My wife and I have identical RadCity4s.
Hers was the first to fail. The battery just died while she was riding. Dead as a dodo! Stranded by the road-side. No power. No battery-level indicator. Both 5A and 40A fuses checked out OK. But the battery showed no signs of life. Bike worked OK with another battery.
My bike also failed a couple of months later. Same story. Completely dead battery. Stranded by the road-side.
Both bike-strandings occurred in the same place, at the bottom of a short hill, just 2km from home.
Rad replaced both batteries under warranty.
When I took the second battery in to the Vancouver (Canada) store, the tech-person wasn?t surprised and explained that the RadCity4 batteries have a known problem: if the battery is fully-charged, and the rider then goes downhill using the brakes, the power-regeneration feature fries the battery!
It seems that the internal battery-controller allows the battery to overcharge, and the battery is then dead.
And no fuses are blown, just a deceased battery!
This would seem like an easy fix for Rad?s battery-designer.
But there?s no evidence that Rad are doing anything about this design fault.
Moral of the story: If you live in a hilly-area (that?s why we bought eBikes), don?t start the day with a fully-charged battery or you may fry the battery when next going downhill.
Hers was the first to fail. The battery just died while she was riding. Dead as a dodo! Stranded by the road-side. No power. No battery-level indicator. Both 5A and 40A fuses checked out OK. But the battery showed no signs of life. Bike worked OK with another battery.
My bike also failed a couple of months later. Same story. Completely dead battery. Stranded by the road-side.
Both bike-strandings occurred in the same place, at the bottom of a short hill, just 2km from home.
Rad replaced both batteries under warranty.
When I took the second battery in to the Vancouver (Canada) store, the tech-person wasn?t surprised and explained that the RadCity4 batteries have a known problem: if the battery is fully-charged, and the rider then goes downhill using the brakes, the power-regeneration feature fries the battery!
It seems that the internal battery-controller allows the battery to overcharge, and the battery is then dead.
And no fuses are blown, just a deceased battery!
This would seem like an easy fix for Rad?s battery-designer.
But there?s no evidence that Rad are doing anything about this design fault.
Moral of the story: If you live in a hilly-area (that?s why we bought eBikes), don?t start the day with a fully-charged battery or you may fry the battery when next going downhill.