Taking good care of your battery will significantly increase the lifespan of your battery. A well maintained lithium battery will last up to five years, whereas a poorly maintained battery can be badly damaged over just one winter!
Here are crucial tips to boost the life of your battery:
1. Keep your battery indoors during extreme weather.
Battery cells don’t like to be exposed in extreme temperature for extended period. Storing your bike in the garage or in a shed is not a problem, as long as it's a cool place. But when temperatures are dropping or elevating, bring the battery indoors. Keeping it at an ambient temperature will maintain your battery life. Avoid rooms where moisture can infiltrate the battery case (like the kitchen for instance).
2. Storing your battery for a few months.
If you’re not using your electric bike for a long time, storing the battery completely flat may cause irreversible damages to the cells. Usually it's best to leave your battery at a charging level of 50% to 80%. A lithium-ion battery will slowly discharge over time, even when you’re not using it. So check your battery every one or two months, and if the level goes below 20% just charge it up again to 50% – 80%. That helps keep all the electrons flowing through the system and does the best to maximize the life of your battery.
3. Do not leave the battery plugged to the charger, as it just puts the battery under more pressure.
If you end up charging your battery to 100% (the green light on the charging unit comes on), go for a short ride to discharge it partially before storing the battery. If you don’t have a battery indicator, it’s probably a good idea to charge the battery for about an hour every few months.
To sum up, following these rules will get the most out of your battery. Remember, your battery is the single most expensive component of your electric bicycle.
