As I've become familiar with Lithium Ion technology, I've become to realise that you should keep your battery topped up. This is especially true if you plan to not use your bike for a long time. Zero recommend keeping their bikes plugged in all the time when not in use.
Does this bother anyone else or is it just me? Is it something I would really need to worry about if I had an EV? Let's say I wanted to store a Zero in a garage for a few months over winter and it didn't have a power supply. Or perhaps I owned an electric car but had to park it on the street. The chances are the car would never be left fully charged because I would have driven back from the last place I managed to charge it. I might also use it as a run around and only charge it once every couple of weeks or so, when the charge got really low and I happened to park in a charging bay at my local supermarket.
How much do you think you should go out of your way to keep the battery fully charged? Is it fine to not worry about it and just charge when convenient or before a longer trip?
By way of comparison, I hardly use my iPad and only bother to charge it when it's empty, which might be once a month. I also have a Sony Bluetooth speaker and Sony suggest it gets a charge at least twice a year. Therefore I don't worry about it and it also gets charged when it starts flashing, so only every 2-3 weeks at most.
The iPad will be obsolete well before the battery stops holding any charge. I expect the speaker's battery to last a long time because it isn't going through frequent charge cycles. I hope it won't be obsolete after 3-5 years and think it should last at least ten.
I'm encouraged by Zero's claims that the battery's capacity will only drop to 80% after approx. 300,000 miles. However, these figures are no doubt based on ideal conditions. If Zero are so confident that their batteries will last so well that they'll outlive most bikes by a factor of at least three, then why isn't there a lifetime guarantee on them? The same goes for car batteries. Eight years is the best warranty I've seen.
iPhone batteries are useless after less than three years. Apple claim they keep improving the technology and quote fancy figures. The reality is they're engineered to last just long enough to make it to the next upgrade (next model +1 or +2 max).
I'd hate to buy a used bike or car that's ten years old only to find that I had to replace the most expensive component.
I'm interested in your opinions, even if you think I won't like them! :-)
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Topic: The need to keep your battery topped up. (Read 750 times)