I am new to the world of electric vehicles and I am planning my first purchase of and electric scooter. I am fairly well educated in electronics as I was a custom car audio installer obout 12 years ago.
I have a decision narrowed down to either the x-treme xb600 or the liberty town and country 48v from www.iloveebikes.com. Does anyone have any comments on which is better? The town and country has a bigger motor and a longer range but with shipping would cost $350 more than the xb600. Is it worth the extra money?
My second question is more technical. Is it possible to add a second set of batteries running at 48v and 20ah in parallel with the original batteries? Two 49v circuits running at 48v each and 20ah wired in parallel would still deliver 48v but 40ah. Would this harm the motor? Would it deliver too much current? Could I alternatively run the first 48v circuit at 20ah and add an additional 48v circuit with 14ah in paralel giving me 34ah adn smaller batteries? Would this effectively double my range? Has anyone done this?
I know the twon and country model has enough room under the seat for 4 additional batteries. I could run the wiring through the body onto the battery compartment in the floorboards. Does the xb600 have enough room as well?
Adding more lead acid batteries to your scooter is not as simple as it seems on the surface. In fact, it can cause some harm. If you use an extra 48V 14-20ah lead acid battery string, then you will increase the weight of the scooter. The added weight can do things like cause slower acceleration, slower hill climbing, longer stopping distances, and too much stress on the suspension system risking component failure or easy bottoming-out (especially if you already weigh a lot or carry a lot of gear.) Also, if you mount the extra batteries higher you will raise the center of gravity of the bike which may make it handle differently. As a side-effect of losing underseat storage then cargo will likely be carried higher making the situation even worse. Also depending on how you wire the pack you may need an additional charger or you may have to move up to a more powerful charger to decrease the recharging times especially if you want to do effective opportunity charging to increase your effective daily range.
There's no room in the existing battery box for extra batteries...neither on the Liberty cause it's the very same box, frame, etc. I don't know what you're seeing that is different other than some plastic covers on the front shock arms and the rear swing arms. They're slightly different but again I'm telling you it's exactly the same. Also, I see it actually says 850 watt motor...which would make no sense since they made these "e-bikes" to be legal in bike lanes in all 50 states...and in order to qualify they cannot have more than a 750 watt motor. So what's up with that?
Anyway, it's your purchase so if you really believe you want to spend $300 more for nothing more...then hey it's your money. BTW, if you buy from ArticFox (BaseStationZero) on here...the 600, I think he is still selling and having it shipped to your driveway without the $70 extra charge everyone else charges.
Good Luck
Gushar
Gus