Article When will we have better ebike batteries?

[knut7]

In 2020, we did a video about future battery improvements. We predicted that the high nickel lithium ion cells would be next in line. And it seems they are. Watch the video below for the full story, or keep on reading,









More energy, same size and weight



High nickel cells are now being produced in China, according to Battery News. These cells have a “gravimetric energy density” of 302 Wh/kg. We expect the weight to be pretty much unchanged, and the cell volume will be identical. These new cells are being produced in the 21700 form factor, and we assume they could be built as 18650 cells too. The LG Chem NMC811 is a high nickel cell too. They are now being delivered in the Tesla Model 3, but we don’t know the energy denisty of these cells...

Continue reading...

 

[Beekeeper]

Rolls Royce are working on small portable nuclear power engines.
Would never need to charge your bike ever!
Might add a bit of weight and you could glow in the dark which might not be a bad thing actually for night riding.

 

[Rockmount]

I think the bigger question is, when will we have better e-bike motors. Reliability is woefully inadequate. Surely a motor should be capable of at least 10k miles ??? Replacing an out of warranty motor is horrendously expensive, but without it you are left with a pile of scrap metal / plastic.

 

[maynard]

Rolls Royce are working on small portable nuclear power engines.
Would never need to charge your bike ever!
Might add a bit of weight and you could glow in the dark which might not be a bad thing actually for night riding.

Like a terminator. And you could program it to nuke itself If someone steals it.

 

[Doomanic]

When will we see these battery cells in ebikes? No one in the ebike industry will talk about this, it’s a secret.

They obviously don’t want to kill their current product line.

 

[Hamina]

I think the bigger question is, when will we have better e-bike motors. Reliability is woefully inadequate. Surely a motor should be capable of at least 10k miles ??? Replacing an out of warranty motor is horrendously expensive, but without it you are left with a pile of scrap metal / plastic.

800 euros for new Bosch CX Gen 4 motor is doable, but 1700 euros for FOX 36 Float Grip2 Factory 29" is horrendously expensive or is it? The other you really need but most parts and "mandatory" upgrades you just want but maybe not need.

 

[Elsketcho]

The question for me is.
When the battteries get better and smaller will the battery manufacturers sell improved batteries to fit existing battery forms? For example will Bosch do a higher capacity battery in the form of say the existing bosch power tube to retrofit existing bikes or will you have to buy a new bike?
I kinda think I already know the answer to the question.

 

[Doomanic]

I’ll take the same capacity and less weight if it’s all the same to you.

I’m doing similar length and height rides on my KSL to my Rail but I’m having more fun on the downs and a greater sense of achievement on the ups. I’m even doing climbs unassisted on the KSL which was unthinkable on the Rail.

 

[1oldfart]

Well at least a subject to read other than geo
THANKS GOD !
It will probably = a boost in price, not my cup of tea.

 

[knut7]

They obviously don’t want to kill their current product line.

Yeah, still I take every opportunity to ask them. But it's not like I expect an answer

 

[Elsketcho]

I’ll take the same capacity and less weight

But what’s the likelihood of the manufactures doing that?

 

[Mteam]

But what’s the likelihood of the manufactures doing that?

it will depend what market they are aiming at. The tourers/casual bikers will just want the largest capacity they can and wont care about weight, the proper mountain bikers will want the right compromise between weight and range.

Hopefully there will be a variety of batteries for all uses.

 

[knut7]

The question for me is.
When the battteries get better and smaller will the battery manufacturers sell improved batteries to fit existing battery forms? For example will Bosch do a higher capacity battery in the form of say the existing bosch power tube to retrofit existing bikes or will you have to buy a new bike?
I kinda think I already know the answer to the question.

Based on current experience, it might seem the motor manufacturers isn't interested in making bigger batteries that fit older bikes. But it wasn't always like this. The external 400Wh batteries from Shimano/Bosch/Yamaha could all be replaced with the 500Wh external battery, which was the same weight with the same enclosure.

The issue the later years is that the energy density hasn't increased, so a new battery with more energy needs to be bigger. Then it can't be expected to fit older bikes. But, when we get the new and improved cells, I think it makes a lot of sense to use existing battery enclosures of course. And hopefully some manufacturers do too. I expect 3rd party battery manufacturers think so.

 

[knut7]

I’ll take the same capacity and less weight if it’s all the same to you.

Yeah, it's about time we get this option. If the cells are powerful enough, I'm thinking the 30 cell (21700) 540Wh battery used by YT and Orbea (Rise alloy) is a good candidate, it will be ~630Wh.

