Electric bike's "policy break-in period"

Electric bicycles have been favored by consumers because of their advantages of convenience, speed, time, energy, and environmental protection. The electric bicycle industry has thus gained a thriving development. However, due to its safety hazards, traffic accidents have been increasing year by year. In recent years, the relevant state departments have been considering how to strengthen the management of electric bicycles. In May of this year, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China and other four ministries jointly issued a document requiring all localities to rectify the electric bicycle industry and eliminate vehicles that exceed the speed of 20 kilometers per hour and exceed 40 kilograms in weight. Some cities such as Shenzhen, Dongguan and Changsha simply prohibit electric bicycles from being used in the main city.

The four ministries issued a document requesting the elimination of excessively-rated electric bicycles within a certain period of time. Exceeding the standard means that electric bicycles exceed 20 km/h and weigh over 40 kg. This standard is based on the "General Technical Conditions for Electric Bicycles" (GB17761) established in 1999. So, from a qualitative and technical perspective, what impact will this standard have on the electric bicycle industry? How should an electric bicycle company actively respond to the challenge of speed limit weight?

Speed: No technical problems in speed limit of 20 kilometers The 1999 “General Technical Conditions for Electric Bicycles” has made many requirements for electric bicycles on technical indicators. For example, the maximum design speed is not more than 20 km; the total vehicle mass is not more than 40 kg; the motor The output power is not more than 240 watts; the continuation mileage after one charge should not be less than 25 kilometers, and the most notable is the speed. This time the four ministries issued a document to separate out the speed and required that the maximum speed of electric bicycles cannot be exceeded. More than 20 kilometers. Why limit the speed to 20 kilometers? The answer given by the relevant authorities is that electric bicycles are too fast and cause traffic accidents.

At present, the maximum speed of most electric bicycles in the Chinese market is around 30 kilometers. Of course, there are also speeds above kilometers, but the number is relatively small.

Limiting the speed to within 20 km/h is technically not a problem for manufacturers, which is easy to do. The key is how to make consumers aware of the need for speed limits.

Weight: How to reduce excessive vehicle weight?

The slowdown in the speed of electric bikes is technically completely problematic, but it is a bit troublesome to limit the weight to 40kg. It is understood that the weight of electric bicycles on the market is mostly between kilograms. Electric bicycles with a weight of about 75 kilograms are more common, and more than 90 percent of electric bicycles weigh more than 40 kilograms. How to reduce the excessive weight of the vehicle has become a difficult problem for electric bicycle companies.

From the structural point of view, electric bicycles are mainly composed of bodywork and batteries. To reduce weight, we must start with these two aspects. Let's take a look at the body. Most of the current electric bicycles use steel. The hardness, strength, and ductility of the steel are good, but it is rather heavy. If the weight is reduced, the steel will be thinner and thinner. Although the weight will be reduced, the quality is also It is difficult to pass, and parts of the electric bicycle will break. This is unsafe. In fact, the new standard will inevitably stimulate companies to research and develop lighter new materials. Tan Bo, head of the electric vehicle R&D department of Lifan Technology Co., Ltd. believes that the real solution to lightening the body of electric bicycles is to use new materials, such as aluminum-magnesium alloys instead. Steel, aluminum alloy density is about one-third the density of steel, strength is also comparable to high-quality steel, in fact, aluminum alloy has been widely used in high-speed railcars and large aircraft, to use naturally on electric bicycles no problem. In this case, with a constant volume, a two-and-three-kilogram aluminum-magnesium alloy foot can replace 9 kilograms of steel, and the weight of the electric bicycle body naturally falls.

In terms of batteries, most of the current electric bicycles use lead-acid batteries. Lead-acid batteries are more mature batteries. They have good safety and storage capacity, but they weigh very heavily. They are usually about 28 kilograms in mileage, if they lose half their weight. In that case, the range of electric bicycles must be reduced by half, which has a great impact on the use of vehicles. It is simply not enough for ordinary people to use them. To reduce weight without shortening the voyage, it is necessary to replace the new battery. The lithium battery is a new type of battery. The weight of the lithium battery is 1/5 to 1/6 of the lead-acid battery.

If the body of an electric bicycle is replaced with an aluminum alloy material and the original lead-acid battery is replaced with a lithium battery, the weight of the electric vehicle will drop a lot, and it should be able to reach a limit of no more than 40 kilograms, without any change in performance. However, one drawback is that new materials and new batteries are more expensive. Tan Bo exemplifies that if the price of an ordinary electric bicycle is Yuan, the use of alloys will reduce the weight, and the price will increase, which means the cost will increase by 300 yuan, and further After using lithium batteries, the price will increase by another 500 yuan. As a whole, the new electric vehicle designed to reduce weight will cost about 1,000 yuan more.

This price market is not easy to accept. Due to the fierce competition in the electric bicycle market, various components and costs have been transparent. For vehicles of the same model, selling 50 yuan more will lose the market. Therefore, it is difficult to guarantee the sales of electric bicycles using new materials.

Electric bikes still have a long way to go if they want to reduce weight while maintaining performance and price. However, using new materials and new batteries is one direction. What electric bicycle manufacturers can do is to continuously strengthen technological development. At the same time try to obtain policy support and subsidies.

Battery: Lithium battery is the future development direction The battery is an important part of the electric bicycle, even the most important part, because the difference between the electric bicycle and the ordinary bicycle is the power system provided by the battery, so the quality of the battery determines the electric bicycle. The speed, voyage and weight, how to study better quality, lighter batteries are an important issue for electric bicycles and related companies.

