Range anxiety already - Silver, Gold or Platinum battery?

OK, I've ordered the bike and paid a deposit. Strangely enough, I have 'range anxiety' even though I don't own my pedelec yet! So I need to figure out what is the best battery to buy for my purposes.

The Gazelle Orange Plus Innergy XT comes with a Silver battery as standard. Now I've looked at the brochure and it says that the Silver battery will do 130 -170 km in Eco mode dropping to 35-45 km in Boost mode.

Thinking back to my test ride I had lots of hills in Mooroolbark and switched a bit from Eco to Boost. I had used 1 bar on the battery by the time I returned, and I cycled about 10 km, so this seems about right. However the brochure also states that the battery figures do not apply to the XT models - hmmm!

On to the internet...

OK here is the range table - looks like a slight drop in the figures for the Gold from the non-XT models in Normal range. 

Should I upgrade to Gold? The Gold has a better range, but is 1.1 kg heavier.

Well onto the internet again... 

There is a great forum on Brisbane Cyclist that talks about electric bikes  and in particular the Gazelle Innergy XT.  I asked the question - Silver or Gold?  This was the reply from Shaun Moran on the forum:

"I have the Silver Battery and I live 30 km (by bike) away from the CBD where I work. My ride has a number of hills and I tend to use boost for pretty much all of them and use normal mode the rest of the time.

My battery is fully charged when I leave and when I get to work its usually reading 3 bars left. I charge it up again at work so its full before the ride home (I think the battery will last longer if I don't full flatten it).
I did leave the charger home one day and did do the trip there and back on one battery charge - but I used ECO a lot on the way home and it was flashing its last bar of battery by the time I got there.
I kind of wish I got the gold battery to start off with - whilst the Silver gets me to town and back and I can't really do anything once I get to town. Just a little more oomph would have been good."

So Gold seems the way to go. 

But wait a minute, if Gold is good, would Platinum be better? More range,  and the same weight as the Gold. But why aren't the Platinum specs aren't on the internet? A quick call to the dealer (MySpokes) and I discover that the Platinum battery is not suitable for XT models - I wonder why not? Seems a pity.

Anyway, decision made - Gold it is.


2012-11-08 Update from Leigh at Gazelle Australia "The platinum is not suitable for the XT as it can not be fully discharged and so limits the range."