Citing e-biking as the hottest topic in the bicycle industry, Bosch revealed a new double battery pack at Eurobike 2016 last week. The DualBattery system puts double the capacity into Bosch's pedelec drives, taking electric-assist pedaling new distances. The package is designed for quick, simple mounting, charging and riding.
Range anxiety may not be quite as acute for electric bicycles as it is for electric cars – at least with a bike, you still have a set of pedals – but most electric cyclists aren't very eager to run out of battery power and get stuck pedaling a large, overweight electric bike home. So added range is certainly a bonus, especially for those that approach the limits of a single battery pack.
It's not necessarily difficult to carry a spare battery in a backpack for a bike that has swappable hardware, but Bosch is making it even easier to double the range. The DualBattery introduced at Eurobike is more than a basic backup battery; it's an integrated two-battery system providing for seamless power transmission and charging. The two batteries combine for up to 1,000 Wh and an estimated 112 miles (180 km) of range.
The batteries are connected via a Y-cable and charged from a single port. The control software automatically switches between batteries during charging and discharging to deliver seamless performance.
In addition to longer ranges, Bosch has designed the DualBattery system with cargo biking and hill climbing in mind, giving riders several ways of utilizing that added power. Two configurations, one with dual frame-mount batteries and one with single frame- and rack-mount batteries, give manufacturers a little flexibility in fitting the extra battery to their bikes. The DualBattery comes in sizes between 600 and 1,000 watts and slides into Bosch's existing Performance Line CX, Performance Line and Active Line electric-drive family.
Bosch does not offer its e-drives as retrofit kits, instead supplying them directly to e-bike manufacturers. Riese & Müller will be among the first manufacturers to roll out DualBattery-equipped e-bikes for model year 2017, including the Eurobike Award-winning Delite GT Touring (below) and the Charger. The 1,000 Wh DualBattery option adds €630 to the Delite GT's price tag, bringing the total up to €4,949 (approx. US$5,575), before any other options are added on. You can read more about that bike on Riese & Müller's website.
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