What is your efficiency/ Watt hours per mile with your ebike

[JayC]

I only have a few outings on my bike (50# total weight w/ battery Motobecane 29er w/ BSSHD carrying 210# rider). I've found that with the stock programming of the BSSHD, I can't over-run the motor even on PAS #1 (my normal cadence is near 90, so this surprised me), so I am continuously under power. I typically ride on PAS #2 setting. I've found that the motor is typically pulling 7.5-12 Amperes on flat ground, so call it 550W continuous average. My typical cruising speed at that power level is 22-25MPH on the speedo, so I'm burning about 24-25 W-hr/mi at that speed. That does correspond fairly well to my expected 20ish mile range with my ~600W-Hr capacity battery. I was surprised to see that level of continuous power dissipation - I think with a more realistic cadence target, efficiency can be much better, although I'm sure I won't be cruising at 25MPH :)
Incidentally - new land-speed record yesterday (42/11 gearing) - on a downgrade, in PAS#5 pedaling as fast as my legs would go... 40.1MPH.

[Lance Tesla]

Lightning P-38 recumbent with Magic Pie 5, 33.4 mi by GPS using 296.4wh for 8.87wh per mile. No pedaling, all motor at 12 to 14 mph on autothrottle, riding on bike paths, under 200' vertical gain.

[cycleops]

Clear as mud to me.

Anyhoo, i hear, on the flat, a roadbike consumes 100watts to do 25kph (15mph). each extra 5kph is another 100 watts.

vary it a bit for the bike type, but the principle remains. above 25kph its all about wind.

at 25-30kph, allowing 250w per hour, no pedaling, should be fine on any bike ridden smoothly. factoring in pedaling is up to you. There may be times u really dont feel like it.
I feel its a better rule of thumb for most, as they will have a non-negotiable range requirement for some vital trip, a work commute e.g.

if its 25k away, a 250wh battery will do, a 500wh battery wiil do it return, or faster.

just a reminder that not all hils are equal. if you can coast nicely down the other side, they neednt be a big net power drain.

[gman1971]

These are the efficiency curves for my trike with the latest aero tweaks.

0% grade and 0 mph headwind, 100% throttle.

Speed (MPH) is on the X-axis



So, the peak range or 375 miles @ 100% throttle on mode #3 could be theoretically achieved by running the trike at ~8 mph, but not really doable since my lowest gear only goes down to around 13 mph.

These graphs do take into account a lot of other factors, including motor idle current (this is the bare min the motor will consume when completely unloaded) all drivetrain losses including rolling resistance, current losses in controller and cables, the motor electric-to-mechanical conversion efficiency.

G.

[ebikefreak]

29-32 W-hr/mi. Hope to bring that number down.
use for commuting so speed/time is driver. about 25 mi and 600 ft elevation. Magic Pie 5 and luna 52V Panasonic GA battery pack.

[JPLabs]

Interesting point: I have 2 nearly identical bikes. Slightly different tires, that's it. Doing the same 30 mile ride, I used 16 Wh/mile last night. Kid used 11. Both considered this 'taking it pretty easy'.

Darned kids.

[ebikefreak]

29-32 W-hr/mi. hope to reduce with time by strength and management of how I use the power
use for commuting so time/speed are most important. about 600ft elevation and 25 miles. Magic Pie 5 & Luna 52V w/Panasonic GA batteries

[Rix Ryds]

Runs between 20 and 30 Wh/mile, depending on how many hills I hit and how much I lean on the throttle! ;)

[CPG]

I finally got off the trails and did a 13 mile street ride with the new MontaguePro/BBSHD/Rohloff combo. 15 WPM, using a 52 vdc 6 AH MINI battery. 11th. gear seems to be my go to gear, it gives a solid 18-19 mph cruise, and moderate pedaling (moderate enough that I can do it for long periods) shows about 3.5 AH on the meter. That's with 0 PAS, and just feathering in enough throttle to give me the resistance I want. Using my too eager PAS, not matter what gear or level of assist, it wants to run away from me and uses 7.5 AH. The majority of the ride I used throttle only as a result, and simply pedaled along with it. This will be my technique for max range, until I get around to messing with the programming, it's actually a practical way to go and may just be my long term solution.

