markz said:
The Lyft BikeShare bike is just a little 500 watt ebike. It would not be able to take two passengers up a hill at a decent speed.To do that you would need much more than a 500 watt hub motor.
I have no clue what those rental ebikes are, best guess is 36V 15-18A and 10Ah maybe 15Ah.
36v with 15 to 18 amps sounds about right.
With the average american weighing 181 pounds https://news.gallup.com/poll/328241/americans-average-weight-holds-steady-2020.aspx , their clothes about 2 pounds and their shoes about 2.5 lbs https://whatthingsweigh.com/how-much-do-shoes-weigh/ the total weight of two average american riders
without cargo is 371 lbs. Adding in the weight of a 84 lb Lyft BikeShare ebike (with seat room for only one person) https://www.fastcompany.com/90642114/new-lyft-e-bike brings total weight to 455 lbs.
As you can see below
even with a 20 amp controller (rather than one that is 15 amps to 18 amps) a 12T MAC motor is very poor on hills when carrying two average americans (without cargo):
Up a 7 percent grade it only gets .4 mph (and overheats in 7 minutes):
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?motor=MMAC12T&mass=206&hp=0&wheel=28i&grade=7&axis=mph
Up a 6 percent grade it only gets 7.1 mph (and overheats in 7.7 minutes):
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?motor=MMAC12T&mass=206&hp=0&wheel=28i&grade=6&axis=mph
Up a 5 percent grade it only gets 9.1 mph (and overheats in 11 minutes):
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?motor=MMAC12T&mass=206&hp=0&wheel=28i&grade=5&axis=mph
Up a 4 percent grade it only gets 11.4 mph (and overheats in 16 minutes):
https://ebikes.ca/tools/simulator.html?motor=MMAC12T&mass=206&hp=0&wheel=28i&grade=4&axis=mph
(Remember passengers having cargo, increasing weight of ebike so it can actually carry two passengers (rather than one) and reducing controller from 20 amps to 15-18 amps is going to lower the above figures)
P.S. I consider a decent speed for a rental moped up a hill to be 15 mph for a 15 percent grade (minimum), but it really should be 20 to 25 mph. (Remember that mopeds are in different class of electrical vehicle than an ebike and thus have higher power than the under 750 watts limit of Class 1,2 and 3 ebikes)