Battery pack obsolescence.

Electrically assisted bikes, trikes, etc. that are legal in the UK
WatfordWobble
Posts: 9
Joined: 22 Apr 2020, 12:03pm

Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by WatfordWobble »

Good evening all,

I have searched the forum and yet to find a discussion about battery pack design obsolescence. It has briefly been discussed but wanted to start a post as I think it's an important consideration when buying an electrically assisted bicycle.

I've been considering buying an electric bike but have serious concerns over longevity both of the battery pack but also its design.

My biggest concern with buying an electrically assisted cycle is if the battery pack which can be unique to your particular bike, needs to be renewed. What is to say the pack is no longer manufactured and available? The bike is now nothing more than a very heavy manual pedal cycle. Are electric bikes a short term disposable product? Short term I consider 5 years.

For example, I have a Dewalt drill whereby the battery pack is no longer available and is nothing more than scrap as I cannot replace the battery pack.

Is this a real concern when purchasing an electrically assisted bike and how can I mitigate this concern?

Over to you.
hemo
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Location: West Sussex

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by hemo »

If one can't get hold of a direct replacement then there are re-cell services available if said battery is a generic one with no CANbus or other added comm's.
Last edited by hemo on 23 Nov 2022, 10:14am, edited 1 time in total.
bohrsatom
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Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by bohrsatom »

I mitigated this by buying a bike with a Bosch motor and battery. IMO there is more risk if using a proprietary manufacturer as they might go bust, get bought out or decide on a whim to change their design and render your bike obsolete. There are so many Bosch e-bikes out there, with a small number of different battery designs, that I just can't see the same thing happening. And if it does, there will be plenty of second hand ones to go around.
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simonineaston
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Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by simonineaston »

As far as I know, all - well perhaps most - batteries are made up of a small range of base model cells. see YT
Although I understand ww's ambition to buy a future-proof battery (Lord knows they're dear enough!) I'm thinking that where there's a will, there's a way. LIkewise the pack suitable for the DeWalt. My own DW drill is nearly twenty years old and there's nothing wrong with it. I imagine there's a ton of chippies etc out there whose DW drills too are just fine and there's no way they're going to bung them just cos the battery packs get hard to buy.
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
hemo
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Location: West Sussex

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by hemo »

Any bike useing a generic frame mount battery is no issue, one simply replaces the batteyr and mount if the battery type is no longer available.
Bosh, Yamaha,Steps etc,etc one has to buy a new battery which often costs well above £600 quid, they are non repariable by the brand/manufacturer.
tenbikes
Posts: 463
Joined: 11 Jan 2009, 6:41pm

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by tenbikes »

I went for a Bafang mid drive conversion for this very reason.

It only takes an hour or so to convert back to a bike too, and replacement /second battery is not a problem.
stodd
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Joined: 6 Jun 2018, 10:24am

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by stodd »

Good quality batteries should last more than 5 years unless very heavily used or abused; but not long enough one could reasonably consider a bike dead. While cars have been having ever-increasingly long lives over the past few decades, bikes seem to have been having shorter and shorter expected lives, and especially ebikes.

The second-hand availability argument above on common proprietary battery types doesn't really work; once new replacements aren't available any second-hand ones will soon be worn out and useless too. Unfortunately Bosch and their like make the batteries almost impossible to recell/repair; the earlier ones could be recelled with difficultly, the later ones are apparently near on impossible to recell. I'm not quite sure how they get round the EU reparability initiatives.

You are definitely better off with generic batteries as Hemo said above; even if you can't get a direct replacement for the battery you can replace the mount. Even that will be harder for in-frame batteries which tend to be a bit more specific.
axel_knutt
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Joined: 11 Jan 2007, 12:20pm

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by axel_knutt »

This is the reason why I wouldn't touch e-Bikes with a barge pole. At 22 years old, I doubt my bike would still be useable if it were an e-bike, but as it is, it's life is indefinite because it uses industry standard parts. The 40 year old bike rusting in the garage would still be rideable too, if I dug it out and cleaned it up.

