Too many panasonic batteries?

[gerryscott]

Although it's good to have a range of panasonic batteries to choose from, I just feel from a very limited knowledge of batteries e- biker, it's getting a bit confusing.I am looking for a battery that would suit me more for more for touring.I was looking at the 18ah non panasonic battery, then I was told that I would only get about 20 odd miles more than the 12ah panasonic battery saving a bit of money.now we have 11ah, 15 ah 16 ah 36 11ah, 36 15 ah ,all a bit confusing for the novice.Is the 36v going to make a significance to performance? , I dread to think how much they will cost.

 

[tillson]

To gain an insight into how much energy a battery is capable of delivering, multiply the Ah by the battery voltage. This will give you an idea of how one battery will perform relative to another.

It's probably worth biting the bullet and going for the biggest battery that makes economic sense if touring.

 

[flecc]

These are not all Panasonic.

The Panasonic 26 volt ones in Ah are 8, 10, 12, 15, 16. The 12 is largely a replacement for the 10, and the 16 replaces the 15, the 15 and 16 being oversize and not fitting standard bikes.

Therefore the Panasonic 26 volt range options are really 8 or 12 Ah, or 16 Ah with bike modifications. All these three are soft cell Li-polymer types.

For the new season 36 volt bikes, there is one basic battery using 18650 cells in a series-parallel array. The choice is with 2250 mAh cells giving 11 Ah or 3100 mAh cells giving 15 Ah.

What confuses the issue for the 26 volt bikes is the existence of compatible Kalkhoff batteries made by German company BMZ. These come in 8, 12 and 18 Ah sizes and have been fitted to the Kalkhoff range more recently.

It's too early to know what advantage there is for the new 36 volt Panasonic units, but I wouldn't expect too much. The 26 volt units have been very considerably upgraded in both 2010 and 2011 anyway, a 2011 model very different from a 2009 one.

 

[gerryscott]

Thanks for the info tillson and flecc, much appreciated.I have heard people say that the panasonic batteries are of a superior type to BMZ,but I would think that it would be to early to judge.

 

[flecc]

Yes, I also think it too early to judge.

However, as a generalisation, higher density cells do tend to have a shorter life due to them experiencing higher chemical stress, so a 12 Ah one of similar size should last longer than the 18 Ah. That is also true of the batteries using 18650 cells mentioned above which have a longer life claim for the lower capacity cell version.

In this connection, I noticed above that I'd neglected to make clear the 36 volt batteries using the 18650 cells are the Kalkhoff ones for their own Kalkhoff unit 2012 e-bikes, not the 36 volt Panasonic ones for their unit, about which I have no details yet.