Who's had an eBike motor failure and how did it fail?

[Bos]

Interestingly enough, I had this exact chat to a renowned shop in Cape Town, that sells ebikes like hotcakes by the sounds of it. Im asking because like some on this thread, Id actually love to get more trail time, but riding 30mins to 45 minutes a week does not get you in the best of shape, so when the time is available, one can only go as far as ones fitness will allow. 

 

Batteries are the most expensive part. Not repairable. Typically has 2 yr carry over warrantee. 

However, app should give indication of life and not something that gives much issues. 

 

Motor, backpedal the crank and feel for roughness.. motors are repairable & serviceable and do not just "die". Services are in the 5k and upward range and warrantees are a problem( It will be voided)

 

Controls are replaceable 1-2k

 

I don't own one but looking at remortgaging my house  

[aquaratza]

Unless you have battery or motor related information for this thread, I think your opinion is probably better expressed on the "Do E-bikes belong on the mountain" thread. (Use the search function)

 

as you were...

haha Thanks RocknRolla... I didn't want to feed the trolls

 

 Just a pain to deal with incompetent workshops ...

Yes, agreed, unfortunately the vast majority of bike shops have very limited experience with eBikes but happily pretend they know what's going on. But this isn't an eBike specific thing, I've had some very dodgy service from various shops on my _normal_ bike.

 

I bought a 2017 Levo - very similar to yours Aquaratza ... The only trouble I've had so far has been the screw on the drive-side of the plastic motor cover pulling through leaving the cover loose, but that was easily remedied with a DIY washer.

Thanks for that LazyTrailRider - yes, actually I've had the same issue. A bike shop accidentally over tightened the motor cover screws on mine and that caused the cover to come loose. The covers are difficult to get hold of now. I've thought about 3D scanning and printing replacements, but that hasn't been necessary so far luckily (Knipe Racing found a way of recovering the cover enough for it not to rattle against the chain).

 

I remember a while back Louis Knipe posted a photo of a giant ebike that had a motor issue that he sorted out. A rep from Dragons then replied saying that he must pasop and that the warranty is now void. Then the owner of the bike replied to the rep telling him to shove their warranty as the bike has been to them multiple times and they couldn't fix it.

 

Fortunately you have Knipe Racing in your neck of the woods as well.

Very interesting. My eBike would take a moment to start accelerating when I first got it. I could hear and feel the motor starting to turn but the acceleration would follow a few milliseconds later. I thought this was how it was designed. I took the bike to Knipe for a service and when it came back the acceleration latency was gone... it was an awesome feeling to have "bionic" acceleration after that. The bike had previously been through both Specialized and another shop and both missed the problem. My bike also came to me with a loose motor mount bolt - another issue the local Specialized shop failed to pick up on during a full service.

 

 

Batteries are the most expensive part. Not repairable. Typically has 2 yr carry over warrantee. 

However, app should give indication of life and not something that gives much issues. 

 

...

 

Controls are replaceable 1-2k

This will naturally depend on the specific bike, but Turbo Levo batteries are filled with common 18650 Li-Ion cells and should be repackable. The only concern is that the engine control unit is embedded in the Levo battery and it's not entirely known what might happen if that unit loses power during cell replacement... but it will probably be fine.

 

Levo batteries have an integrated battery management controller which exposes cell charge data via Bluetooth. Using the BLEvo app you can get an exact indication of the actual capacity of the battery vs its design capacity (in Wh). The Specialized app will happily report "100%" battery health when the BLEvo app reports, say, 473 Wh of 504 Wh design capacity available... which is about 6.2% capacity drop from design. I think this is good going for a 3 year old Li-Ion battery.

Edited April 26, 2021 by aquaratza

[Harryn]

I am sure I saw @notsobigben post somewhere that his son fixes ebikes. Bennie, plug it here man!

[ChrisF]

I am sure I saw @notsobigben post somewhere that his son fixes ebikes. Bennie, plug it here man!

 

Think he brings in spares.

 

May be good to know for which brands ....

[NotSoBigBen]

 

 

Think he brings in spares.

 

May be good to know for which brands ....

Sadly guys that ship has sailed, he has moved on since then but thanks Harry and Chris!

[Eddy Gordo]

 

Specialized Announces Voluntary Recall of Some Gen 1 Levo & Kenevo Battery Packs

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/specialized-announces-voluntary-recall-of-some-gen-1-levo-and-kenevo-battery-packs.html

[aquaratza]

Thanks for posting that Eddy. I've owned three of the affected packs. A guy on here who helped me with a battery extender kit pointed out that the control panels are not sealed, so on all of my batteries (past and present) I removed the control panels, put on a small amount of silicone sealant on the sealing surfaces and reinstalled the panels. Even so I avoid riding in the rain with my ebike (preferring my non ebike if it's a bit wet). One of the packs I inherited already had some water damage.

Edited May 28, 2021 by aquaratza

[DuncanCT]

Interesting perspective...

That’s it… we’re Bosch exclusive. - YouTube

Seems be the the motor manufacture that we see the least of in SA.

[Eddy Gordo]

E-Bike Battery Fire Destroys Florida Bike Shop

 

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/e-bike-battery-fire-destroys-florida-bike-shop.html

[ChrisF]

Over the last few years the topic of Lithium Ion battery fires have been discussed on every fire design conference.

 

These battery fires are happening more and more !!

 

A well known private hospital group held a fire conference, and noted the increase in Lithium Ion battery fires just in their own facilities.    Those small batteries in portable equipment are starting some nasty fires ....

 

The problem with these fires is that there is no effective way to stop these fires.  The battery will burn out, and the best you can do is to stop it spreading to other areas .....

 

 

For Joe-public .... ONLY use proper chargers !!!!!  DO NOT hack one charger onto another product !!!!

[MORNE]

lol if you think Lithium ion batteries are fun...wait till you experience the fury of a lithium polymer battery haha. if you are a RC-anything hobbyist you'll know the temperament of these bad boys when they are treated badly. Over charging, Over discharging..hell just a small knick and puff-boom-bang! There a reason You charge them in fire proof/containment bags...

With them though...ebikes wouldn't weigh much more than normal bikes, thats why they are used in rc...weight and their far superior than anything out there discharge rates.  But ja...basically a chemical bomb between your legs?..hmm. and the fun part is...water doesn't extinguish a LiPo fire! Once it goes...just stand idly by and watch your 250k bike melt to chit haha.

Toyota recently made a breakthough with solid state battery tech. Hopefully in the not too distant future..that tech gets to trickle down. Or I guess a solid state cell ebike could sell for R500k - someone will buy it LOL. 

Edited April 21, 2022 by MORNE