Real-world range is just around the corner
Electric and hybrid vehicles are now the biggest users of rechargeable batteries globally, which means there’s a change of focus from battery makers – who are now increasingly concentrating on the demands of EVs rather than portable consumer goods such as phones and laptops.
That’s good news for electric bikes, as it means we can expect lighter, faster-charging and more power-dense batteries in the next few years. We could fill pages with the various technologies that are being explored for future use; chemistries including lithiumsilicon, lithium-sulphur and a host of others are under development to replace lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide and lithium iron phosphate batteries that are the current state-of-the-art in production EVs, while the likes of BMW and Toyota are putting money into solid-state battery developments that promise more power in a smaller package than current tech can deliver.
The truth is that the exact chemistry and construction won’t bother future electric bike owners any more than you currently worry whether your conrods are steel, aluminium or titanium. What matters is how well they do the job, and when it comes to batteries, future ones will be better than today’s equivalents.
Promises of giant leaps in battery technology are usually realised as gradual steps in real life, but the overall effect is an exponential improvement in energy-density. As a rule of thumb, the energy density of new batteries improves by around 8% per year, so it doubles every nine years.
Back in 2012, a Zero S could manage around 50 miles of gentle use. Today a much faster and more powerful Zero SR/F will achieve 100 miles under similarly careful riding, so by 2030 a 200-mile real-world range should be well within reach, while performance will continue to improve – putting electric bikes into the same ballpark as petrol-powered machines on all fronts.