XDS E-Voke Womens Electric Bike - Black

This is a great bike. Inexpensive, comfortable, reliable and looks great.

Most of our bikes are mid-drive, but this one is a rear hub drive. A hub drive bike is certainly not ideal for mountain bike riding or rough tracks, but for commuting or going out for a leisurely rides. Perfect!

The power of these hub drive bikes is 250w with about 45Nm of torque. It is nearly half that of a powerful mid-drive, but there is plenty of power to give a pleasant ride, with the ability to tackle steep hills etc. For many people, the mid-drive motor will operate at one of the lower settings anyway, so it’s output is similar to this hub-drive.

A huge advantage of the hub drive for commuting is that there is less wear on the drive system than normal (the reverse is the case with mid-drive). So you may get even longer life from the drive system.

Of course, if you get a puncture it will be more difficult, so it is worthwhile ensuring it has good quality tyres and they are kept fully inflated (the 2 main reasons for punctures)

I will try to anticipate a few questions here:

What is the Range of this E-Bike?

A rough guide is 40kms to 100kms. This is subject to a wide variety of factors, as follows:

• 1. Your input. If you wish to cruise along, applying little effort, it will consume more power. Many riders wish to retain a level of fitness and will use the motor to assist them, in which case you can easily have a range of 100kms, but if you run it at a high level of assistance, you can expect half of that.
• 1. The wind, terrain and your weight. Riding into a headwind at 20-25kmh will quickly deplete the battery. Hills are less of a problem because going down the other side requires no power. But…let’s say you weigh over 120kg it will obviously require more assistance than a 70kg rider. Over relatively flat terrain this is less of a problem, but over hills, it will reduce the range rapidly.
• 1. The battery capacity is around 400Wh (watt-hours). This will usually give a range of around 100kms at the lower settings in reasonable conditions. By that I mean the rider assisting the engine, average conditions, and a mix of hills and gently undulating terrain.
• NB - Most current E-Bikes do not recharge when going down-hill or slowing down, nor does this one.

How long does the battery take to charge?

An average seems to be around 4-5 hours. The battery is Lithium-ion, which does not have a “memory” effect, so you can charge it when partially depleted. Generally, the battery can be given an 80% charge in 2 hours if the need arises. The best way to extend the life of the battery (long term and daily) is to give it a “booster” charge before heading out.

How long will the battery last?

This is hard to ascertain so early in the piece. We have to go by test results. Most manufacturers claim 500-1000 recharges. If we estimate an average of 70kms per charge, it should easily run to about 35,000kms. Lithium-ion batteries do not fail in the usual sense. As they deteriorate, the amount of charge they hold reduces to about 80% of the original capacity. If you charge the battery when it is 50% discharged, it only counts as 50% of one charge, so you can keep it “topped up.”

What does it cost to recharge

Let’s assume an off-peak rate of say $0.40kWh for 400Wh battery it will be likely to require .4kWh to charge. That makes it around $0.16 per charge, probably delivering around 70kms.