Have not been updating on my Electric Bicycle. This would be the final project log and from the project, it gives me some insight about Electric Vehicle.
I have tried cycling on the Electric Bicycle from house to work (about 20 Km distance) and the battery died half way (about 12 km into the journey). One of the reason is that I did not start the journey on a full charge of the battery as a rough calculation shows that the 24V 8AH battery on a 500W motor at 50Km/hr speed should give me a range of (24*8 * 50 Km/hr)/500W = 19.2 Km to get me to at least about 1 or 2 km away from my office. I was wrong.
Anyhow, I managed to get myself to a bicycle shop nearby and have the shop help me to check the bicycle for me. It turns out that the bicycle needed to be tuned and some screws were missing. Lucky that it didn't fall apart before I reached the bicycle shop. Anyhow, with the help of the bicycle shop the bike is probably tuned and all screws are tighten. It works now but I think the 8AH battery pack could not give me 19KM range. I would need to order a bigger AH battery pack before I attempt to cycle to work again using the E-bike.
One thing though, the journey was a bliss and it was absolutely enjoyable until the battery dies. Then I have to sweat... not a nice feeling to have in a morning that you suppose to go to work.
For the moment, I am using it for near distance traveling around my residential area like going to the shop lot, pasar malam and friends houses nearby. Contemplating whether wanted to bring the bike to the office and use it on campus. It would be cool to show it off to the students and colleagues.
Some thought on the Electric Vehicle and even Hybrid Cars based on the insight I got from my electric bicycle.
1) Motor technology is there. We have motors that are fast and powerful enough to power cars and even trucks. On this part it is definitely feasible to use electric motor to run a car in place of the internal combustion engine. There is an advantage in using motor also: motor would give much higher torque at low rpm compared to engine. That's mean the electric car would accelerate faster.
2) The downside is, battery technology is not quite there yet. Here internal combustion engine absolutely wins. Engine needs petrol, so a car with internal combustion engine only need to carry a fuel tank. The best part of carrying a fuel tank is that when energy contain is low, i.e you are running out of petrol. The fuel tank would become lighter hence the engine consume relatively speaking less fuel to move the lighter car. But the weight of the battery doesn't go down when it is drying out. Worse is when the battery died, you don't carry an empty fuel tank. You carry the full weight of the dead battery.
There is another downside to battery also. The charging time. For an 24V 8AH battery, the charging time is about 2 hours to bring a bicycle of about 35Kg and me (about 63Kg) for a distance of about 12 Km. With petrol car, it probably takes about 10 seconds to refill to go the same distance. Long charging time is definitely the disadvantage of Electric Vehicle.
The good news is, innovation and progresses is being made every day in Battery technology. Though it's not quite there yet, but we are getting there. Also, there is already a work-around technology for the slow charging time of battery. Solar power charging. Think about it. Most cars owner drive to work then parks their car for half a day until they drive it for lunch then park their car the remaining of the day until they drive it home. So, with solar panel fitted to charge the battery, the electric car could be made more practical perhaps even without the need to ever to plug it in for charging. Unless it is a rainy day where there is no sun.
My take is, EV is not yet the way to go now. But it will be in the near future. How near? I can't really tell but I would check it up regularly. If I have to guess, I would guess 10 years. Perhaps even nearer, by then the technology would mature and everyone will want to buy one.
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