How to charge electrical scooters and bikes: Practical notes, problems, and advice
1. Apartments:
Persons who reside in apartments would have problems in charging their bikes. The vehicle, obviously, cannot be carried up to higher floors, and cannot be left to charge in places that are open to the public because of the risk of theft of the charger or interference with the charging process.
2. Public charging points:
There are periodic announcements about public charging points being set up. This is no solution. Charging a battery takes time, and who will wait at the charging station for the battery to complete charging? Additionally, unless the charging station can accommodate a large number of customers simultaneously, queues could be impossible to manage.
3. Electricity supply:
In places in which electricity supply is irregular, emergency charging or supervised charging may become problematic. Erratic electricity supply is likely to be a problem in many parts of India for a long time to come.
4. Charging after use:
It is generally best to charge your electric scooter or bike after every use. This will maximize the range available each time the bike is taken out and reduce the chance that you will run out of charge before you reach your destination.
5. Duration of charging:
The duration of charging should depend on how much charge has been drained during use. The manufacturer guidance states 4-8 hours, depending on the bike and brand. See the later notes on what factors increase the drainage of charge.
6. Battery charger cut-off:
The charger has a built in cut-off; it stops charging when it senses that the batteries are fully charged. NEVER depend on this in-built system because it can fail. Consider the situation when you return late at night. You leave the batteries to charge overnight. The charger fails to cut off automatically, and the batteries are overcharged. The result is that the batteries get damaged. There is an immediate fall in the distance that you are able to travel per charge. You can even ruin a brand new set of batteries on the first occasion of charging if the charger cut-off fails. That's a great deal of money to lose - twelve thousand rupees (or whatever a new set of batteries costs) blown in a few hours of careless overcharging.
7. How do you know that your battery has been overcharged?
a) If the overcharge has occurred during the past few hours, you might get a smell of acid when you stand near the bike, especially if the bike is in an enclosed space with limited air circulation.
b) If you open up the bike and look at the batteries, you will see that the sides of the batteries bulge outwards. This indicates serious and irreversible damage to the batteries.
c) If you notice a sudden drop in the range of the bike; that is, the distance it can run on a single charge. This also indicates that serious and irreversible damage has occurred to the batteries.
8. What can you do if your battery has been damaged by overcharging?
You know that permanent damage has occurred if the range noticeably drops even after the battery has been fully charged, and if the batteries, when inspected, are seen to bulge outwards. You have two courses of action:
a) Replace the batteries.
b) Learn to live with the lower range (until such a time that you can manage no more). This may mean charging more than once a day, and for shorter intervals per charging occasion than when the batteries were healthy.
Note: Some of the comments and suggestions in my review might run contrary to what you read in your e-bike or battery manual. Please discuss the differences with your service engineers. My comments and suggestions are based on my personal experience as well as the guidance of my own service engineers.
9. Swapping batteries:
Suggestions have been proposed for battery swapping stations. This has not happened yet.
Persons who reside in apartments would have problems in charging their bikes. The vehicle, obviously, cannot be carried up to higher floors, and cannot be left to charge in places that are open to the public because of the risk of theft of the charger or interference with the charging process.
2. Public charging points:
There are periodic announcements about public charging points being set up. This is no solution. Charging a battery takes time, and who will wait at the charging station for the battery to complete charging? Additionally, unless the charging station can accommodate a large number of customers simultaneously, queues could be impossible to manage.
3. Electricity supply:
In places in which electricity supply is irregular, emergency charging or supervised charging may become problematic. Erratic electricity supply is likely to be a problem in many parts of India for a long time to come.
4. Charging after use:
It is generally best to charge your electric scooter or bike after every use. This will maximize the range available each time the bike is taken out and reduce the chance that you will run out of charge before you reach your destination.
- It is generally recommended that electronic gadgets such as laptops and cellphone be charged only after the battery has been substantially drained, and that the battery be brought up to full charge when charging. This guidance, however, does not apply to lead acid batteries that power electric bikes. In fact, it can be harmful to lead acid batteries if they are fully drained before recharge.
5. Duration of charging:
The duration of charging should depend on how much charge has been drained during use. The manufacturer guidance states 4-8 hours, depending on the bike and brand. See the later notes on what factors increase the drainage of charge.
