The safety thing is 100% true but only part of the picture.
E-bikes don’t need maximum energy density because they’re not gonna be used for long trips and are significantly lighter than cars and trucks.
China has many, many more electric vehicles than any other country and a ton of electricity production to run them. At some point it’s gonna become important to save the lithium batteries for the stuff that needs that high density power.
Maybe these better chemistries that will replace lithium are just around the corner. I certainly don’t count unhatched chickens.
newer
lead acid
Uh, wtf?
The headline means newly manufactured e-bikes with lead acid batteries.
That doesn’t explain why the new bikes have older technology than the bikes they’re urging people to trade in.
However, safety concerns regarding rare yet dangerous lithium-ion battery fires have put a pause on that proliferation.
Urging citizens to buy new and inferior instead of increasing safety standards?
I’m Swiss and it’s common knowledge here that chinese imported transportation devices can be russian roulette to use.
Are AGM batteries really inferior? Sure, they’re heavier, but they aren’t vulnerable to autoignition and thermal runaway. They also contain less conflict minerals than other types of batteries.
AGM are absolutely awful compared to even the absolute worst lithium batteries, and won’t last long at all if regularly cycled below even 50% SoC. LFP chemistries are a bit worse for energy density compared to NCA/NCM chemistries, but they don’t contain any nickel or cobalt, and won’t autoignite in the same way other chemistries will. Absolutely ridiculous they’re suggesting lead batteries over better lithium options.
I thought they would have been pushing for sodium ion batteries instead. Lead acid batteries are a bad choice for anything that needs to be cycled frequently.
They’re a also bad choice for e-bikes because they’re heavy as hell. I had an e-bike a while back that had two lead acid batteries, and they were about 15 lbs each. The added weight made it almost impossible to go uphill with the motor, so you’d have to pedal a much heavier bike up hills. Not a good experience at all.
