What’s your real-world e-bike range?

[michaelbrown12319]

Hi guys! I was thinking about how subjective the “up to X miles” is, so I wonder if you would like to share your actual consumption and the conditions behind it, for example, motor type, voltage, your weight or cargo, terrain, temperature... I'm curious to know if there is a significant difference between what you experience in different situations vs the range that manufacturers advertise

 

[Stefan Mikes]

E-bike manufacturers market battery the range of their e-bikes for ideal riding conditions, a young sporty rider requiring minimal assistance, and possibly on the flat. The brutal truth is "the more power you can add to your ride yourself the farther you can get". The unassisted range is infinity.

Here are several factors affecting the battery range:

• The battery capacity
• The e-bike motor assistance
• The leg power rider's contribution into the ride
• Elevation gain
• Wind assistance or resistance
• Terrain ridden
• The cruising speed
• The system weight (rider + e-bike + cargo)
• The tyres used and the inflation pressure (rolling resistance)
• Continuous ride or frequent starts/stops
• Ambient temperature
• Anything else?

Any discussion of "real world range" is pointless. Enough to say, I can ride the same e-bike with the same battery for 60 or 25 miles, given all the conditions. The real range just needs a couple thousand miles ridden in different areas and all year long to gain a personal experience for a given e-bike.

 

[speedub.nate]

I could throw my numbers at you, but as you've already suggested, there are many variables – many more than you have already listed.

At least with electric cars of different makes, there is a common reference point of "miles per kWh" or kWh/100 km, but in that case nobody is pedaling to contribute.

With bikes, Eco vs. Turbo mode, thumb throttles vs. pedal assist, hub vs. mid drive, and the popularity of utterly inefficient tire choices... you get the picture.

My commute bike can swing from 50 one ride to barely 20 the next.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Nate, the batteries also degrade with time and the number of charging cycles... I've noticed it already as all my e-bike batteries are old!

 

[indianajo]

I had an 840 wh battery on my bodaboda cargo bike. There are 77 hills on my 30 mile usual commute one way, and if I started with a full battery and pedaled all the flat and low grade portions without power, the controller would red light and cut out on a 12% hill 2 miles from my destination. The commute is 30 miles off the flatter state roads, and there are numerous 8 to 12% hills. There is a 200' rise overall. Days when there was a 30 mph headwind all they way home, the battery would cut out further from my destination.
That was stolen, good riddance because geared hub motors that would climb a 12% grade have been outlawed. I had a 1300 w ebikelingone that wore out the gears at 4500 miles, and a Cutler Mac 1000 w one that wore out the one way clutch in 5000 miles. Last 750 w hub motor burned out in 2024, to make a matched set of 3 burned 750 w legal motors. 8/31/26 I bought a PakYak with a mid-drive that is supposed to cool better than a geared hub motor. It had better, because in the year & 4 months I have been off the bike, I cannot climb 1% grades with the power off. New battery has 2/3 the watthours of the old one. I've had the bike since 9/18 and got 6, 12, & 8 mile trips in before a spoke nipple broke. USPS has had the box with the part for 6 days, 3 of them in town, and did not deliver today either. I don't think I will dare ride the commute to my summer camp until I buy another battery. Has to be Momentum, the battery reads 1 v if it has not communicated with the computer in the controller.

 

[speedub.nate]

...a young sporty rider requiring minimal assistance...

• The leg power rider's contribution into the ride
  

I was thinking about this on my ride in to work just now...

My commute is a hair over 11 miles and mostly flat, just 200' of gain on the home leg, and yet in Eco mode I'm pushing my luck to complete two round trips (45 miles).

But if I take this same bike out and casually ride the Oakland-SF-Golden Gate Bridge / Marin Headlands loop into Larkspur with my son, we can rack up 50 miles with much more elevation gain, and still have electrons left in the tank upon reaching home. And I assume this is because the Shimano (and Bosch) mid-drive system on these bikes respond to how much effort is put in to the cranks, and tries to match it.

So if I push it harder on my commute, even though I'm in Eco, I'm probably expending way more Watts per mile than if I'm casually kicking it with the kiddo.

I'm not sure that that is true on hub drive bikes or throttle controlled, or even Bafang mid-drives -- would greater rider input act to relieve power requirements from those motors?

 

[Catalyzt]

I find it interesting that my Motobecane Ultra eAdventure, which weighs 46-47 pounds with a 418Wh battery and has a Shimano E5000 Class 1 motor, gets about the same range, and with the same elevation, as my 36-pound Canyon Grizl ON: CF 7 with the Bosch SX Class III motor.

Both are will probably do a bit more than 40 miles with a bit more than 4,000 feet of vertical, which is typical for riding conditions here... every 10 miles involves roughly 800 to 1,000 feet of vertical for most rides.

