bikes - Cold weather impact on battery range / life?

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coldfeet

01-20-12, 09:21 PM

Do any of you have experience running an e-bike in very cold conditions? -30C or -22F?

What sort of drop in range will I see? Anything else to watch for? It will probably be a geared front hub.

Sangesf

01-21-12, 05:04 PM

Won't work unless you keep the batteries heated somehow...
Regular SLAs will literally freeze at those temperatures.
Any other battery will sag horribly...
You would have to keep the batteries in a warmed container.

powell

01-21-12, 08:00 PM

I've got plenty of experiece riding in winter.
Cenral Canada winters can be very severe.
First,I don't ride on colder mornings than -15C /with no windchill factor/.
I cannot even imagine Lead Acid battery at such cold. Almost usless.
In winter I use Tidal Force with LiFePo 10Ah pack and what I see at -15C is bigger Ah use by max. 10%, bigger voltage sag, however TF is not even a bit slower at such weather due to unique USA-desiged electronics.