How to Choose Electric Bicycle Batteries

How much do you know about your electric bicycle batteries? If your knowledge about your battery is just some surface information, that means you don't know much about your ebike. If the current is compared to the blood of an ebike, then the battery is its heart. The quality of the battery will have an important impact on the speed, battery life, and safety of the bike, which directly affects your riding experience. There are two main types of ebike batteries currently on the market, namely lithium batteries and lead-acid batteries. Want to know the difference between them? Now it’s time to follow us to learn something new!

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) Electric Bike Batteries

With the passage of time, among so many battery types, the lithium-ion battery has been proved to be the one that best meets the needs of the public through market investigations. Nowadays, it occupies a high market share and enjoys a great number of audience. And lithium-ion battery is applied to a variety of electronic products such as electric bicycles or motorcycles, karts, and laptops because of its many irreplaceable advantages.

Generally, Li-ion batteries have a small volume and can be made into various shapes, which makes them widely used in different places, such as the triangular area of a bicycle frame. Secondly, compared with conventional batteries, lithium batteries usually have a longer cycle life, and their charging cycles can often reach nearly an astonishing 1,000 times or more. Therefore, whether you use batteries frequently or leave them idle, they will not age or become scrapped in the short term. But this does not mean that we recommend you to do so, in order to extend your battery life, we suggest you treat it according to our tips on how to maximize your ebike battery life. In addition to portability and long battery life, lithium batteries also maintain excellent performance at the same time. They can be charged quickly, maximize battery efficiency, and provide higher performance with lower power. All these advantages make Li-ion batteries stand out in the market, and set off today's electric bicycle boom.

Of course, everything has two sides, and lithium batteries also have some disadvantages. Due to their excellent performance and exquisite crafts, lithium batteries usually require higher production technical and complex production processes and thus leads to their higher prices. But considering their incomparable performance and longer service life, we still recommend choosing to buy electric bicycles equipped with lithium-ion batteries, especially well-known brands such as Samsung. Himiway electric bicycle batteries made by famous brand Samsung or 17.5A large capacity will perfectly feed your need.

What we talked about above is only the overview of lithium-ion batteries, there are also many sub-types of lithium batteries, if you want to know more about them, please read on.

• Lithium-ion polymer (LiPo) Electric Bike batteries

This lithium-ion polymer battery is the choice of most electric bike manufacturers and is widely equipped on ebikes with a market share of up to 90%. Compared with the other lithium battery we are going to talk about, the LiPo battery has a lower price, but this is not to say that it is low in performance. LiPo batteries use solid, colloidal polymers, or organic electrolytes. Since there is no excess liquid electrolyte in the lithium polymer, it is more reliable and stable than other batteries. While ensuring high stability, LiPo batteries also have many other advantages such as large capacity and fast charging. They can provide higher power in a short period of time, which enables ebikes to obtain power support when starting. What's more, this kind of battery can be molded into different shapes to suit the product, thus replacing other types of Li-ion batteries on the market and becoming the best choice for electric bicycle companies.

• Lithium cobalt (LCO) Electric bike batteries

This LCO battery has a relatively stable structure and outstanding comprehensive performance, but its most well-known advantage is its high energy density. It can contain or release a considerable amount of energy in a small volume, so it is used in some small electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops, and MP3/4. However, its safety performance is not as good as other types of lithium batteries, but this is not what you are supposed to worry about, because the responsible manufacturer knows what measures should be taken to ensure the safety of customers. Therefore, the main reason why lithium cobalt oxide batteries are not as widely used as LiPo batteries is not its safety performance, but its cost. Cobalt is a relatively scarce strategic metal, so LCO batteries are generally expensive to manufacture. Also, there are certain technical difficulties in applying them to power batteries. These various reasons limit the development of LCO batteries, so manufacturers sometimes use lithium manganese batteries to partially or completely replace LCO batteries. Perhaps in the future, these difficulties will be solved with the advancement of technology, but at least for now, LiPo batteries are the leader of power batteries.

