
Nomad Long Range Battery Fun (A long story)
I purchased my Nomad 2 at the end of June (Prime Sale). Great bike. I wanted a second battery, so I ordered a long-range battery. It was $50 more for a 10 to 15% range increase. Just to be clear, my regular battery gives me more than enough range. I use about 60% of my battery on my daily ride, so I have no range anxiety. But, as I said, $50 for more range, I opted to purchase the long-range battery in July. When I received it, I charged it up and put it in my Nomad 2 for a ride the next day. The problem was that I wasn’t getting any increase in range.
I used it for several days, just to make sure the battery had been properly broken in. No increase in range. I double checked that it was the long-range battery, 801.6 Wh.
So, I contacted Velotric Support for help. They had me verify that the Firmware for the battery and controller were up to date. I then performed a ride comparison of both batteries and sent them screen shots of the ride results. Support had me charge the LR battery off the bike. I performed a couple more comparison rides, no change.
The next step was Support sent me a new charger. After I received it, they asked me to charge the LR battery off the bike and perform ride comparisons between the LR and RR batteries and send screen shots of the results. Those rides, once again, showed no real difference in the range for the LR versus the RR batteries.
Support then sent me a new controller unit for the Nomad 2. Support also sent me a link to a video to show me how to replace the controller. If I was uncomfortable doing the swap myself, they offered to reimburse me the charge for a LBS to do it. The problem is my LBS has been hit and miss with previous repairs. So, after 8 hours over three days of struggling, I was able to replace the unit myself. In replacing the controller, I learned a couple of things for the next time. First, use grippy gloves to uncouple the cables, it is easier and way less danger of damaging the cables. The second thing I learned was that I had to install the controller and secure it to the bike BEFORE I connected any of the cables. When I connected the cables before trying to secure the controller to the bike, the cables would all bunch up behind the controller which prevented me from securing the controller. I then performed comparison rides with the LR and RR batteries. Unfortunately, the results were the same, the LR battery was just not giving me any increase in range. Oddly enough, with the new controller, the Velotric App improved it’s updating process, giving me nearly identical readings to my display very quickly as opposed to updating slowly or not at all with the old controller. Not sure if there is even a connection between the two, just my observation.
Support then concluded that the LR battery had some cells that were just not charging. They offered a 50% refund on the battery. Should the battery ever decline in capacity it is still subject to the 1-year warranty. Since I really didn’t need the extra range, I agreed to accept the 50% refund on the purchase price. I basically have a RR battery for the price of $275 rather than $499. This has been about a six-week process (mostly waiting for FedEx deliveries) during which Support never took more than two business days to respond (often less). They were clear in their instructions and the process seemed logical to me. My faith in Support continues. Big thanks to AJ in Support for being helpful and patient.
Just for grins and giggles, I enclosed a picture of the controller unit.