Battery capacity indication ............ am I missing something ?

[Ming the Merciless]

Anyone who has ever tried to standardise something will know that even amongst 4 people they’ll be 4 different opinions. If no one has an overriding vote, you end up at an impasse.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

In the 1990s I was a SOftware Specialist in the IT department of a big company

There was a major project to move one of the main systems onto a more modern operating system - which wasn't difficult as the old one was ancient and rubbish

Anyway - the main contender was Unix - the Linux system for PCs is based on it

We got several suppliers in to show us what they thought would be ideal contender

The point in Unix is that it is an Open SOurce operating system (like Linux) and so every system is the same - same configuration procedures and same same commands and interface

as someone commented as we were going through all the different offers - for a unified standardised operating system based on a known set of source code
all 100 versions are remarkably different!

 

[bonzobanana]

View attachment 719858

As well as being funny I feel there is so much truth in that cartoon across so many fields and products.

 

[bonzobanana]

That makes sense
My Carrera is a Bafang system and seems to be separate battery and motor and display - maybe not all totally seperate but certainly not a fully integrated system like the Bosch on my Raleigh which - according to "the Internet" will brick itself if you paint it the wrong colour!

but the integrated system does seem to do a far better job overall!

I assumed your Carrera was a pre-built ebike with a Suntour HESC setup and even then I've seen comments about the handlebar display not being the same as the battery pack read out but a ebike kit would be the same I guess mostly. Bosch have made it so that as soon as the BMS in the battery pack gets to a low voltage condition the BMS bricks itself and therefore the battery pack is bricked too. I think they have done this to stop people fitting new battery cells and taking the BMS and using it in their own battery but of course it also means if the battery gets too discharged it also self-bricks. The Bosch battery packs get extreme discharging as they are used with e-mountain bike motors that can discharge at up to about 900W or 25A peak even when sold as 250W ebikes so the cells can get extreme use which is more likely to lead to failure and so the Bosch BMS senses for cell faults and also self-bricks. You can see some Bosch battery packs taken apart in youtube videos where they started to fail and get hot and the BMS bricked immediately to prevent a fire etc. I guess in summary Bosch battery packs have a much greater tendency to brick as they are much safer but I personally wouldn't of thought they would have such high risk of bricking on the lower power mid-drive motors like the 40Nm model as I wouldn't of thought the discharge rate would be anywhere near as excessive as the 90Nm model for example however that is an assumption by me.

I don't know what raleigh ebike you have but the torque level will dictate the discharge rate of the battery pack and the higher the discharge rate the harder life the battery pack gets.

 

[Mike_P]

My ebike and it's charger have different bar levels. The charger shows the bar level that has been reached while the ebike lights up the next bar level if the previous one has been exceeded. So if I take it off charge with 4 bars lit it invariably on the ebike shows 5 bars (fully charged). The app does shows a % reading.

 

[albion]

Yes, lower wattage motors and slow charging are safer for the batteries.
That said, the design of the battery cell dictates its power capabilities so those Bosch batteries should theoretically use high power cells.

Cynical me though, says it is in Bosch's interests to brick packs slightly prematurely, the markup on the proprietary packs being massive,

 

[Tenkaykev]

As well as being funny I feel there is so much truth in that cartoon across so many fields and products.

I should have given credit to xkcd, a wealth of insightful cartoons.
I have this one about angular momentum as a screen saver and a print:

 

[wiggydiggy]

If an e bike could tell you "you've got n minutes left at this setting" converted to time rather than voltage etc then it could give a better idea as the assistance wouldn't be used all the time anyway, and you could pace yourself better on a longer ride without worrying so much about running out of battery capacity.

My Bosch Powerline system does offer a range, based on the current power asisst, after 1000 miles on it I've judged it to be mostly accurate.

Cynical me though, says it is in Bosch's interests to brick packs slightly prematurely, the markup on the proprietary packs being massive,

I don't know about that but as long as I can still get about 5 miles out of it I'll keep the bike as a shopper bike. Though at the point that the battery becomes untenable for a leisure ride I'll be getting a new bike rather than a new battery pack.

 

[rustedchain8919]

I've ordered a new e-bike, a Cowboy Cruiser ST, (no way to determine hiw accurate it is as I don't have it yet) which according to the company, the app will tell you approximately how many kms you can go before needing to recharge. (Not minutes though) and the LED battery indicator is on the dashboard.
Having used Forest, Lime and Boris E-Bikes, they also seem to have that same ability. I guess the technology is there, but this is still going to be dependent on weight of the rider + load, level of power assist, road surface, weather, traffic etc. so I guess an approximate distance is probably more accurate than approximate time?