What is an electric bicycle?

When someone hears the word electric bicycle, the first they imagine may be a mped or electric motorcycle. Actually look pretty different. Just picture a standard regular bicycle, then modestly add components to it like a motor, a battery, and a controller, all seamlessly integrated into the fantastic design.

These items make up all electric bicycles on the market!

Electric Bike Motors:

Electric bike motors come in a wide variety of power ratings, from 250W to 750W or more. The legal limit in the US is 750W, although different states can set their own limits.

Consider the the limit is like horsepower rating. A higher rating means that the bike will be able to pull more weight, but at the expense of using more battery capacity.

Consequently, a 750W motor will drain the battery much quicker than a 250W one, but there will be more power. (Just Like a car with a bigger engine)

Batteries?

The option the battery affects the weight, style, and range of the bike, it choice is one of the most imporatant factors in selecting your new electric bike. As it's range  will be great imprtance in how, when and were you use your electric bike.

The batteries you’ll find offered on the market fall into one of the following two categories:

Sealed Lead Acid, batteries were once the standard battery type for most electric scooters and electric bicycles. These days, some less inexpensive electric scooters still use SLA batteries, while electric bikes (which often require human input) have opted for newer battery technologies to keep the bike as lightweight as possible. Thus increasing preformance and range.

Advantages

• Inexpensive
• Disadvantages
• Heavy and bulky
• Offer a shorter riding range
• Shorter life span of about 100-300 full cycle charges

Lithium Ion: The newest technology in batteries. A lithium battery has a lifetime roughly 2-3 times that of an SLA battery. Lithium batteries are much lighter and also are largely maintenance-free.

Advantages

• Lightweight – high-capacity,
• Offer a longer riding range
• Longer life span of about 800 charges or 3 years.