I think batteries in general are heading to be the next racket like printer ink. Gone are the days when everything used industry standards like HP2s and PP3s, now everything's custom made you have to pay through the nose for replacements and then scrap the equipment when the manufacturer stops making them.

And what is it with cordless everything, yet another pointless gimmick contrived by marketing men. In a world where every wall has a 13 amp socket in it, who the hell needs a cordless drill except for a National Trust warden mending stiles half way up Scafell? More manufacturing emissions, more toxic waste, more weight, less power, limited use without a recharge, limited product life. And that's progress?

People don't care about product life any more, because they're too busy buying the latest model to keep up with the Joneses, then once manufacturers see nobody's keeping anything longer than a couple of years, they realise they'll be cutting their own throats if they spend money making anything last longer than the competition.
“I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
PH
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Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by PH »

My understanding is that well managed batteries ought to be good for at least 1,000 full charges, that's 50,000 miles for my use and I can double that as I have two. I've never had a 100,000 bike, though I do have a Rohloff with that mileage that's still running sweet. I like the idea of things lasting forever, but they usually don't, I'll still put battery longevity in the things not to worry about category.
stodd
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Joined: 6 Jun 2018, 10:24am

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by stodd »

PH wrote: 23 Nov 2022, 5:59pm My understanding is that well managed batteries ought to be good for at least 1,000 full charges, that's 50,000 miles for my use.
I think that both the number of charges and the distance per charge are very optimistic for most people's use. Batteries deteriorate with age as well as with distance. A quality well managed battery should last 10 years if you are lucky. Unless you have a very regular and predictable use of battery it is difficult to run an optimal charging routine.

For example, Evolo came up in a fairly random Google search.
https://evelo.com/blogs/learn/how-many- ... ttery-have

Thus, if you average 30 miles per charge, you could ride an EVELO electric bike about 18,000 miles before you would need to replace the battery under good conditions.

As a rule of thumb, you should expect the battery on your EVELO electric bike to last four or five years.
Jules59
Posts: 420
Joined: 16 Jan 2019, 2:34pm

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by Jules59 »

How much is a replacement evelo battery ?

Just searched google - about $850.
WatfordWobble
Posts: 9
Joined: 22 Apr 2020, 12:03pm

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by WatfordWobble »

Thanks everyone for your comments much appreciated and some useful links. I'll continue to research and discuss here.
Jules59
Posts: 420
Joined: 16 Jan 2019, 2:34pm

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by Jules59 »

The cost of replacement batteries is quite an issue IMO.

Ive just bought a new corded vacuum cleaner and shunned all the cordless ones because the batteries wear out quicker than the machine.
Our corded Dyson DC39 is still going strong after 10 years of hard work. But our little cordless Dyson is showing signs of an aging battery after only 2 years in that its run time is noticeably shorter than when new.
Similar things are happening to my cordless Dewalt drill's batteries - not holding the same amount of charge. But a single replacement battery is more than half the price of a new drill with two new batteries.
I think this switch to cordless everything maybe good for the manufacturers but not good for us, as people will chuck things away long before the mechanicals have worn out but simply because the batteries are duff.
Jules59
Posts: 420
Joined: 16 Jan 2019, 2:34pm

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by Jules59 »

Mind you, people chuck things away for ridiculous reasons. I've just rescued a nearly new looking Henry vacuum cleaner from a skip - it looked to have been hardly used but the brush head was blocked. Took a minute to unblock it with my finger - works perfectly now.
yakdiver
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Location: North Baddesley Hampshire

Re: Battery pack obsolescence.

Post by yakdiver »

I've gone through two batterys on my trike since 2014, and have bought two more at £400 17ah and £249 11ah, recelling would have cost more, but my batterys are easy to come by
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