There’s nothing worse than being ready to leave the house to ride only to find you forgot to charge your board. Without power, you’re nothing, so there are only two options: you charge up and wait, or you do something else. Assuming you’re going to opt for option 2, your electric skateboard charge time is going to have a big say in how your day goes.
In this scenario, obviously you’re hoping for a board that charges as quickly as possible. Purchasing one of the best electric e-skate boards often ensures that your new board will have a decent battery and charges reasonably fast. But knowing how long your skateboard battery takes to charge is only part of the problem: if you’re choosing a new board, you’re going to want to know how long your battery will last too. It’s no good charging for an hour if you’re going to have to come home an hour later.
Electric skateboards vary a lot and so it can take from anywhere from one to 5+ hours to fully charge using the standard chargers. Boards that are built to go long-range and can cover the greatest mileage predictably will take the longest, and smaller lighter boards which are more for fun than travel will be quicker. However these charging times many people use their board to commute and perhaps cover long distances, and so need options to re-up faster than this if their board is going to be a practical option for commuting regularly.
That’s why many manufacturers offer chargers with a faster charging rate, which can shave several hours off in some cases. Let’s look at the charging rate for six of our favourite boards. We have included the option for a faster charger and the charging time if it applies.
How Often Do Electric Skateboards Need Charging?
Well, there are two ways of looking at this question. Firstly, you will probably need to charge your electric skateboard in between each time you head out on it and to make sure you get the most out of it you’ll want it fully charged each time. With most boards having a range of 10-12 miles, obviously this will vary depending on how much you use your board, how fast your electric longboard can go and how regularly. You may get away with a charge a week if you use your electric skateboard regularly but only for a short time, for example.
If you don’t use your board regularly, there are some important things to remember to preserve the health of your battery. The lifetime of the battery will be diminished if it is not used in some way regularly, so you must be sure to charge it periodically to ensure it remains healthy.
Electric skateboards use lithium-ion batteries which must be treated with care if you are going to be packing your electric skateboard away for a long time in storage. Before you pack it away be sure to discharge your lithium-ion battery to around 40%, and then recharge the battery every six months to and keep it at around 40-50% of full charge.
How Do You Charge an Electric Skateboard?
Thankfully charging electric skateboards couldn’t be simpler. If you’ve ever charged your smartphone battery, then you already know what you’re doing here. There are however a few things to look out for, so we’ve put together a short guide to make sure.
Grab your charger (if you’ve just taken delivery of your new electric skateboard, it will be in the packaging). Plug the charger into the mains power supply, and you should see a green light on the charger itself to let you know it’s connected to the power.
The charging port on your board will vary depending on the model but it’s a pretty safe bet that it will be found on the underside of the board where the motor and battery are. If you can’t locate it you can consult your manual but it will generally be pretty easy to locate.
Plug in the cable and on most models you will see a red light on the charger to let you know that your battery is now charging. Once it is done charging it will go back to green to let you know the charge is full. It’s worth remembering if you’re in a hurry though that Lithium Ion batteries charge in a non-linear way, which means that if you’re really in a rush you can get perhaps 80% of charge in around 20% of the total charge time.
Remember, for a higher charging rate most companies offer faster chargers than those that come as standard.
How Long Does an Electric Skateboard Battery Last?
Per charge, each board will have a completely different timeframe for which the battery can be used between charges. This is generally known as the range, as in how far you can travel on one charge before you need to recharge the battery. The range on electric skateboards varies greatly, depending normally on the size of the skateboard battery. A cheap e-skate board may not have a battery as high-quality as a mid-range or premium board, so be sure to read reviews before buying.
The battery size has the greatest impact on the weight of the board. Most smaller boards have a range of 10-14 miles, but boards built specifically for long distances can manage 20 miles plus. You will need to consult your boards manual to find out your li-ion battery range. In fact, we recommend quite strongly you do this before you leave the house!
In terms of battery life, if properly maintained a lithium-ion battery will last anywhere between 300-1000 charge cycles. You need to check for your particular model. Based on daily usage, that’s roughly 1-3 years worth of use before you need to replace. However, if you only use your electric skateboard at the weekends you could get over 10 years usage out of one battery.
A rechargeable lithium-ion battery a limited span and will continuously lose its capacity. The capacity of the battery is diminished by each charge, and the battery is considered to be beyond its useful life once it is at 80% of its original capacity.
