Electric Bike Batteries – Amphours, Watts, and Volts!

When looking to buy a brand new electric bike, one of the most important factors to consider is the battery. 

Here are 3 battery specs that you should know about before making your purchase: 

1. Watt (W)

   1. This unit of measure is similar to describing the engine size on a car which affects your maximum power output. 

1. Amphour (Ah)

   1. This measurement is similar to the size of your gas tank in a car.

1. Volt (V)

   1. This final spec affects both speed and acceleration (similar to horsepower) 

More About Batteries: Amphours…

The Amphour rating is used to communicate how much electrical power the battery can provide in one hour of usage. 

Small batteries such as the standard AAA batteries found in your TV remote come, come with an Amphour rating denoted in milli-amp hours, or (mAh). 

On the other hand, large batteries typically have an “Ah” written on them. 

Additionally, batteries also have a C rating which tells you how many Amphours the battery can provide for a very particular amount of time. For example, at C/5, the battery will safely provide 26.8 Ah. 

In other words, the battery supplies a total of 26.8 Amps over a span of 5 hours without any interruptions. 

Please also note that the same battery might safely provide 36 Amphours for a period of 100 hours. 

Depending on whether you use the battery on a daily basis or only from time to time, you should compare Amphours in the C rating category as well but if you’re unsure of which C rating best fits your use-case, we recommend going with the C/20 rating. 

This is the middle ground which will give you a general sense of battery performance. 

All in all, batteries with higher Ah have better range, will be physically larger and will most likely increase the total cost of your eBike.

If you have any questions about purchasing or renting your next eBike, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at (949) 484-6409

To learn more about electric bike batteries, please visit the following link.