Why don't more electric bikes have regen brakes?
Why don't more electric bikes have regen brakes?
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it is a huge downfall of electric bikes.
I tried to order an ebike after thinking about it over a year and fed ex could not get it delivered to my house. I tried telling them to deliver it after five when i got of work and they wouldn’t do it. If you are an ebike company i would think about using a different company to ship your ebikes. They only use a call center in India as there customer service. You can not speak directly to a FedEx representative. They are terrible at getting a package delivered to there customer, beware.
What about 4 wheeled quads?
Well I can tell you part of it. It’s greed.. it’s already been proved that almost every bike can be regenerative, even most chain drives. It costs pennies to do it. However, they come up with this big fancy drive system that costz you an extra couple thousand dollars. It’s a big scam. People have hacked into those controllers and done it themselves, even on the cheap chinese controllers! Search around here on YouTube you’ll find it
It’s about break wear reduction
saves brake pads a lot 🙂
So you said there just isn’t enough mass to produce a lot of regenerative energy. Why is mass so important ?
when driving down hills it would help keep the speed low
The hub motor also doesn’t put its force through the gears and chain thereby reducing wear and tear.
bird: HEY BRO CAN YOU KEEP IT DOWN MY KIDS SLEEPING
nice, thanks,
you only get 5 percent back if braking on flat ground. but if going down a long hill you can get 80
Company named Chargebike has new tech that eliminates the problems mentioned here. look them up…
Maybe good for a loaded cargo bike in a hilly place.
Thank you for the information and knowledge on regenerate braking. I purchased a 2018 Rad Wagon Cargo Bike and very familiar with the regenerate braking so what I did. I online spoke to the tech at Electric Bike World. Order the aftermarket fully integrated display and controller 35 amp. The display fully programmable. The battery a biggie 48v/😊80amps= 5 batteries in total. You can set the regenerate braking<diamagnetic braking meaning going down the hill! I activate the regenerate braking and it like cruise control. So it never over speeds,you never have it use the brake levers only when coming to a complete stop! Loving the Direct drive motors. I also pull my dog trailer and regenerate braking down steep hills you don’t want overspeed’s kill the brakes! Your ass is wet all day long too! Having regenerate braking is a great safety system on brakes!🙌🏽
September, 2024: GRIN Technology in Vancouver, Canada, SOON will be selling their hub motors with the new FREEGEN regenerative braking system. FREEGEN works ONLY when braking, thus retaining freewheeling, hence the name FREEGEN.
THIS IS REVOLUTIONARY!
Take a shot every time he says regenerative braking ☠
You need an extra circuit containing some 3000 Farad super capacitors and an additional Back EMF Filtering circuit to handle regenerative charging properly. However, it may be beneficial while climbing down mountains.
Save all your money & buy a extra battery. When charging battery after a ride wait 30 minutes before charging & will reduce wear on it
Thanks for the explanation, it’s really clear, I was wondering for long time why it’s not the case, I hope the technology gets better sooner and make regenerative power worthwhile for e bikes, it feels bad to lose the energy as heat
So the regen is like charging your battery
So theoretically you could charge the bike by never using the motor and pedaling only and it might take a few days to fully charge it but it is possible, especially if you had a solar panel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYCj4asp9pE
The bigger issue on regen braking is the topography in your area and your daily drive.
Does that mean if the bike has a rear derailleur, it has regen because it’s not geared in the hub but rather on the cassette? And if it has rolling resistance?
Though shouldn’t there be no resistance from magnet and copper coils if the two ends of the coil isn’t connected to a load (open circuit)?
Even without regenerative braking, I wish I could switch on some resistance on steep hills so I don’t burn through brake pads so fast.