This was with a 155 lb. rider, low air pressure in the tires (trail pressure) no wind, a few over passes and slight grades but no real hills, average speed about 16 overall with the usual slowdowns caused by traffic, most of the cruising at the aforementioned 18, with a brief spurt of 30 the last 1/2 mile or so. This gives me a max range of about 20 miles with that little tiny battery, cool. Plus, I can still strap on the 11.5 ah battery, easily giving me a combined range of 60 miles, and if I borrow another 11.5 AH battery from my 20" fatbike I keep in the crane, 100 miles! Yeah, that should do it.

[Peter Jay]

I have a very good no-brand Chinese motor (bought on ebay) on my Trek mountain bike, with a Grintech C4835-GR controller & CA-3 Cycle Analyst with pretty up to-date firmware. I believe the Cycle Analyst is set properly. On a recent bike ride, I went 23 miles, and the Cycle Analyst tells me that I used 612 watt-hours of power. Under load (going uphill at about 20 MPH), the Cycle Analyst told me I was pulling about 1400 watts. Obviously this is not continuous drain; I'm using lots less power on a flat surface, and of course nothing downhill. The bike has a twist throttle. I do try to pedal all the time while the bike is under power. FYI I have awful knees; can barely ride at all without the motor.

All readings are electrical power only. Human power is not measured by this rig.

[AZguy]

On my big BBSHD bike running 4.7 x 26" Vee Bulldozers at 10-12psi after installing a batt-man I initially was getting ~20Wh/mi with lows around 15Wh/mi. I've never exceeded 25Wh/mi and that's with throttle-only operation and severe flogging. These days I am running ~12-13Wh/mi typically with lows around 11 and never exceeding ~17.5

[ColinC]

Resurrecting this old thread to see how you folks running the Batt-man are coming up with these Wh/mi figures. I see nothing in the unit/display (or even the software) that calculates this, so I'm assuming you're manually resetting before each trip and then manually calculating Wh/mi using the Batt-man's figures for discharge (Ah) and mileage/odometer? I see some online calculators for converting Ah to Wh (e.g. here); what should one use for the voltage for say a common 14S5P 52v battery since voltage is going to vary depending on what you charged it to initially, slowly dropping over your ride, etc.?

On my big BBSHD bike running 4.7 x 26" Vee Bulldozers at 10-12psi after installing a batt-man I initially was getting ~20Wh/mi with lows around 15Wh/mi. I've never exceeded 25Wh/mi and that's with throttle-only operation and severe flogging. These days I am running ~12-13Wh/mi typically with lows around 11 and never exceeding ~17.5

[AZguy]

Batt-man records and displays Wh and miles traveled in addition to Ah [and amps, volts, watts, speed, max amps, max watts, max speed, min voltage]

Wh/mi is just batt-man reported Wh divided by miles traveled - I use the miles from my garmin that has it's own wireless wheel speed sensor and calculates the wheel diameter by fusing this sensor with the GPS so it's *very* accurate... I've put that calculated wheel diameter into the batt-man but the GPS is constantly recalibrating it so use it for my logs

I calibrated the batt-man with my Agilent 34405A bench voltmeter so it's reasonably accurate

[ColinC]

Displays in the GUI, not the physical display right? I'm looking at the GUI now, and I'm seeing all 0s for Wh and the other data points. I've not taken the Batt-Man on a ride yet, but I've been running the motor/wheel/speedo with the bike up on the rack as I've worked through some issues, so there should be some data there right? Or do I first need to Start Logger for this data to show up in the Totals area on the Settings tab? I assumed the Start Logger was just for the graph on the Logger tab...

[AZguy]

Displays in the GUI, not the physical display right? I'm looking at the GUI now, and I'm seeing all 0s for Wh and the other data points. I've not taken the Batt-Man on a ride yet, but I've been running the motor/wheel/speedo with the bike up on the rack as I've worked through some issues, so there should be some data there right? Or do I first need to Start Logger for this data to show up in the Totals area on the Settings tab? I assumed the Start Logger was just for the graph on the Logger tab...

*All* the things I refer to are on the display itself - there are three "pages" of data... I pretty much just leave it on the one that shows volts, amps, Ah and W/Wh and use the garmin for everything else like speed, miles ridden, moving average speed, moving time, max speed, time of day, etc., etc.

You don't "need" the PC application ("gui") for much of anything after you setup the unit - just reset at the beginning of the battery cycle and the rest just shows up on the display

I don't use the PC application much at all - I used it in the past for calibrating the unit and for downloading the logs when tweaking my BBSHD parameters but I haven't messed with them in a while