Specialized Turbo Vado here, UK legal, 2019 model with the 500wH battery.
Real world range, using power as appropriate on an undulating route is about 50 miles.
We have 2 Canyon road bikes. The power has 3 settings, effectively low, medium, high. Riding constantly on low and at under 15 mph (other than downhill) we get 50 ish miles, which is what is advertised.
The switch over date for the regs was 2016Wisper 905 Classic. When I was commuting on it, I was using full assist all the time. I tend to use the assist to get speed up and then pedal like fury to keep at or above 15 mph. Also of course the helping hand going up hills (my commute was very hilly). Wisper quoted a range of 50-60 miles, from memory. Most days I covered 25-30 miles and had 3/5 or 4/5 lights left on the battery indicator, so I think the quoted range was fairly honest.
The Wisper has a twist throttle that will power the bike without pedalling, but it's fairly slow and I wouldn't try to cover any distance on it. I've only used it once on the road, when the chain slipped off and I needed to get out of the way of a tractor PDQ. I believe 2014 (the year of my bike) was the last year that these throttles were legal, but I could be wrong.
The switch over date for the regs was 2016
before that you could legally have a throttle (my Powacycle Salisbury had one) but the power was limited to 200W rather than the current (sorry) 250W
Ebikes manufactured before then can still be used because they get 'grandfather rights' - but they must stick to all the old regs - not just have an old ebike and put a 250W motor in it
As with all ebike regs - I do not think anyone has ever tried to properly test this in court - so $deity knows what would happen if you tried it - although how the cops would find out is uncertain - as is why they would bother
I have re-read my previous reply on here and I thought there was a point worth adding
I have had 2 hub drive ebikes - one is still my wife's - and both were/are at the lower end of the market. My own ebike has a Bosch centre drive. I find that on the cheapo hub drive the 'torque sensor' is either just a motion detector - or is not very sensitive. This has the effect that you can fool the system in kicking the motor up to full power by pedalling very gently with very little effort at all - hence the bike accelerates up and maintains a reasonable speed using pretty much only battery power.
However, on my Bosch system you can;t really fool it as easily - in other words it actually looks at the pressure you are putting on the pedals and the motor responds to that. So, if you ease off the effort then the motor does the same and you slow down - especially if you have the assistance level set low.
This results in the range for the Bosch system looking good compared to the cheap hub drive - but it gets this extra range my making me do more work and the motor less work.
I don;t know how more expensive hub drive systems work so they may be better - but that is how it has been on the hub drive systems I have seen.
I have the 250W Swytch kit on my gravel bike ATM. I'm gonna pop a more detailed review later.Hi Drago, thank you. What you say makes sense and I kind of understood most of that from reading various articles on e-bikes. However, as I explained I could not understand the huge disparity in the range quoted by ebike companies on their website. My best guess is that Swytch being a British company (although selling globally) is taking the cautious or realistic approach to their range estimates and that most companies are exaggerating things, often doubling the average, which hardly anyone is going to achieve. That is my best guess. I have sent an email to VanMoof asking them for an explanation. I haven't heard back yet. I basically asked them as a UK resident could I buy the 504 Wh ebike, and if not and it had to be limited to 250 Wh, then what would the estimated range of my 250 Wh Vanmoof ebike be? I hope they reply, it would be interesting to hear what they say.
This is what it boils down to, a 500wh battery on a full assist legal bike on a good day will get you 50 miles.........
..........The light assist motors, such as the Fazua and Ebikemotion, as fitted on some roadie style bikes, will go further than 50 miles, but then so will the full assist bikes, such as the Bosch, when the wick is turned right down.
If I ride the Fazua as hard as I would my road bike am seeing a range of 100 miles, with average speeds of 17.5-18mph over rolling terrain,
50 miles from 500wh battery seems vert low though.
I’m sure there’s some resistance from the motor over 15.5mph on my Specialized. Anything over that speed on the flat is really quite hard work, even allowing for the 25kg weight of the bike.
Strange, that. Once I get the Wisper over 16 mph it absolutely flies. I find it as easy to keep up 16-17 mph on the flat as I do on any other bike. It doesn't feel like there is any resistance at all - apart from the massive weight, it rides like a decent bike.