The days when an electric bike takes about seven hours to charge are officially over. A new startup designed a battery that charges in no time.
Charging an electric bike requires you to invest quite a bit of time. This is extremely annoying, especially if your battery runs out unexpectedly. Then you can forget about riding an e-bike.
A new startup called Zapbatt found a solution to this. The company designed a brand new battery that charges a lot faster. The battery appears to be an ideal match for electric bikes.
Your electric bike charges lightning fast thanks to this new battery
Thanks to the battery, you no longer have to wait hours before your electric bike is charged. In an e-bike, the battery can be fully charged in as little as 10 to 15 minutes. That’s much faster than a lithium-ion battery that takes about 4 to 7 hours.
This is very good news, but fast charging can also cause a problem. This is because normally fast charging causes the battery to wear out faster. But this battery lasts much longer than a lithium-ion battery, with more than 20,000 charging cycles. Zapbatt even claims it will last at least 20 years.
The company used a special battery from Toshiba for the design, which is normally only used by the military and in factories. For example, in self-driving carts you see driving around warehouses. That’s a bit different from an electric bicycle.
Batteries have been used in that industry for 20 years and have proven to be enormously safe. Fires caused by the battery, for example, have never been reported.
The battery of the future?
Now you may be wondering: why didn’t we come up with this sooner? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First of all, the entire design of a product, such as an electric bike, has to be changed to accommodate the new batteries.
Companies would have to invest considerable time and money to use them. Even if they wanted to, they would have to invest at least a year and a half and redesign their entire product to fit them in.
In addition, the batteries are more expensive than a lithium-ion battery. Still, there are some companies that feel it is worth paying a little extra for better performance. For example, a few manufacturers have been testing the batteries and the first products with this technology are expected as early as later this year.
What brands these are, and whether you’ll soon be able to ride an electric bike with this new battery, we don’t yet know. We will of course keep an eye on the developments for you.