Most e-bikes now have removable batteries. When buying, you should make sure that it can also be used as a power bank.
If the e-bike battery is also a power bank – that’s possible! (Source: Lemmo)
The idea is obvious: modern e-bike batteries offer a capacity of at least 500 watt hours. So you always drive a small power plant, a power station or at least a power bank around. But can you use the energy stored in the e-bike battery in other ways?
No matter how obvious the idea is, the implementation often fails. There are a few DIY solutions online that explain how to convert an e-bike battery including an inverter. However, we strictly advise against such experiments. Most e-bike batteries are simply not designed to be used as a power bank and at best charge smaller gadgets via the on-board computer built into the handlebars.
Often there is so little electricity flowing here that it is only enough to charge the cell phone – if at all! You don’t even have to think about charging the notebook battery. But there are exceptions, as the Berlin company Lemmo recently showed with the unusual e-bike Lemmo One (test report) and we hope that these exceptions will soon become the rule.
Lemmo also designed its so-called Smartpac as a power bank right from the start because you can use the Pedelec as a normal bike thanks to the “Dual Mode Hub”. The unit, which weighs around three kilograms, can therefore be unlocked using the app and easily removed from the bicycle frame.
The Smartpac can now be used as an external power station. Smartphones, cameras or GPS devices can easily be connected via a USB-C or USB-A port and charged with a maximum of 65 watts. Charging an empty iPhone can be done within a few hours. The total capacity of the Smartpac is average at 540 watt hours.
We like the approach of the Berlin startup because the Lemmo battery is not just an externally usable power storage device. Rather, the Smartpac makes the principle behind the Lemmo One, namely being both a bicycle and an e-bike, possible in the first place.
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In addition to the batteries, the Smartpac contains the entire motor control, GPS and additional IoT components, which also enable remote firmware updates. Even the fabric cheeks can be replaced and thus change the look.
To our knowledge, Lemmo is currently the only manufacturer to offer this battery principle. But more manufacturers are likely to follow soon, because the advantages are obvious. You can find the e-bike innovations of the season here.
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