The difference is, of course, that the Canyon is much faster. It's not unusual for me to do a couple of blocks just under or over 30 MPH, while on the Moto, I would probably just kiss 28 MPH and cruise at around 20-25. The Motobecane climbs steep hills at 5.5 MPH, while the Canyon climbs at more like 7 or 8 MPH. It doesn't sound like a big difference, but running errands is much faster on the Canyon, and my 4.1 mile local fitness loop-- through steep hills and sharp hairpin curves-- is tricky on the Moto, but harrowing on the Canyon-- those few extra MPH mean I REALLY have to pay attention.

I think the Canyon's "Eco" range may be a bit better, but there's no place to test it here. But I bet either bike could do 60 to 80 miles on flatter terrain with gentle, rolling hills.

And the Canyon starts getting skittish at 38 MPH, while the Moto doesn't get jumpy until 43 MPH.

Riding the Canyon did change the way I ride the Moto-- I'm now keenly aware that higher cadence with the Shimano power plant delivers more power, and consumes more juice. Previously, I kinda knew that, but it didn't figure into my riding style much.

So it absolutely depends on use case scenario.

Nate, the batteries also degrade with time and the number of charging cycles... I've noticed it already as all my e-bike batteries are old!

Strangely, the Moto's range has not decreased noticeably since 2021. I think that is because it only has 3000 miles on it, but also because the motor is underpowered, e.g., does not draw down the battery as fast, which decreases its lifespan. I expect to see faster battery degradation from the Canyon.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Nate,
The first thought is that for the same e-bike ridden under identical conditions and at the same speed, everything is down to the total energy used for the ride, which can be split into the rider's and motor's contribution. In them olden good days, there was an app for Specialized e-bikes (BLEvo) that not only could extract any possible information from the e-bike but also made very detailed analyses of the rider and the e-bike interaction. One of the most interesting parameters was "Rider's contribution %". My powerful big Vado did 67-75% of the work for me on long rides while I was providing 55% with my legs on a half as powerful Vado SL (so the e-bike contribution was 45%) on similar routes.

On the other hand, setting the assistance in either e-bike the way each of them provided the same actual assist (motor/leg power multiplier) and peak power resulted in a very similar battery consumption and average speed, provided the rides were on the flat.

Those times are gone but I simply can see (by currently available parameters) my leg power is decidedly lower for the powerful e-bike compared to the weaker one if I maintain the same average speed. So I just need to pedal harder on the low-power e-bike to achieve the same.

I'm not sure that that is true on hub drive bikes or throttle controlled, or even Bafang mid-drives -- would greater rider input act to relieve power requirements from those motors?

Let us not discuss the throttle-only as it is irrelevant: it results in the worst battery range. Now, the motor efficiency. A mid-drive motor is very efficient if the rider can maintain the cadence above 70 rpm (ideally, above 80 rpm). Regarding a hub-drive motor, it provides a constant assistance per the assist level. Additionally, the rider of the hub-drive motor e-bike gets into the equilibrium with the motor, so it results in a constant speed for a given assist level. Hub-drives can be efficient and fast as long as the rides are on the flat (a good commuter bike). However, the hub-drive motor efficiency falls off the cliff if the hills come into the equation. (In my opinion, the rider's effort on a hub-drive is constant per the assist level, and it does not affect the battery range).

Now, very powerful motors such as Bafang or Avinox mid-drives. If the rider opts for high assistance, the leg movements are just a signal to ride -- your legs act as a throttle -- but the motor is doing almost all the work (ghost pedalling). Certainly, that affects the battery consumption a lot. That's why such powerful e-bikes have monster batteries that make the e-bike a heavy tank...

 

[Aushiker]

Hi guys! I was thinking about how subjective the “up to X miles” is, so I wonder if you would like to share your actual consumption and the conditions behind it, for example, motor type, voltage, your weight or cargo, terrain, temperature... I'm curious to know if there is a significant difference between what you experience in different situations vs the range that manufacturers advertise

I do not have a known 'real range' on my Riese and Müller Supercharger, which has a 1,250-watt battery capacity, but I work on a safety margin of 150 kilometres when planning bikepacking rides.

 

[speedub.nate]

Let us not discuss the throttle-only as it is irrelevant: it results in the worst battery range.

I think that's a mistake on this forum. I don't own any throttle-controlled bikes but I've come to the conclusion that we "pedal assist purist" types are in the minority.

The Original Poster who posed this question could very easily be in the throttle camp!

And actually, that could give some interesting data points, too. A throttle only rider pegged at 20 MPH all day, every day is going to have very different results compared to 15 MPH or 28 MPH. Hub vs. mid-drive would have the same relevancy as pedal assist, especially once hills are introduced.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

I think that's a mistake on this forum. I don't own any throttle-controlled bikes but I've come to the conclusion that we "pedal assist purist" types are in the minority.

The throttle can just flexibly set the assist level for a hub-drive but the rider is still pedalling (the throttle is used to set the cruising speed only). With throttle-only, the contribution of the rider is 0%, resulting in the shortest range possible. We could as well discuss e-scooters