A new standard for charging ebikes is coming? A quick interview with Bosch - charge2bike

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I had a quick chat with dr Vikram Godbole about "charge2bike", a new standard for charging ebikes. See the interview in the video and keep reading for more details.



The CHAdeMO consortium was formed to create a standard for charging e-bikes. In addition to Bosch, it consists of several e-bike companies such as Shimano, Yamaha, Panasonic and Brose.

Bosch showed us the result at the launch of the new Bosch Performance CX (BDU38/gen5) motor. It was a short cable with the regular Bosch charge plug in one end and the new standard plug in the other end. The cable will of course allow communication between charger and bike, so it’s not just a dumb cable with two different connectors.

Both ends of the proposed new charging connection.


The idea is you can use any standardized charger and connect your brand specific adapter cable to charge your bike. These chargers could be installed in a variety of places, like public bike parking and hotels, or even cafés and shops.

Charger details​

The chargers are rated for 800 W continuous power and up to 2.000 W for shorter durations. Most e-bike systems out there run on 36 and 48 V batteries, but some have gone 24, 43 or 52 V. It seems the charge2bike system can work with all of them as it supports 24-60 V.

A few charge2bike specs, and they're working a solution for electric motorcycles too.

Why do we need the adapter cable?​

Couldn’t the e-bike manufacturers just agree upon a standard plug? Dr Godbole, senior Product Manager for batteries and chargers at Bosch eBike Systems says the plug can’t be used with detachable batteries, the plug can’t be tilted out of the battery.

But couldn’t they just agree on a different design that would work with detachable batteries? I didn’t ask, but to my understanding, the various brands were already too committed to their current designs. And in some ways, that’s okay. Even though standards seem like a good thing, they can hinder development and innovation to some degree.

The Bosch specific charge2bike connector.


Does that mean we have a new standard now?​

No, unfortunately not. The charging system is finalized, but it hasn’t been implemented yet. The consortium of course hopes it will become a new standard, but the industry needs to embrace it. And that’s more likely to happen if consumers start requesting it.


charge2bike details again
It's not just ebikesystem manufacturers behind the consortium, far from it
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Knut Nes
Main editor at emtbforums.com and owner of emtb.no.
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Comments

Stihldog
It’ll happen over time. But it took a few years before our phones recognized the benefits. Evolve or go extinct.

Standardization for our bikes has already been adopted but the electronics and charging hasn’t. Probably baby steps at first …then all the new bikes will soon adapt or adopt.
 
rzr
Dr Godbole, senior Product Manager for batteries and chargers at Bosch eBike Systems says the plug can’t be used with detachable batteries, the plug can’t be tilted out of the battery.

But couldn’t they just agree on a different design that would work with detachable batteries?
Click to expand...
Of course not, it would mean backward compatibility, battery replacements/substitutions and all that bulls%^t ... we don't want that ...
 
G
What the hell is wrong with these people? No one wants to carry a stupid adaptor cable around, especially not one that big. And most Cafe's, Restaurants and Hotels etc aren't going to want to shell out the money to install chargers for this (except maybe in very popular ebike destinations).
Sure, it would be great to go to 800W but since Bosch currently won't go above 200W it seems excessive.
Why can't we just have USB PD (Power Delivery)? That will (currently (excuse the pun)) do 180W at 36v and 240W at 48v. Would surely be dead easy to make a SMALL adaptor for existing bikes and slowly switch over to a USB socket for future bikes and batteries.
Small businesses are going to be much more inclined to install USB PD chargers that can also be used by Phones, Laptops and other devices and the economies of scale will make them far far cheaper.
IF, ebikes and scooters etc adopted the USB PD standard then it seems likely the standard will evolve to offer even more power in the future, far quicker than this nonsense is going to get adopted.
 
rzr
Good point ! I guess just a small adaptor USB PD -> your bike could be interesting !

As they mentioned, they want to keep proprietary sockets for batteries :/
 
W
G-Sport said:
What the hell is wrong with these people? No one wants to carry a stupid adaptor cable around, especially not one that big. And most Cafe's, Restaurants and Hotels etc aren't going to want to shell out the money to install chargers for this (except maybe in very popular ebike destinations).
Click to expand...
Plenty of places in the Alps for example already do have charging location, so do many places in the UK, but at the moment a lot are bike specific (usually Bosch), so in these examples, carrying a small cable would be BRILLIANT to allow me to charge the bike at the top while having a beer. I used most of the battery on my Rise climbing to the top of Avoriaz in the morning, so would've been great to be able to stick 50% in there over a beer/breakfast.
 
cream
BOSCH steps in to save the day!

I agree with G-Sport, their idea of standardization is a bit weird, but it's not surprising, in this world:). They still want to protect the charging protocol method so that's the idea they came with. Let's make an adapter with electronics inside and use a public standard charger. Also keep the proprietary connector on the bike/battery. Why not add some connectors in the power path? Such a waste for something not needed. They can still have the proprietary communication protocol between ebike devices I can't see why they won't offer a standard way of charging...unless...

If the charging protocol was standard, then, we can have CHAdeMO(or whatever) connectors on the ebike end charger (public or home). If you want to charge the battery outside the bike, there are 2 possibilities.

1. Dumb adapter for charging (from manufacturer specific battery charge/discharge connector to CHAdeMO), no need for electronics for protocol conversion.
2. Batteries to have separate ports for charging/discharging. Discharging will remain proprietary, charging would be standard, CHAdeMO for example.