- On average, if I run for about 15 km in city traffic, I charge the bike for about 2-3 hours, depending on how much braking and acceleration had been necessary during the day, and whether or not I carried a pillion rider. If I ride for 20-25 km, I charge the bike for about 4 hours. The reckoning is far simpler than it seems, and it should take only a few days for the average e-bike user to get the hang of timing the charging appropriately.
- Please note that this guidance will very likely vary from model to model of e-bike. You will need to develop your own charging schemata, based upon guidance from your dealers and service engineers, and your own experience.
- When the battery becomes old, such as after 4000 km of service or after a year of use, the range will drop, and it will not hold as much charge as it originally did. When this happens, charge the battery for shorter periods, and more often. For example, if the range of the battery drops to 10 km or less, it is probably pointless (and possibly harmful to the battery) to charge it for more than an hour.
6. Battery charger cut-off:
The charger has a built in cut-off; it stops charging when it senses that the batteries are fully charged. NEVER depend on this in-built system because it can fail. Consider the situation when you return late at night. You leave the batteries to charge overnight. The charger fails to cut off automatically, and the batteries are overcharged. The result is that the batteries get damaged. There is an immediate fall in the distance that you are able to travel per charge. You can even ruin a brand new set of batteries on the first occasion of charging if the charger cut-off fails. That's a great deal of money to lose - twelve thousand rupees (or whatever a new set of batteries costs) blown in a few hours of careless overcharging.
- You know that the batteries have been overcharged if you get a smell of acid when you stand near the bike. If this has happened, it is probably too late.
- Learn by trial and error just how much time is needed to charge your bike to nearly full charge. It is better to undercharge the batteries than to overcharge them.
- It is generally OK if you overshoot your planned charging time by, say, 30-60 minutes once in a while. However, be careful not to allow this to happen too often; better safe than twelve thousand rupees sorry.
- If you have a rough idea of how long it takes to FULLY recharge your battery after a certain degree of use, avoid charging the battery for more than 30 minutes beyond this time. This is because if the charger continues to charge at full intensity for more than 30 minutes after the battery is fully charged, there is a real risk of battery damage.
- It is OK if your charger cut-off does not work as long as you know roughly when you should switch it off, and you can trust yourself to remember. Keep in mind that all it takes is one occasion of forgetting to ruin your batteries.
- Use cues to help you remember to switch off the charger. For example, set an alarm, or keep your helmet where it will remind you to switch off the charger.
- Why does charger failure occur? Discussions with electrical engineers suggest that the fault could lie either with the charger or with the batteries. For example, the charger may fail to recognize that the batteries are fully charged. Or, the batteries may fail to develop the required voltage, and the charger consequently continues to charge the batteries at full intensity. This may explain why a charger which never seemed to cut off with one set of batteries works perfectly well with another set.
7. How do you know that your battery has been overcharged?
a) If the overcharge has occurred during the past few hours, you might get a smell of acid when you stand near the bike, especially if the bike is in an enclosed space with limited air circulation.
b) If you open up the bike and look at the batteries, you will see that the sides of the batteries bulge outwards. This indicates serious and irreversible damage to the batteries.
c) If you notice a sudden drop in the range of the bike; that is, the distance it can run on a single charge. This also indicates that serious and irreversible damage has occurred to the batteries.
8. What can you do if your battery has been damaged by overcharging?
You know that permanent damage has occurred if the range noticeably drops even after the battery has been fully charged, and if the batteries, when inspected, are seen to bulge outwards. You have two courses of action:
a) Replace the batteries.
b) Learn to live with the lower range (until such a time that you can manage no more). This may mean charging more than once a day, and for shorter intervals per charging occasion than when the batteries were healthy.
Note: Some of the comments and suggestions in my review might run contrary to what you read in your e-bike or battery manual. Please discuss the differences with your service engineers. My comments and suggestions are based on my personal experience as well as the guidance of my own service engineers.
- Sometimes, the manual and the service engineer may provide contradictory guidance. Sometimes, the dealers and service engineers, who should know what they are talking about, don't! Sometimes, different persons may provide different and contradictory advice. I suggest that you use your judgement in such situations; from electric scooters to bringing up children, that's the way life is.
9. Swapping batteries:
Suggestions have been proposed for battery swapping stations. This has not happened yet.