Lithium-Ion powered Modenas CTric at UMP Pekan lakeside
Most folks don’t know that Malaysia produced a full-electric motorcycle seven years ago. It was Modenas CTric, the first electric motorcycle in Malaysia that got approval by JPJ to be road-legal. It was launched back in 2011. Some specs of the bike;
Energy storage: 60V 20Ah (composed by 5 unit of 12V 20Ah Lead acid batteries)
Motor: 1.0 kW brushless DC motor
Max power: 3.6 kW at 60-70km/h
Chassis/Body: Based on Modenas CT model
The motorcycle itself was quite nice with catchy appearance and excellent drive-train, but was not well accepted in the market. Pity. Often, if you are lucky enough to see one CTric on road, the bike was not bought. It was won instead, probably in lucky draw, etc.
Recently, I acquired a Modenas CTric from a friend who won it in a golf competition in 2013. It was green in colour. The batteries were dead. Mileage was only 250 km. Modenas’ authorised workshop was not able to replace the batteries. So, I bought it with an intention to replace the Lead-acid batteries with Lithium-Ion battery.
The upgrade
I replaced the original batteries with a single pack of Lithium-Ion battery with same capacity, 20Ah. Lithium-Ion battery is the common type of battery in smartphones, tablets and laptops. Compared to same capacity Lead-Acid, Lithium-Ion is lighter, smaller and more powerful. The cache? It is more expensive.
Thanks to the advancement of mobile gadget over the past 10 years, the price for Lithium-Ion battery is reduced. Back in 2011 when CTric was launched, Lithium-Ion was so expensive. Now, it is still very costly, but I would say the price is only about twice the Lead-Acid battery. So, I bought a pack of 60V 20Ah Lithium-Ion battery from Aliexpress and fit it in my Modenas CTric.
Lithium-Ion powered Modenas CTric at UMP Pekan library
The first ride
The upgrade was a success. The bike is now completed. From this week, I will commute to UMP using EV. Some notable information gathered on first day are as follows;
- On a single charge, the bike can go up to 40 km. To be on the safe side, 35 km is a more pragmatic figure.
- Top speed is slightly more than 90 km/h.
- The torque is very strong when the battery is full charged.
- Full charge takes 9 hours 45 minutes.
The charging time is too long actually. I’ll look into this later and share some info.
That’s all for now. Ciao.
As’salam Dr Hamdan,
Just got to know of this after I have been searching and researching on how to repair my Ctric.
I have one and has been trouble since. I have had 4 battery changes since 2011 and to a few repair shops besides Modenas.
I have only clocked 1100km since new but spent more than RM4000 in batteries and repairs.
Talk about savings!!!
Maybe we can share some experiences.
Hoping to hear from you.
Waalaikumussalam,
Great! It’s so good to know another owner of CTric. I hope I can help you, let’s talk.