Anyway, the standardization idea is not new. Remember EnergyBus? Founded about 10 years ago.

energybus.org

EnergyBus

EnergyBus is an open standard and purpose-made bus system for the electrical components in Light Electric Vehicles (LEVs) such as pedelecs, e-bikes, e-scooters, and also for energy management systems. With a plug family, charge socket and a charging protocol based on CANopen, EnergyBus is specifical
energybus.org energybus.org

The standard was there, the connectors were there...what did they do? All kinds of "nice" things.

1.Some manufacturers used (might still use) Rosenberger connector for charging/discharging (Specialized, Bulls, Derby cycle etc) but the protocol was different! Imagine that...you have 2 devices with same USB connector but need to use a different cable for charging :)

2.Of course, most manufacturers still use proprietary connectors that you can't even order if you want to replace one in case of damage, let alone the standardization. And some of the connectors they use have bad design in such a way that they can be connected with wrong orientation or break after a low number of insertions.
Let's buy a new charger, or a new battery....because of connector failure.


3.Some of them, have the same charging protocol, but different connectors so you can't use a charger from one brand to charge another's brand battery. Even if electrical layer/comm layer is the same:)

These actions would only get them the possibility to increase their margins (for example sell a 36-48V/4A charger with 200Eur...eg. Yamaha). In turn, people will look for cheaper solutions on cheap compatible chargers and will end up with major faults on ebike components (battery/motor/display), sooner or later. Which of course, manufacturers/dealers won't repair, only replace. Sustainability, circular economy my a$$.

As for USB-PD, I don't think it's a good solution for ebikes/scooters without some physical/mechanical modifications. Physically, the connector is way too sensible to dust and moisture which is the environment it will have to work on (special housings might be a way to adapt it).Power delivery is max 180W at 36V (when the connector is new and clean).Ebike batteries will evolve as power/energy density, so maybe 180W or 240W won't suffice. Of course, USB-PD might evolve to higher power/different connectors.


Unrelated to this...

This would be one of my messages to send to Bosch :)



Dear Bosch ebike division,

I've worked on so many of your motors since Classic system up to Smart system. They are the proof of really good engineering but with some problems that weren't mitigated over many generations of products.

1. Shaft/pedal axle sealing. Really I can't understand what's happening here. You're such a big company that created so many innovations. Such diversity in your portfolio of products. You basically move the automotive world along with other titans. It's like you don't want to do it. Classic system, gen2 system, gen3 system, left side don't even have protection...directly exposed bearing. And the sealing on newer CX motors (gen4, Smart) is just for dust, not for water/mud, you know that, right? What you need for this is a rotary/radial seal, here's the first step:

en.wikipedia.org

Radial shaft seal - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
There are so many types for different applications, choose one that you think is best for EMTB scenario.

Shimano got it right here, by the way, from the start. But they don't sell replacements as nobody else is supposed to open that motor, might create a black hole. But it doesn't happen in your case, thank you for that. The proof is the world is still fine (or as it were) after you sold the repair kit for BDU 2xx motors. It was a step in the right direction!



2. Control boards (BMS/Motor). Do something about protection of the control MCU I/O lines. On motors, most common secondary fault when lights/display regulator fail (either from water damage because of bad sealing...see 1. or from external cause) is that control MCU will also get damaged rendering a repair impossible. The reason for this is that the ENABLE pin on the regulator will get shorted to Vin (36V). Also, this pin is driven directly from a I/O MCU line....directly, with no protection. In this case, full Vbat voltage will reach MCU.

Same thing happens with BMS boards when internal DC-DC power supply will break down...MCU will get damaged, BMS will not enter standby and will slowly discharge the battery pack to 0V, rendering it good for safe disposal/recycling. That can happen at any point in battery lifetime, even if the cells have low usage and good health.


Sorting out those 2 problems will probably make Bosch most reliable ebike system yet.... :Wink


Regards,
From someone who repairs your awesome products.

P.S. Your proprietary charging/discharging connectors (both system2 and smart) are ugly and not water tight.
 
G
cream said:
BOSCH steps in to save the day!

I agree with G-Sport, their idea of standardization is a bit weird, but it's not surprising, in this world:). They still want to protect the charging protocol method so that's the idea they came with. Let's make an adapter with electronics inside and use a public standard charger. Also keep the proprietary connector on the bike/battery. Why not add some connectors in the power path? Such a waste for something not needed. They can still have the proprietary communication protocol between ebike devices I can't see why they won't offer a standard way of charging...unless...
......

Regards,
From someone who repairs your awesome products.

P.S. Your proprietary charging/discharging connectors (both system2 and smart) are ugly and not water tight.
Click to expand...

Thanks for posting all this, it is appreciated.
Hadn't considered the limitations of USB PD connectors, surely they "shouldn't" wear out too easily but I can see how they might.
Either way, we need something neater than carrying a bulky adaptor and we need the chargers to be cheap enough that Cafe's and Bars and Railway stations etc will actually be prepared to install it.

Better seals would be great, and so would user replaceable bearings. I don't expect a BB to last a full year of riding including winter, so why not make these main seals and bearings easy for the owner to pop out and replace. Changing these every 6 months or so would probably go a long way to preventing moisture getting deeper into the motor.
 
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