Currently, 97% of domestic electric bicycles use lead-acid batteries, and only 3% use lithium batteries. Although the proportion of lithium batteries is still relatively small, lithium batteries have lighter weight than traditional lead-acid batteries. In addition to the advantages, there are also other five advantages: First, the energy is relatively high. Lithium-ion batteries have high storage energy densities, which have now been reached, about 6 to 7 times that of lead-acid batteries; and second, long service life. Lithium battery life can reach more than 6 years. Lithium iron phosphate is a positive battery with 1CDOD charge and discharge, there are 10,000 records that can be used; Third, the rated voltage is high. Lithium battery single-unit operating voltage is 3.7V or 3.2V, equivalent to about 3 nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride rechargeable battery series voltage, to facilitate the composition of the battery power supply group; fourth is to have high power endurance. One lithium iron phosphate lithium-ion battery for electric vehicles can achieve the capacity of 15 to 30C charge and discharge, to facilitate high-speed start-up acceleration; Fifth, the self-discharge rate is very low.

This is one of the most prominent advantages of the battery. At present, it can generally be less than 1%/month, less than the nickel-metal hydride battery.

The advantages of lead-acid batteries are that the technology is relatively mature, the storage capacity is large, and the use is relatively safe. The disadvantage is that they are too heavy, which increases the weight of the electric bicycle and makes it very inconvenient to carry it. In addition, lead-acid batteries have a huge drawback. They are secondary pollution problems after they were abandoned. In recent years, the "blood lead poisoning" incidents in Jiahe, Anhui and Huaining, Anhui Province have caused people to worry about lead-acid batteries. Concerns, the country's restrictions on the lead-acid battery industry also let electric bicycle companies step up research into new types of lithium batteries to replace lead-acid batteries.

Of course, lithium batteries are not without their drawbacks. Now the technology is not mature enough. The main problems are high costs, more expensive prices, and large capacity explosions or spontaneous combustion. The use of safety is not yet safe. Nanjing has experienced the accident of lithium battery electric bicycles caught fire. . However, after all, lithium batteries represent the future direction of development of electric bicycle batteries. Lu Jinlong, director of the Bicycle Assistance Committee of the China Bicycle Association, believes that although lithium batteries cannot completely replace lead-acid batteries, for enterprises, lithium batteries have huge room for development. Enterprises and battery R&D companies should seize the opportunity. If you can subsidize lithium battery electric vehicles 400 yuan each? 500 yuan, basically can make up for the difference in lithium battery electric vehicles in the market, can open the door for large-scale lithium batteries to the market, and the rapid expansion of production scale, will further reduce the cost of lithium batteries. In terms of safety, the quality of lithium batteries that are regularly produced on the market is not a problem. Some lithium batteries that are self-assembled by electric bike repair shops are the main problems. The relevant departments should manage lithium batteries that are self-assembling and prevent accidents. occur.

Electric motorcycle: The market positioning of 尴尬 If the speed of an electric bicycle exceeds 20 kilometers and the weight exceeds 40 kilograms, how does the country manage it? According to the relevant provisions of the General Technical Conditions for Electric Motorcycles and Electric Mopeds formulated in 2009, electric bicycles with a maximum design speed greater than 20 kilometers per hour, less than a kilometer, or a weight greater than 40 kilograms and a maximum design speed of not more than 50 kilometers per hour are Electric two-wheeled mopeds, with a maximum design speed of more than kilometer/hour, are electric two-wheeled motorcycles.

Although this standard is currently suspended, if it is implemented according to this standard, electric bicycles and electric motorcycles have their own standards, can they all achieve healthy development? Electric bicycles weighing more than 20km/h and weighing more than 40kg can be turned to the electric motorcycle market?

On the surface, it looks like this, but in fact electric motorcycles simply do not have the conditions for development. First of all, from a technical point of view, according to the practice of the domestic electric bicycle industry, if you want to maintain the maximum speed at a speed of 50 kilometers per hour, an electric bicycle can only hold one hour at most. If you want to exceed this time, there are still technical barriers that are insurmountable. The use of an electric motorcycle that can only be used for one hour at a time is of no practical value. Consumers will not buy it, and production companies cannot naturally do it.

Secondly, electric motorcycles belong to the motor vehicle. Consumers need to test the driver's license for the purchase and use of the driver's license. It takes time for training to take the test driver's license. This alone is enough to make the vast majority of consumers retreat.

At the same time, electric motorcycles have no price advantage, and they are not cheap compared to fuel-powered motorcycles. Buy an electric motorcycle, generally 4000 ~ 6000 yuan, and this price, you can buy a fuel-burning motorcycle, the latter powerful, strong endurance, performance is also stable.

None of these electric motorcycles are available. How can they compete with fuel motorcycles? Therefore, the standard of electric motorcycles is very ambiguous. Such positioning is doomed to be without market.

The earliest electric bicycles in China were born in 1985, but electric bicycles did not develop rapidly until 2003. Such a short history of development has made great achievements.

However, difficulties have also emerged along with achievements. The ups and downs of electric bicycles are still far from being passed, and the sound of limiting and even prohibiting electric bicycles has always existed. How the electric bicycle industry accelerates scientific and technological R&D, breaks technical barriers, how to overcome difficulties, and how to achieve better and longer-term development, we will wait and see.