Also the old 40 cell (18650) 500Wh battery should live on, if we get the new chemistry in this form factor. It will be ~580Wh and about 3 kg. Possibly less from some manufacturers.

Going smaller on a full power emtb could be difficult, it depends on the characteristics of the new cell.

 

[Mr-EPIC-3]

Check out the Darfon website, they are coming out with a new line of batteries for the Shimano motors, lighter and more Wh.

https://www.darfon.com.tw/en/product/18071309102090

 

[Mikerb]

Whenever you see an interview with a brand talking a bout their planned developments, it is clear that they consider "range anxiety" to be the primary customer concern.I'm not sure that is in fact true but clearly the direction of travel has been larger capacity batteries even when that has necessitated changes in frame design.
In that respect it somewhat copies the same sort of limitations and development responses in electric cars, although few people pay much attention to the significant weight gains in cars due to those developments, whereas for EMTBs and road bikes, weight is a key issue as well.
I think the more switched on brands will pursue more effective use of range extenders and faster charging batteries. The faster charging technology is already here on some bikes and certainly in power tool Li batteries. If you can get another 20 miles out of a 10 minute charge for example that would satisfy those using bike parks and trail centres. If "range extenders" were small and light enough to carry in a waist bag or back pack and could deliver 20 mile range, that would satisfy adventure/trail riders on all day rides. Maybe range extenders that are in fact power packs capable of charging the main battery for decent additional range in say 20 minutes rather than actually neeing to be strapped to the bike and plugged in?

 

[Mabman]

The cutting edge of commercial LEV battery development comes from the automotive sector. The 18650 "as seen on Teslas" batteries that have been advertised for years are testament to that although not always true. Same for the 21700 cells also. Car packs are nothing more than huge bike packs after all.

But for cars weight is not as much of a consideration and so while they are always searching for the optimum chemistry, Tesla for instance, is working on larger cells that are capable of sustaining more charge cycles with the ability to charge at a high rate with a longer life span of the battery also. As shown here:

While these could easily find their way into use on bicycles they won't make smaller or lighter packs necessarily. But for the bulk of eBikes out there that are not as concerned with weight such as commuters the long lifecycle potential is very attractive. Not going to make any big advancement for eMTB use though.

But for long distance touring one might imagine a big pack of these set up with a Class I charger plug on a BOB or Burley trailer that you could mount to a bike as needed. Charging @ 7+kw while having a quick bite then on your way again.

 

[Alexbn921]

There won't be a new revolution. Batteries will continue to slowly get better ever year. What is sorely lacking is faster charging. For example all batteries can safely charge at 1c and go from 10 to 80% in 40ish minutes.

 

[Rockmount]

800 euros for new Bosch CX Gen 4 motor is doable, but 1700 euros for FOX 36 Float Grip2 Factory 29" is horrendously expensive or is it? The other you really need but most parts and "mandatory" upgrades you just want but maybe not need.

I've gone through 4 Shimano motors in two and a half years (3 E7000 & 1 E8000). The going rate for having a new motor installed is around £1k. You can't really compare that to having to service a fork periodically. Luckily I do a lot of miles (>90% off road), and my replacements have been under warranty. I could never justify a new motor every 1k miles or so (my E8000 only managed 600 miles)

 

[Coolcmsc]

I have two 630’s for an EP8 which suit me well. My interest would be in less weight for the same form-factor inside my current down-tube. I’d find a buyer for one of the two batteries and replace.

2024 would be good timing as I don’t have the same issues some do of maintaining good ‘health’, despite year round riding in the U.K.

 

[TPEHAK]

I think the bigger question is, when will we have better e-bike motors. Reliability is woefully inadequate. Surely a motor should be capable of at least 10k miles ??? Replacing an out of warranty motor is horrendously expensive, but without it you are left with a pile of scrap metal / plastic.

I saw a bunch of reports Yamaha motors did well over 10k miles and kept going. But yeah, I can't remember a single report for such high mileage for another brands motors.

10k is quite high mileage for an average and the most common emtb user, so most manufacturers do not care to design more reliable motors, but they are mostly focused on weight to power ratio, weight savings, noise reduction etc because of most people focused on those perameters when they are on the market for a new emtb and people keep believing all emtb motors are reliable enough which is not true. Most of the motors reliable enough to make profit for manufacturers, but most of them are not reliable enough to overcome 10k miles under intensive usage.

Yamaha selling point is reliability, and they can do well over 10k miles easily, but there is a cost - Yamaha motors are a few hundred grams heavier than another brands motors with comparable performance, and they are not the quietest motors.

