I find a lot of clams about range of various motors hard to believe. Here is the real world range I get on my bikes. I ride full throttle most of the time. A lot a folks new to ebikes are getting dissapointed by the reality. Range claims are rarely at full throttle, but we need to get to work on time.
Schwinn trike, BD36, 36volt 12ah lead battery that came with it.
Full throttle on nearly flat ground half uphill and half downhill. 6 miles at 25 mph, much slower as the battery dies of course, till the battery light goes on. Maybe 1 more mile can be squeezed out after a wait. 8 miles at 15 mph.
To work, 5 miles very slight downhill, 1 mile steep downhill, 6 miles rolling ups and downs. By keeping the speed under 15mph except on the downhills which are coasted and lots of peadaling on the first 5 miles, I just make it there as the battery light goes on. 700 foot vertical drop on the ride.
Back , All uphill now pretty much, and I'm lucky if reach the bottom of the hill without the battery light on. After a 15 minuite wait, I can just make it to the top of the hill before the battery dies. 5 miles from home and a dead battery, uphill too but not very steep. By the time I get 1/2 mile from home, I may get one last squirt of juice out of the badly overdischarged battery.
One of the issues with this bike is poor aerodynamics and its heavy. I tried 48 volts and carrying B&D 24 volt drill packs, but never got any closer than 4 miles from home when I ran out.
Same bike with ping 36 volt 20 ah lifepo4. With the 20ah lithium, Its still hard to get the heavy trike up the big hill, but I make it all the 12 miles home at full throttle all the way. 25 mph on the flats. Because of gearing, I can't help peadle above 15 mph.
Cheap wallmart MTB with BD36 and 36 volt 20ah ping lifpo4.
To work is no problem, get up to 30mph on the slight downhills. only use about 1/2 the battery based on charge time.
Back from work. Also no problem, full speed all the way. Good speed up the killer hill for most of it since there is little voltage sag. On a range test, after the 12 miles home, continued at full for 6 more miles till the battery light went on. 18 miles total, but I did not keep riding till the pack bms cut out.
So to sum it up, on the 12 ah Lead 6 to 8 miles.
On the 20ah lithium, 18 to 20 miles.
figure this into your purchase plans. Part of the problem with brushed is its fast, but it does go less far than brushless at the same speed. Much better ranges can be had, but 10mph is not my cup of tea, even without a motor helpig.
I use up about 2.5Ah on a 4 mile ride to work. I accelerate slowly, but am flat out the rest of the time. So theoretically I could get 16 miles out of a 10Ah pack. I run a 20" on 72V, so my top speed is just over 30mph on the flat.
It's a completely flat route, though. There are no hills whatsoever.
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Update on my range and speed. I finally got an accurate speedo installed on my bike. I had a lot of problems with a couple different wireless ones. I was giving my distance to work as 12 miles, the distance measured driving right next to the bike path in the car. Suprise, the little bends in the trail and the ups and downs the car road doesn't have, make the bike trail 14.5 miles from my house to work! Well that is signifigant for sure, and seems to make my range at 36 volts a lot more similar to the brushless. They still go further, but I wonder if it would be that much more if I slowed down.
So my corrected range on Ping 36v 20ah on a BD36, at least 20 miles uphill. At 25mph, or as fast as it will go up the big hill. My average speed is about 20 mph. Not bad for 14 miles uphill with long waits for traffic lights. Do the 14.5 miles home in just about 50 minuites. Good thing, in 101f weather an hour is a long time.
The earlier measurements of distance for lead acid, 6 to 8 miles are still accurate. Those runs were done on the street, so the milage from the car is right.
Be the pack leader.
36 volt sla schwinn beach cruiser
36 volt lifepo4 mongoose mtb
24 volt sla + nicad EV Global
I have a Brushed 36 and a brushless 36. Both with 7AH packs. I have been riding them for 3 years and have range tested them countless times. My brusheless pedal first is a solid 25% or higher range over the brushed. I can get 16-20 miles with very light pedaling. The brushed does 13-15 miles on average but is 5mph faster than my brushless topping out at 25mph. The conditions are moderate hills, Perfectly maintained SLA packs, NO hard accelleration, light pedaling and one other trick; I solder all the spade connectors to their wires and all the spades to the battery posts. This seems to make signifigant differences in efficiency. Reduces 8 points of arcing down to the two points of the pack connector to the speed control.
Wilderness Brushless 600 watt Schwinn Delmar Cruiser
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Wilderness Brushed 600 watt Giant Sedona ST
Cycle Analyst 2.2