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Best Commuter Electric Bikes 2023

*Electric Bike Report aims to help consumers find the right electric bike for their needs. When you buy a product we recommend, we may earn a commission.

The daily commute for an average person can be a lot of different things. It can be dozens of miles spent in a car each morning and evening; an hour or two on public transit a day; or a myriad of other things. So why can’t daily trip from A to B be spent on one of the best commuter electric bikes?

From powerful speedsters and long-haul pedalers to nimble and comfortable cruisers, the team at Electric Bike Report reviewed some of the best commuter e-bikes money can buy in 2023. We’ve compiled our favorites into a list to help you pick the best commuter e-bike for your needs.

E-bikes are changing the world’s relationship with bicycles for the better. They’re making the sport — and, more importantly, the mode of transportation — more accessible for more people, making bicycle commuting an increasingly popular choice among those who never considered it before. The commuter e-bikes included on this list will not just get you to your destination without sweating through your clothes, they’ll get you there quickly and have the battery capacity to cover far distances with ease. EBR’s team of experienced testers have put many of these commuter e-bikes on this list through their paces on our home roads and paths in southwest Utah, but some of these bikes were included on merit alone — their reputations and spec sheets were just too good to ignore.

Because commuting can mean so many different things depending on where you live and work (especially here in the U.S.), we’ve tried our best to stick to bikes designed with commuting as their best intended use. These bikes are primarily built for pavement, and their motor and battery systems were chosen with speed, efficiency and longevity in mind. If you’re looking for a lighter-duty commuter more at home in a bustling urban environment, check out our list of the best city and urban e-bikes — a category closely related to this one. Or, since equipping motors on bikes mean just about any e-bike could be what you commute on anyway, you can check out our best overall e-bikes page for some of the top options regardless of frame style.

Our picks for the Best Commuter Electric Bikes of 2023

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Replacement Electric Bike Batteries Guide

A good e-bike battery should last for hundreds of cycles. With average use, this means several years. Eventually, electric bike batteries need to be replaced as their life cycle comes to an end.

You can tell when a battery is nearing the end of its life when it does not provide you with much range. Some high-quality batteries that come on the top e-bikes such as a Bosch battery have a battery management system (BMS) integrated into the battery that actually tells you the current capacity and also how many charge cycles it has gone through.

But no matter what type of battery you have you’ll sooner or later be asking yourself the all-important question: how can I replace my e-bike battery?

Down below Electric Bike Report dives into this question and more in greater detail.

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Buyer’s Guide to Electric Bikes

New to the world of electric bikes? Welcome.

The bicycling world is going through a bit of a reckoning right now. Or maybe it’s growing pains; it’s hard to say.

Even before a pandemic drove everyone outside (and drove bike sales through the roof) the budding popularity of electric bikes had been attracting newcomers to bicycling in droves. E-bikes have democratized the cycling world, opening the door for people who previously wrote off the sport (and mode of transport) as a pastime of lycra-clad fitness enthusiasts. Bikes equipped with small motors and batteries are changing the shape of what is possible on two wheels and by who; making bicycling more accessible, less intimidating and flatly more fun for beginners and experienced riders alike.

The bicycling world is booming and we’ve got e-bikes to thank. So if you’re new here, welcome.

But with this new tech (and all these new people) has come a void of knowledge. E-bikes are complicated, and things like amperage, motor type and watt hours can be foreign concepts to the uninitiated. So, we wrote a guide to help with that.

This electric bike buyer’s guide will help you navigate the budding e-bike market and choose which bike is right for you. From commuters to cruisers and drive systems to laws, we’ll cover the basics of what you need to know before opening your wallet.

Want to jump to a specific topic? Here’s links to specific sections of this guide.

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How Much Does it Cost to Charge Your Electric Bike?

charging

How much electricity does an e-bike use?

The best way to answer this question is to look at the amount of energy e-bikes typically use and to compare that to other means of transport to show just how economical they are in power consumption terms – very little by most measures!

Comparing watts is the best way of measuring and comparing when answering the question; it’s really handy as not only is it a measure of electrical energy but it’s also a measure of energy consumed by any type of movement, from walking to flying and everything in between. As watts is a measure of instantaneous power, watt-hours are an even more useful measure – they are simply the number of watts an e-bike (or anything else) consumes in an hour – hence watt hours (Wh).