 

[RustyMTB]

Rolls Royce are working on small portable nuclear power engines.
Would never need to charge your bike ever!
Might add a bit of weight and you could glow in the dark which might not be a bad thing actually for night riding.

Yeah but then @Tubby G would get hold of one & shortly after he says 'Watch this!', the north Yorks moors would be laid waste for the next 500 years.

 

[Doomanic]

On the other hand, we could crowdfund one for Zim and do the rest of Europe a favour…

 

[Zimmerframe]

I saw a bunch of reports Yamaha motors did well over 10k miles and kept going. But yeah, I can't remember a single report for such high mileage for another brands motors.

10k is quite high mileage for an average and the most common emtb user, so most manufacturers do not care to design more reliable motors, but they are mostly focused on weight to power ratio, weight savings, noise reduction etc because of most people focused on those perameters when they are on the market for a new emtb and people keep believing all emtb motors are reliable enough which is not true. Most of the motors reliable enough to make profit for manufacturers, but most of them are not reliable enough to overcome 10k miles under intensive usage.

Yamaha selling point is reliability, and they can do well over 10k miles easily, but there is a cost - Yamaha motors are a few hundred grams heavier than another brands motors with comparable performance, and they are not the quietest motors.

And he does it again .. literally every time you post it's some total BS about Yamaha being more reliable than anyone else when it simply isn't true. I said last time that if you were going to keep sprouting your BS then I'd just stalk you so here's the lat post again with some real world experiences :

Yah, those plastic gears make the motor weight slightly less, they are cheaper, and they produce less noise. All these characteristics are purely for marketing to sell more motors, they do not care how long it will last, as long as it is silent, lighter than another motors and cheaper, people will buy it more because of people believe all the motors are equally reliable, but they are not.

FFS ! Does it ever end .. Depending how you interpret your figures a Bosch is 2-4 times more reliable than a Yamaha .. do we have to continually follow you around to stop you trolling Yamaha adverts everywhere.

You literally said in a post the other week that Yamaha used a plastic gear to stop failures elsewhere in the motor and an example of good design was that the plastic gears hadn't failed ?!?!

From yesterday's post which you've ignored and then jumped back on the troll a thread wagon (that was in a bosch thread). I know it's the festive season and a few people will have been celebrating with some liquid fun, but normality still exists out there somewhere.

There is a reason they distribute only Haibike and Giant with Yamaha motors. They don't want their business to be bankrupted due to the issues with another brands motors.

I'm a big fan of Yamaha, but I wish you would stop living in a world of denial and dreams that their motors are somehow miraculously more reliable than everyone else's and repeatedly sprout off about it as if we live in some parallel universe which has no bearing on reality - it just makes you sound like you work for Yamaha. They're about on par with Shimano, which are far from being the most reliable motors.

Haibike also ship bikes with motors from Bosch, TQ and Yamaha. Likewise, Giant use motors from several suppliers which they re-work under their syncdrive program.

Here's just one users experience of Giant ownership/yamaha motors and he's certainly not alone so please stop being unrealistic. Hopefully the new PW-X3 will be a huge improvement over the X2.

Collected brand new: Feb 7th 2020.
This bike was a trade up for my rejected MY19 E+3Pro Which had a hub, a motor, a fork, 3 controllers and was generally nothing but trouble.

5th March = Ride One Controller failure (FLED28-10)
Had to wait a week for a new one to come

New one fitted and lost auto mode and ANT+ as they installed controller for a 2019 bike. (FLED28-07)
Had to wait again for a 2nd one to arrive.

25th March. = Speed sensor failure.
(Cracked plug due to placement in casing)
2 weeks wait. New one fitted 10th April.

15th June = Battery failure.
3 weeks wait until 6th July for a new one so bought a spare at same time.
That came faster than the warranty unit.

20th July = Motor bearings failure. (1st motor failure)
4 weeks wait until 21st August for her 2nd motor to be fitted.

20th July = Dropper post changed under warranty whilst it was in.

6th September = Ride One Controller failure
1 week wait until new one arrived 14th September (FLED28-10)

22nd November = Motor failure (2nd Motor failure)
26th November, her 3rd motor was installed.

14th December = Ride One Controller failure
1 week wait until 20th December. (FLED28-15 this time.)

18th January 21 = Dropper post failure again. (twists)
Shop said it needs to be sent to Giant for inspection which I wasn’t willing to do as I would have no bike.
I found a service kit for sale in USA so bought it and fixed it myself. Why cant these be available in UK?