I’ve heard that argument that cars can more effectively regen because of the additional mass, however the physics equations seem to be add odds with the "more mass" argument as PE = m*g*h and KE = 1/2* m* v^2 both indicate mass as a linear variable…. hmmmm. The obvious answer seems to be that car manufactures have completely duped the masses with "hybird" cars
OK what about not regenerative braking but just a regenerative hub where when you’re going downhill say like from the top of Vail Pass or instead of riding your brakes the whole way you could just unlock the clutch like he said and then I assume you know 30 miles an hour at 10:15 miles downhill I assume you could get some decent charge out of that know? And I’m pondering using like a a cheap power tool battery instead of a expensive E bike thing so in that case but maybe it’s not possible because the power up for outside the power unit generate coming down? Maybe I just don’t wanna ride my brakes the whole way down I’d like to just look around and enjoy without rubbing your brakes off the whole way down and feeling out of control so much like downshifting in a car because he could downshifted region on a bike maybe I’m just really miss understanding my physics and electrical rules?
High Quality
GRIN Technologies have Proportional Regenerative Braking geared hub motors and controllers. GMAC motors, Phaserunner controller. SIMPLE for DIYs
If Manufacturers want a cheap method, they could just dump the Hub Motor’s Regen wattage as heat across a finned resistor, so the controller is cheaper; then advertise the savings in brake pad and chain wear; the best benefits of Regen
Great video. Great explanation.
Agreat video
The best thing about regenerative breaks is not the amount of power you get back from using them It’s the fact that you have breaks that never wear out.
Wow, ok coming from riding scooters and electric skateboards, it’s all about Regen breaking. I hate motors with planetary gears as it wastes Regen capabilities. As for charging, Regen triples the distance my batteries would get without Regen. And skateboards must have Regen to stop. Its all about the ESC too, but I’ve gotta say, Regen is much more return than 5% from building my own boards and scooters is typically 50%. Sure, the motors are very heavy but all those magnets give out very high change when Regen.
When you go uphill, slowly, the vast majority of power goes into moving up the weight, not certainly drag. When going downhill, with a good regenerative system, you can probably recover 50% of the energy put into the hill climb. That means that if the conditions are good (e.g. battery at average charge, slow speed, good breaking power) and for example you used a 50% assistance you can literally get back 100% of the range.
I dont think that is the reason the constant dragging between coils and neo magnets.. you can have a retactable mechanism or a variable rotor and stator.
Okay, no regen braking for bicycles, because they are only bicycles, simple and cheap – yes, even when they are complicated and expensive. The reason bicycles don’t do regen braking is the cheap battery that can not take the power. Mine charges at only 80W for several hours. For regen, it needs to be able to fast charge in well under 1 hour without getting overheated and damaged. Fast charging would also allow long trips.
For real electric vehicles, regen braking is a must, it’s fun, and very useful. Cars like the BMW i3 can do "one pedal driving" with only the "gas" pedal, it’s simply great, kind of a "god mode", or like a steering wheel for speed, which goes in both directions, and straight, as you wish. If you lift your right foot, the car is slowed down with regen braking. In some EV models, it even brings the car to a standstill in front of a red light. No need to use the friction brake pedal at all, unless in emergency situations, or when going very fast, or down steep slopes.
Since the one-way nut on the gear type motor was broken, my bike gained regenerative braking and battery charging capability. It malfunctioned soon after. but it charged my battery for a while (maybe it broke it):)
In the 10 years that I have owned and repaired my ebikes the two experts I have come to rely upon the most are Micah Toll & Justin Lemire-Elmore. Anyone who follows Justin knows what a strong proponent of regenerative braking he is. I am surprised Micah did not mention the main reasons why regenerative braking is superior to no regen. Let’s assume that the extra energy (~5%) put back into the battery is equally offset by the parasitic drag inherent in a direct drive motor. Where does that leave us?
* very little wear on any brake pads attached to a motorized wheel which means you will rarely need to replace those pads which necessitates the removal of the motorized wheel along with cutting cable ties to unplug cables which is usually very time consuming and labor intensive especially if dealing with one of those 100+ lbs ebikes. Many professional bike mechanics refuse to repair ebikes for this reason or they don’t mind doing this job but can’t because they don’t possess a strong, expensive bike repair stand capable of supporting a 100+ lbs ebike.
