this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2025
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Wait, what? I drain my battery every day. I need more energy density, not less. I do use my bike for long trips, driving a car during rush hour sucks, parking fees are insanely high and parking spots are rare. I sold my car and do everything by electric bike. But after 2 hours of cycling at 32km/h I need to charge.
I meant the ~300 mile ranges common in electric cars. That’s a long trip. Plus if the car rolls to a stop by the side of the road you just gotta have it towed or charge it up in the field somehow, electric bikes have pedals.
It sucks to pedal a heavy ass ebike but you can do it in a pinch to get where you need to go.
Yeah, have fun peddling a heavy as fuck ebike when you're 1 hour 32km/h drive away from home. That's over 2h of super heavy cycling because you're going super slow.
I have. It sucks but it’s possible and because I live in a mountainous area I avoid that problem by using less assist so everything lasts longer.
The broader point I was trying to make is that If you’re trying to allocate the limited raw materials to the types of transport that benefit people the most then pushing e-bikes to lead acid makes a lot of sense. Yeah, the bikes could benefit from a more power dense battery, but they have backup pedals and ultimately their rider is the majority of the loaded bikes weight.
Electric cars and trucks weigh at least ten times what a person does and are generally used for longer distances than e-bikes so it makes more sense to use very energy dense batteries in them.
Again, I’m speaking from a position that recognizes the proliferation of electric vehicles in China and recognizes that the raw materials used to make lithium batteries are finite and in high demand, not from the position of trying to optimize the e-bike.
Just get rid of cars and fix proper biking and public transportation infrastructure. No need for that many cars, electric or not. Lithium is finite, the mines are horrible. But we're getting nuclear diamond batteries soon, they are a massive upgrade.
China has very developed bicycle infrastructure and massive public transportation compared to almost anywhere else. There are fewer car owners per capita than other countries. It’s still a smart play to use the hand of state to take steps to allocate the more energy dense batteries to applications that require them.
As I said before: Maybe these better chemistries that will replace lithium are just around the corner. I certainly don’t count unhatched chickens.
Seems like cars don't all need 300 mi range, but a 5 lb weight difference in a bike is huge.
Also isn't lead acid heavy as fuck for the energy stored? The difference there is more noticeable on a bike.
It's heavy and bursty. It's really not great for sustained energy discharge, which is why it's used as a starter and not for hybrid engines at runtime.
I'm hoping sodium ion takes over the ebike market. It's less energy dense then the very best lithium batteries, but most ebikes aren't using the very best lithium batteries, anyway. They're cheaper and alleviate the safety concerns (which are mostly overblown, anyway).
Yeah, I'd totally buy a sodium ion battery. I think they have something like 75% the energy density per mass vs lithium ion, which is totally fine for my use case (commuter).