• Lithium magnesium (LiMg2O4) electric bike batteries

Lithium manganate battery refers to a battery that uses LiMn2O4 as the positive electrode. This is the latest type of lithium battery, and because of its characteristics of low cost, good safety performance and no pollution, it has been receiving great attention from many scholars and researchers at home and abroad. Currently, LiMg2O4 batteries are commonly used in the manufacture of mobile phones, laptops, and other portable electronic devices. In general, this is a battery with good development prospects, and the technology adopted by the Nissan Leaf hybrid vehicle is similar to this battery production technology. However, the material itself is not very stable and easily decomposes to produce gas, so it is mostly used in combination with other materials to improve stability and reduce the cost of battery cells.

Unlike portable electronic products such as mobile phones, electric bikes require a certain amount of power support. Therefore, regarding the current battery market, lithium-ion batteries are definitely the most suitable partner for electric bicycles. All fat tire electric bikes under Himiway use Samsung/LG

lithium-ion batteries, which are safe and stable, with good performance and long battery life. Undoubtedly the most ideal choice for purchasing an ebike.

Lead-acid Electric Bike Batteries (SLA)

As the most primitive electric bicycle battery, the invention of lead-acid batteries can be traced back to the middle of the 19th century. It has experienced nearly 160 years of development and has made considerable progress in product types and varieties, and product electrical performance. Nowadays, lead-acid batteries play an important role in various economic fields such as transportation, communication, electric power, military, and even navigation and aviation, and their most obvious advantages are low price and high stability. Of course, here also some shortcomings follow. SLA batteries are usually bulky, weighing about three times that of lithium batteries, but the bulky size cannot bring enough power. Compared with lithium batteries, three times the weight of SLA batteries corresponds to only half the capacity of lithium batteries. In addition, cycle life is also one of its key issues. After 150 cycles, you can feel the reduction in battery range. In summary, in the ebike industry, these fatal shortcomings allow it to be replaced by lithium batteries. And this is why Himiway chose Samsung lithium batteries as a supplier.

• Nickel-cadmium (NiCd) Electric Bike Batteries

NiCd battery is as bulky as SLA battery, but the battery capacity is larger than SLA (still no better than lithium battery), and it has longer battery life. From these two points, it may be a better choice than SLA. But the most fatal disadvantage of NiCd is that there will be a serious "memory effect." The memory effect means that some bubbles will be produced on the battery board during charge and discharge (discharge>charge). The accumulation of bubbles will reduce the area of the battery board and thereby affect the battery capacity. Besides, cadmium is a toxic pollutant that is difficult to recycle. For environmental protection reasons, NiCd batteries are not the most ideal type of ebike batteries. Numerous shortcomings make nickel-cadmium batteries have basically been eliminated from the application choice of many electronic device batteries.

• Nickel-metal Hydride (NiMh) Electric Bike Batteries

As the earth's resources are drastically reduced under large-scale exploitation and utilization, scientists have to find new energy sources that can replace fossil energy for human use, and hydrogen energy attracts their attention. Nickel-metal Hydride battery as an important direction of hydrogen energy application has also been explored. Ni-Mh battery has higher efficiency and safety performance than SLA and NiCd, and the capacity is also very attractive. From these perspectives, it might be a good ebike equipment. What is disappointing is its high cost and mediocre battery life. The NiMh battery needs precious metals as a catalyst, which makes its price unaffordable. In addition, its battery life is hardly improved compared to NiCd, so few electric bikes on the market now use NiMh batteries.

As far as we are concerned, it is inevitable that lithium-ion batteries dominate the market because they have long battery life, wide range, lightweight, and other top performances. Almost 90% of ebike manufacturers will choose Li-ion batteries. However, we still suggest that customers should consider what kind of ebike to buy according to their actual needs, budget, etc.

Notice. The lithium-ion batteries equipped on Himiway electric bikes have a two-year warranty, hurry up and make your purchase!