Ladies and gentleman I give you the Watt Wagons Hound. this may look alot like an Aniioki or Eahora. But what makes this different is the fact that the battery can be hooked up directly to a public car charging station. Charge time is rumored to be 2-3 hours. Which is a big difference of the 6-9 hours of the other mentioned brands.
This is good because it means increased range for people who are serious about it. But it could be bad because think of the current line-ups you can have at charging station right now. I’ve heard of some wait times of up to an hour or more for people with cars. Now imagine throwing ebikes into the mix. I can see fights breaking out for sure.
I think the future of ebikes is amazing. but we all have to put thought into the infrastructure right now to prevent headaches in the future.
Unlike a car, an ebike is still useful when the battery is dead. You could just ride it home if the public charging station is in use.
Fights breaking out? Idk man. When my friends go on a long ride they just toss a wall charger in their backpack. No need to wait in line for an hour when there’s plenty of shops that’ll let you charge.
Personally I can’t see anyone paying $9,000 for normal looking ebike with 200 miles of range. Especially with options like the Eahora Juliet being 1/4 the price and available now. Buy an extra battery and charger for the Juliet, save $5K, and skip the 2.5hr wait at the charging station, charge both batteries at home overnight.
Exactly! There are far more 120v receptacles readily available around buildings in North America than there are EV charging stations. And removable batteries broaden that comparison even further if the battery can be charged from an indoor receptacle, which are even more numerous.
I wish to note that charging from public EV stations has been possible since their inception, since EV stations using the J1772 standard are basically a glorified extension cord. The right adapter yields an IEC 320 c13 plug, which fits into most ebike charger bricks, assuming they will tolerate 208v or 240v in North America.
As for charging time, that’s a valid consideration since most ebike batteries are often charged slower to reduce fire risks, and 6 hours is good enough for at-home, overnight charging. But for those who are electrically inclined and will monitor a pack while it charges, faster adjustable-current chargers are available (see AliExpress) which can reach incredible rates like 10 A for a 48v (13s li ion) pack, which can be suitable for a quick charge in the middle of a long-distance ride. There’s the obvious danger of fast-charging li ion batteries, but the sort of people riding ebikes for incredible distances may readily tolerate having to do some elbow work.
So if onboard charging is something which can be adapted to existing ebikes, the tall asking price for this WattWagon seems a bit out of place, IMO. Sure, it’s convenient that it’s already built, but there doesn’t seem to be very broad interest for ebikes that can use EV charging stations.
Reviewing the specs some more, they don’t seem to agree with the OP’s 2-3 hr charge time. The Hound has a 52v 60Ah battery pack – which is massive by ebike standards – and comes with a matching 5 A onboard charger. 60Ah/5A is 12 hours.
To obtain a 3 hr charge time, it would need a 20 A charger, which is obtainable sure, but at 52v would be over 1000 W. That’s a serious amount of power and heat to throw at a li ion battery in a consumer product. I can’t see the rumored 3 hr time being credible at all.
