So now that I have my bike charging through a Kill-A-Watt power monitor, I get a running cumulative price of what it's costing me to charge it up. I just program in the cost/kwh and it just keeps adding it up like a pump at the gas station. I check it before I take off on a ride or right before charging and then see what it's at after charging.
Anyway, I was sitting around the house yesterday and decided that I needed to go get some stuff at the local sporting goods store (nike cap and some ammo). The day was beautiful so I took the Vectrix. I rode down to the store (Academy) and got my stuff, and then took the extended way home to do a little additional riding on a trip that would normally be just 10 miles total. So it got closer to 20 miles. It was a very nice ride. I checked the charge cost later and was happy to see that my ride was a total of 30 cents. And that's at about 16c/kwh. Now that's just pretty darn cool.
I find myself doing this more and more. What might have burned a gallon of gas (or more) is typically taking no more than 30-40 cents in electricity. I'm also planning my trips better so that I don't have to take a lot of them, but I have to be honest and admit that there have been several times that I just suddenly "needed something" as to justify going on a ride to the store. :D
I kept up with my daily charge costs for about a month after I bought the bike, because I honestly was concerned about how daily charging was going to effect my monthly power bill. My daily use over a typical month was 15 to 45 cents (deep discharges ran the ticker up to 45 cents, but most days were under 30 cents.
After gathering all that data, I used the Kill-a-watt device around the house to see what steps I could take to regain those daily expenditures. Simple stuff like changing from incandescent to flourescent bulbs, switching off computer peripherals that aren't in constant use, shutting down the computer at night, and unplugging seldom used appliances (those with clocks or "instant on" features are pulling electricity unless they are unplugged). Although I have not yet added a wired timer to my water heater (on my list), I have already seen a REDUCTION in my power bill, which may or may not be weather related, but at least my fears of stickershock at the end of the month are gone now.
I no longer try to monitor my charge costs. The bike runs on about a penny per mile regardless, so even with current gas prices as low as $1.76 per gallon, I still see the Vectrix as not only good for the enviroment, fun to ride, and a smarter choice for transportation, but far less expensive than any of my ICE vehicles. In the end, if I spend as much on an eventual battery replacement as I would have on gas, I'm still way ahead of the game!
I've been measuring my usage too. Paying extra for "green" electricity, I'm spending a little over 1 cent (Australian) per kilometer. This is a fraction of the cost of running my previous bike - a 150 cc four stroke.
I read in an old post on this forum about wasted electricity the Vectrix uses after it has fully charged. Following the advice in that post, I have been using a timer set to provide power to the bike for about three hours in the early hours of the morning. This has been working well. Two advantages: (1) the batteries get to cool down completely to the ambient temperature before charging, and (2) the bike is only drawing power for around the time it takes to charge.
I tested it one night without the timer and, sure enough, it drew about one third more kWh.
It seems to me that using a timer is very useful.
Tim
Here is my first set of data from a charge I did this evening from about less then half-full and 25 km range to go. The pack was around 14° when I started the charge and around 6° this morning when I left for work.
data was recorded using the Voltcraft Energy Logger 3500
3.8kWh at 0.08€ (EDF price) that around 0.30€
07 Vectrix, Vego 600 mod.48V 800W, Arcade Alu E-Cycle 24VSachs Hub
The diagram looks great. Seems to be a fine thing your energy logger. I noticed the after charge complete temperature at 21C. Are you sure this was the real temperature of the battery block. Sometimes the 21C comes up as an initial number and after a while the "real" bat temperature is shown. At an ambient temp of 5C it should be a bit lower than 21C.
Norman
You're probably right Norman I think I might not have waited long enough for the real temperature to display.
Forgot about that...
07 Vectrix, Vego 600 mod.48V 800W, Arcade Alu E-Cycle 24VSachs Hub
here's new charge data this time I made sure to record the temp properly
by the way this is with the new firmware.
07 Vectrix, Vego 600 mod.48V 800W, Arcade Alu E-Cycle 24VSachs Hub