click photo to see charger, connector and battery highlighted on Flickr
A lot of people ask how the electric cargo bike charges, so I thought I would
post a photo.
It’s essentially the same process you would use with rechargable digital camera
batteries, only with a bigger battery and a bigger charger.
Our LiFePO4
battery is size of a miniture loaf of bread and can be easily unplugged from
the bike and plugged into a charger. The claim is that this needs to be done
every 15 to 35 miles. Based on our usage, it appears that it may be more like
30 to 50 miles. (Because we don’t always engage the electric assist).
It turned out I had a rather ideal situation in my garage, with a electrical outlet
directly above where we usually park the bike. So, here you can see our charger mounted
to a pole, and the battery is literally just “plugged in” with an XLR connector while
still attached to the bike.
With this battery it’s also healthy for it to keep it fully charged, so we can
simply plug it in when the last ride for the day is done. Because the range
exceeds our daily needs, this process implies that the electric assist is
always available when we need it.
In sum, it takes just seconds to charge at an estimated of cost of less than a
penny per mile. By contrast, I once calculated the total cost of operating my
wife’s station wagon. It worked out that to require about one hour of work for
to pay for every one hour of driving the car. That’s not exactly efficient if
you factor all the money-earning time into your True MPH for driving your car.
If you are curious about your own true average speed in your vehicle you can
download a spreadsheet I made to calculate it for yourself.
For more stories and photos about our electric cargo bike, see the related photo set on Flickr.
