One of the most important questions about electric skateboards is how well they climb hills. This is especially true if you live in a very hilly or mountainous area. After much research, I arrived at the answer, and it's not what you've probably assumed.
Most electric skateboards can climb moderate hills with ease. Most e-boards, like our Veymax Skateboard, can climb most of the hills you encounter on your daily walks. Cheap skateboards will have a hard time with many hills, but the higher quality and capable skateboards will climb even the steepest hills with little problem.
Many of today's skateboards will struggle to some degree with hills that are a bit steeper, especially if the rider has not done everything possible to make the climb as easy as possible. The critical features that will determine the hill climbing capabilities of the electric longboard will be the capacity and torque of the motor, the battery, the weight of the e-skateboard and the weight it is carrying, and its tires and suspension to a lesser extent.
What kind of angles are electric skateboards able to ride?
Obviously, this will change depending on the motorized longboard models. In addition to this, it is going to be harmed by each and every one of the components that we went through before.
On average, a good skateboard will be able to steer angles in excess of 20 degrees without issue. The huge ones will handle tunes well over 30 degrees.
Low end skateboards will rarely be able to climb hills with much more than a 15 degree incline. It's just not what they were built for.
On the other hand, some of the more powerful and expensive off road skateboards can handle hot temperatures up to 45 degrees or more. They are a minority of skateboard models.
Can you improve the hill climbing skills of an electric skateboard?
As we discussed there are six main factors that will determine how well the e-board will go uphill:
- Get better e-board motor for climbing
- Get more powerful batteries
- Unlock agility limits for better climbing
- Get off-road wheels
- Adjust the trucks
- Lowering your weight
- Regenerative braking
Improving or improving any of these will make it much easier for the electric skateboard to go uphill. However, not all of them are viable to carry out.
If you need some serious hill climbing powers, it may be worth considering getting a skateboard that specializes in just that.
Get better electric skateboard motor for climbing
Trying to upgrade the engine, for example, is somewhat similar to trying to upgrade a PC's motherboard or central processing unit. It is possible, but it is very difficult, several things can go wrong and it may not be worth it.
The engine is the central part of the e-longboard, its beating heart. Possibly replacing it does not in all cases generate predictable outcomes.
But the engine is also the most important aspect when it comes to climbing hills. Its capacity will be directly proportional to the angles that the motorized skateboard is capable of taking. The more Watts of capacity you have, the better the electric longboard will climb.
Regardless of the e-skateboard and its weight, any motor that has less than 200 watts of actual capacity is going to have trouble pulling it up a fairly steep hill with an average adult on top of it.
If you need to climb a lot of hills, get a skateboard with a motor that has at least 500 watts. Preferably a lot more.
If you already have a skateboard with a not as powerful motor there are a few other things you can do to help it climb hills better. They're not going to make you conquer Everest, but they can help and set themselves apart.
Get more powerful batteries
The best thing you can do by far is get a stronger battery or add one or more auxiliary batteries.
Before you think about upgrading the motorized longboard battery or adding a new one, see how much voltage the battery has and then check the motor voltage. A higher battery voltage is what is going to make your e-longboard that much more powerful. But possibly the motor voltage is now close to the battery voltage.
If that's the case, it may not be possible to get a new or added battery. The motor simply won't handle much more voltage, and will likely find faults and short circuits that will damage your motorized skateboard.
Adding a new battery is usually not that difficult, especially on skateboards that come equipped to take a second battery.
If you add the battery yourself, you probably need to provide some sort of frame for it. This is a bit further along and is out of the scope of this product, but you will need to add the battery in series to increase the overall battery voltage. We will build a particular guide for it soon and link to it here.
One important thing to keep in mind as well: as you ride the e-board and the battery discharges it will give less and less capacity to the motor. It is a well-known fact that all the devices that are powered by electric batteries achieve much better performance when the battery is full.
Therefore, charge your battery regularly and also try to have a full battery every time you face a much steeper hill.
Aside from tinkering with the motor or battery, there's other vigorous customization that can add a few degrees to hill climb angles as well.
Unlock agility limits for better climbing
Many skateboards have several speeds, each with a limited top speed. This is to make it safer for novices to ride the electric skateboard at the lowest speed, because some people are too nervous to cause the electric skateboard to accelerate suddenly, resulting in accidents.
Restricting the maximum speed of the e-longboard essentially limits the maximum capacity that the engine can produce. As we've seen before, engine capacity is the key to scaling. Reducing it will make the motorized skateboard climb badly.
By removing speed caps, you will unlock much more power from your engine.
Get off-road wheels
While not as important an aspect as the others, some skateboard wheels can improve the climbing ability of the electric longboard.
Wide off-road wheels that provide better friction against the road and less slip. They will be significantly better for starting from an uphill situation, but they will also improve climbing generally.
Adjust the trucks
Truck is another minor aspect that will also affect the way your electric longboard climbs hills. The seatstays better distribute the load carried by the e-skateboard, making them much more energy efficient.
The effect on climbing is small. Improving this aspect just to make your e-skateboard ride better will have limited effect.
Lowering your weight
It's just physics: the less weight the motorized longboard has to go up a hill, the better it will handle up the hill.
Weight suppression can be done for these 2 reasons:
- Make the e-board much faster
- Make the load that the electric skateboard has to carry much lighter
Reducing the weight of the e-longboard is another of the ideas that are not very practical or easy to do.
Specialist mechanics and skateboard enthusiasts from all over the world customize their skateboards this way, primarily to prepare them for racing. If you are one, or know someone with that kind of knowledge, you can continue this route.
A much easier solution is to reduce the weight the motorized skateboard must regularly pull.
If you're riding an electric skateboard with a backpack full of laptops, laptop chargers, skateboard chargers, and a few other things, the board's performance may suffer somewhat. If you properly reduce the weight of the backpack, not only the performance of the electric longboard and the ability to climb mountains will be improved, but it will also be more convenient for you to rotate your body without being hindered when riding a skateboard.
If you can remove some of the cargo weight do so and see if going uphill is much easier for your motorized longboard.
Regenerative braking
Regenerative braking is a system that certain skateboards have. The e-skateboard's battery is recharged whenever you apply the brakes or steer the motorized longboard off the accelerator, such as when going downhill. This is only relatively related to going uphill, but could possibly make a small contribution as well.
Every time you go uphill, you have to go downhill, right? Even if your commute to work is uphill, that means the entire commute back is going to be downhill. The heights will balance themselves.
You will use up extra battery power when going uphill and as the battery depletes the climb will gradually become more difficult.
If your e-board has a regenerative braking system, by the time you are definitely going downhill after going uphill, your battery will recharge. This will make the next hill you own a little easier to climb.
If your electric skateboard has a very weak engine and you don't want to replace it with a better one, this will help up to a point.
Can an electric skateboard stop while going up a hill?
Low end or less powerful skateboards are likely to have too many issues getting on board that they give up completely and come to a stop. This can even happen with better skateboards when their battery is practically empty.
You can try to give the hill another chance if you want, just try to get a lot more speed and momentum this time around.
If that also fails, you will have to make up your mind to move the e-board uphill.
If steep hills are a big part of the area where you live and ride your e-longboard, read on to learn everything you need to know about hill riding, and possibly what you can do to improve your motorized skateboard's hill conquering abilities.
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