* almost zero overheating of the rotors and brake pads attached to a motorized wheel which practically eliminates damage due to overheating of the rotor and brake pads and the chance of a catastrophic brake failure on a long descent.
* if you ever lose hydraulic brake fluid or your brakes fail for any other reason you will still be able to get home safely using regen braking.
* smoother no squeaking braking.
* safer braking in wet conditions.
I have owned ebikes with and without regen. It is a no-brainer. Give me regen.
On top of all this there are inventors, including Justin, who are working on designing a "Freegen" motor that has the best of both worlds; regenerative braking with no parasitic drag.
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I was actually searching youtube for “ebikes with regenerative braking” when your video was listed as one of the search results.
my interest in regenerative braking is not for how much energy i can store into the battery through the electronic/regenerative braking system, but rather i prefer both the feel of regenerative braking, and i like that regenerative braking greatly extends my brake pads lifespan, exponentially (many times the original lifespan)
when i reached out to several different ebike companies asking if they offer any of their model ebikes, with regenerative braking, they all said the same thing, “this is the number one request we get from customers and ebike shoppers(people in the market for a new ebike)
i have several scooters with regenerative braking (dualtron storm, dualtron thunder, and many more) all of which coast very well, when not accelerating, and not braking.
i am considering installing the motor controller and all related electronics (and motor as well, if needed) from one of my scooters (equipped with regenerative braking) and installing this into my ebike.
this is an experiment, and i enjoy very much, learning from experimentation.
my 2012 toyota hybrid has regenerative braking as well as the traditional braking system with friction brakes. i always employ/engage and maximize the electronic regenerative braking system which permit me to only change my brakes once, in six years, compared to once or twice each year with my previous automobile, which was not equipped with electronic regenerative braking (same miles/distance driven with each automobile)
its also exciting to think of how engineers practicing the moto “there is always another way” shall continue to develop and solve this challenge of reducing drag to electric motors/generators, and maximizing efficiency of motors/generators.
great video!
great work!
thank you!
Thanks for clearing things up!
What’s nice is you can brake without wearing down brake pads.
The problem with regen hubs is that their overall efficiency is less to begin with. So like the amount of distance you get for electric expended is less.
My 2013 folding electric dahon used to have regen braking and costed 2.2k (dollars), have a nice day 😊
Could I use regen braking to actually stop the bike as they do in cars
You could possibly add regenerative braking with additional circuitry that regulates the voltage. And to deal with the rather high spikes of current, a supercapacitor bank could be used to deal with the sudden amounts of current. While then the power returns more slowly back to the battery
Your explanation sounds logical, but it conflicts with my years of actual experience riding an eBike with regenerative braking. I ride a old-fashioned human-powered bike now, because I like the exercise. However, back in the day, 20 years ago, I rode bikes converted with Bionx kits to eBikes, to commute to and from work. The Bionx kit had a rear-wheel hub motor, similar in size and weight to modern ones, a torque sensor, an optional throttle, a handy removable battery and yes, regenerative braking. There was ZERO noticeable added pedaling resistance when the power was turned off. So, after 20 years of tech progress, you’re telling us we can’t do it anymore? Regen does increase range a bit, the main advantage is increased control and safety. My electric car, a Tesla Model Y, is the same… I like the regen braking because it gives increased control and safety. With one-pedal driving I have faster and more accurate speed control when maneuvering in tight spots, like a parking lot, on the highway, and on steep downhills. On my old eBikes, I loved the sense of control and safety riding downhill or maneuvering around obstacles with regen. An ebike without regen is an inferior product. Considering the high prices charged for eBikes, there is no need for this cost-saving measure. Sorry, but you can’t keep me down on the farm, now that I’ve seen Paree!
So, if you live on flat roads and no stop signs for a 10-mile trip then regen is pretty much useless. Also, if the bike has no free wheel in the above scenario does it use more energy. You said it’s harder to pedal direct drive motors because the magnets have drag resistance but do the magnets cause drag when the motor is on, which means you would use more battery power than a non-permanent magnet motor.