Watt hours are also commonly used to measure how much electrical energy is in an e-bike battery. 1000 Wh batteries are large for an e-bike but not uncommon. For ease of comparison let’s assume a 1000Wh (or 1 kilowatt hour – kWh) e-bike battery can take a single rider 100km (around 60 miles) – that’s quite feasible based on the many real-world tests EBR has done with our electric bike reviews.

Now let’s compare that measure of traveling 100km on 1kWh of electricity to other ways of getting around in the following graphic, all based on figures found at the Without Hot Air website.

e-bike energy consumption comparison

Of course, many of the other means of transport here don’t use electricity but they all use energy extracted from various fuels at rates that can be equated to kWh. So an e-bike uses around one twenty fifth of the electrical energy used by an electric car to move and one fiftieth of the energy used by a plane. These are of course very rough figures based on averages and assumptions; but the point remains, e-bikes use very, very little electrical energy when compared to alternatives.

Now let’s look at just how much that electricity needed to recharge your e-bike will cost.

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The Basics Of Electric Bike Insurance

Santa Cruz Heckler

With many now grabbing bike helmets instead of car keys for their daily commute, investing in insurance for your e-bike might make a lot of sense for your personal situation.

And a basic policy can be surprisingly cheap –  e-bike policies start at around $100 per year and offer a variety of coverage levels and deductible options. You might imagine with the extra power and weight onboard that comes with an e-bike means they would cost more than traditional non-powered e-bikes to insure but this isn’t necessarily the case.

For example, UK based specialist bike insurers Bikmo announced in July 2020 that they would cut premiums for e-bike riders, with new research showing that e-bikers were 38% less likely to make a claim compared to non-assisted riders. Indeed, Bikmo says customers can now insure an e-bike worth £2,000 from £9 a month, which they say is typically 25% less than a standard road bike of the same value.

Also insurance brings with it other benefits if you opt for more of a ‘bells and whistles’ type policy covering areas such as third party liability and accidental damage.

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E-Bike Insurance 101: Make Sure the E-bike is Secure

It’s stating the obvious; of course you don’t want your bike to be stolen so of course the first line of defence is a good lock and good home security. If you live in a property with no secure outside storage folding and compact e-bikes can be the difference between owning an e-bike and not. If you have a larger e-bike kept in a garage or an outbuilding of some kind security is much more important.

A ground anchor is a particularly good idea for outbuilding security as a good last line of defence; I’ve used examples from Hiplok and Squire.  
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Ebike News: Mid-drive Launches from Eminent and CSC, E-cargobikes in Europe and Much More!

E-bike prices have been in the pipeline for a while but with Rad Power recently revealing the actual extent of them – up to 20% extra on quite a few models – at least now the US market will begin to be able to see if the higher price tags start to affect the phenomenal popularity of e-bikes.

Elsewhere firms like CST and Eminent are clearly hoping medium and premium priced e-bikes will not be affected by this trend to higher price tags as they choose year end to announce a range of powerful looking mid-drive machines. We also take a look at if potentially groundbreaking solid state batteries will ever arrive and the phenomenon of e-cargobikes in Europe.

In this week’s e-bike news:

  • Rad Power Bikes details price increases
  • CSC uses monster Bafang M620 on new fat tire model
  • Eminent mtb specialists go with Shimano’s EP8 for first e-bikes
  • E-cargobikes phenomenal Euro success
  • Solid state batteries – reality or pipe dream?
  • Updated UK trail guide for easy riders

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E-Bike Holiday Gift Guide: What to get for the e-biker in your life

It’s giving season again (or getting season, depending on how you look at it) and if you’re looking for that special something for that special e-biker in your life, we’ve got some suggestions.

From e-bikes to shoes and trailers to tools, we’ve compiled some of our favorite products you can stuff under the tree or into a stocking of that special e-biker in your life.

What to Buy: Electric Bikes

Aventon Aventure Electric Bike Review holiday gift guide

Aventon Aventure

Ditch the reindeer and pull you sleigh this holiday season with Electric Bike Report’s pick for the best electric fat bike of 2021, the Aventon Aventure. This bike earned the top spot on our list of the Best Electric Bikes this year by way of its mold-breaking frame design, powerful rear hub motor, balanced handling and full-color LCD display, among other things. It’s one of the most capable affordable e-bikes we’ve reviewed, so buy it for the adventurous one in your life.

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