19th May 21 = Motor bearings failure again. (3rd Motor failure)
Claim initialised by the shop and told week 29. Week 29 arrived and then told week 33. (16th Aug week)

18th Aug 2021 = her 4th Motor installed.
This time it was installed with brand new RCone (FLED28-15) new upgraded loom, new UPGRADED battery discharge connector and identical but new charging port plus the battery shim mod for good measure. Then it was all waterproofed with liquid insulator for good measure as always.

GIANT Traumas. Are they BATTERY firmware related?

Here is something to ponder over. Could our power down issues be battery firmware related? A few hundred miles ago I fitted to my MY20 Trance E+2Pro. New motor. New loom. (Latest 21 version) New discharge connector. (Latest 21 version) Shim mod.(1x) New charging port. New ride control one...

www.emtbforums.com

 

[Zimmerframe]

On the other hand, we could crowdfund one for Zim and do the rest of Europe a favour…

Just not a good idea now I'm a single guy, can you imagine.

I'd have porn on one screen, the nuke monitor on another .. get distracted and excited - rods in, rods out, rods in, rods out .. BOOOOOMM M!!!

Nuclear fallout mixed with bike armour scattering over half the globe.

 

[TPEHAK]

Yamaha uses 1 plastic heavy duty helical gear at low torque step (at the motor) for safety (not to stop failures, I hope you understand the difference between safety and failure. If that gear woul be metal it would not cause failure. That plastic geat is to save other metal expensive gears in case you jammed the crank somehow. Another safety reason is that gear shears in case of electrical issue when motor can't stop and rotates at higher not rated torque and you hit the brake) and that gear has no issues, other gears are metal surface hardened gears do not fail even if you hit the crank. Bosch uses plastic for most gears including the high torgue light duty spur gears close the to the ourput crank and those gears fail.

Don't even make me to start explaining to you again all the issues those Bosch gears have and why they actually installed those. That nylon plastic degrade over time making those high loaded spur gears even more prone to fail.

You probably newer asked yourself why Yamaha claims their motors are sealed and maintenance free for life and do not sell any repair or maintenance parts for them and why Bosch sells repair kits for their motors.

 

[Bomble]

Yamaha uses 1 plastic heavy duty helical gear at low torque step (at the motor) for safety (not to stop failures, I hope you understand the difference between safety and failure. If that gear woul be metal it would not cause failure. That plastic geat is to save other metal expensive gears in case you jammed the crank somehow. Another safety reason is that gear shears in case of electrical issue when motor can't stop and rotates at higher not rated torque and you hit the brake) and that gear has no issues, other gears are metal surface hardened gears do not fail even if you hit the crank. Bosch uses plastic for most gears including the high torgue light duty spur gears close the to the ourput crank and those gears fail.

Don't even make me to start explaining to you again all the issues those Bosch gears have and why they actually installed those. That nylon plastic degrade over time making those high loaded spur gears even more prone to fail.

You probably newer asked yourself why Yamaha claims their motors are sealed and maintenance free for life and do not sell any repair or maintenance parts for them and why Bosch sells repair kits for their motors.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a report of Bosch gears failing, not saying they don’t but it’s usually the bearings.
With your last paragraph, how do you twist it that Bosch selling motor spares is a bad thing

 

[Micheal Edwards]

Just not a good idea now I'm a single guy, can you imagine.

I'd have porn on one screen, the nuke monitor on another .. get distracted and excited - rods in, rods out, rods in, rods out .. BOOOOOMM M!!!

Nuclear fallout mixed with bike armour scattering over half the globe.

 

[Xman]

Rolls Royce are working on small portable nuclear power engines.
Would never need to charge your bike ever!
Might add a bit of weight and you could glow in the dark which might not be a bad thing actually for night riding.

Not good for hair loss though

 

[leftside]

With the car EV boom fully under way and expanding much more this decade, hopefully the cell manufacturers will have some left for our bikes.

Another concern is the current lithium deficit. Lithium prices have gone up almost 500% the last 12 months! It takes 12-24 months to bring online a new battery plant (in Asia), but many more years to bring online a battery grade lithium producing mine.

Lithium - Price - Chart - Historical Data - News

Lithium decreased 17,400 CNY/T or 18.03% since the beginning of 2024, according to trading on a contract for difference (CFD) that tracks the benchmark market for this commodity. Lithium - values, historical data, forecasts and news - updated on November of 2024.

tradingeconomics.com

This video is about Frontier Lithium, but the first 2-3 mins talk about the lithium deficit.