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by **auraslip** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:18 am

In the ecig community everyone swears by "aw" brand batteries. Apparently they're 18650s from panasonic. But they're $10 a pop. Check in the ecig forums for discharge graphs.

by **Jason27** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:48 am

neptronix wrote:Kin; the "high energy" Dow Kokams are better than RC Lipo in terms of energy density, and have a good cycle life like the A123's, but are a little more expensive than these Panasonics per watt-hour

I wonder if anyone bought those on the group buy. Didn't see many people hoppin' over them..

I am sure there is major markup on those Panasonic cells. How else could Tesla deliver a luxury car with 40kWh for $56k? Their price per watt hour is gonna be super low. Boy would a group buy on those be nice. I'd empty my savings for those. I want a >70 mile range pack that fits in the triangle of my bike.

The type of battery your requesting already exists my friend. I could easily do about 80 miles with about 4 lithium manganese packs that could fit in the triangle of my bike.

by **neptronix** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 7:00 am

Jason27 wrote:The type of battery your requesting already exists my friend. I could easily do about 80 miles with about 4 lithium manganese packs that could fit in the triangle of my bike.

At the low, low cost of >$1000/kw-hr!

Oh wait, you could buy Dow Kokams with 4 times the cycle life for that cost!
Oh wait, i could buy panasonics at retail price for less ( $800-$900/kw-hr ) and have something even smaller!

You know that i just bought 1.5kw-hr of RC Lipo for $620 shipped? That was a particularly expensive type as well, i could have got some slightly heavier stuff and got 1.5kw-hr for less than $500.

Never been interested in the allcell. The price is exorbitant and the specs don't make up for it. At least the Dow Kokam cells give you 4x the cycle life, similar wHr/KG and 1-2C better discharge in the 'high energy' format..

There's a reason that, despite Lester trying to whore that pack out on ES, you are the only person i know of running it after a year of listening to him self promote.

Also the Dow Kokams are not selling so hot either.
The truth is that people don't want to pay $1000/kw-hr. That's for suckers. Not when the major auto corps are paying $300-$500/kw-hr for their cells.

It's just not a solution when you're looking to put together a 3kWh pack.

by **Kin** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 6:45 pm

Hmm, yeah guys. So I know it's established Panasonic has some pretty high density, low power cells. Couple summaries from this thread:

1) It doesn't look that anyone knows how to get them for less than $6/cell, and most sellers are $10/cell. That's way too high to be cool, especially when you'll need to do the work and use the materials for making a good pack. Was hoping someone might know "ohoho, this is a place to get the cells for not insanely more expensive than tesla gets them for").

2) It sounds like these cells get their magic simply as an optimization of existing technology, and not through any sort of particularly innovative new magic. I was especially curious about that, if it had anything more than simply shoving the most charge carrers they could in a cell and the least everything-else.

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by **neptronix** » Sat Mar 17, 2012 9:55 pm

I was hoping for that too

Kin, if you ever find anything out, PM me.
$6 a cell would be fairly decent.

I still think the ball is about to drop on some interesting NMC stuff in the future.
BMSBattery has some stuff, but their cell quality is low.
It's an indication that the Chinese factories that sell to hobbyists have figured out how to pump that stuff out though..

by **velorelax** » Sun Mar 18, 2012 3:06 am

Prices for Japan-made cells will never be as low as for chinese stuff, even if you buy them through a chines broker.
You can find comparable cells from China for about 2.5-3$. Good point about the Panasonic is their QC. Even Evvatech told me Panasonic QC is superior to Samsung QC, for only slightly higher price.
To get the price Tesla is paying, you have to order similar quantities!
Best price I found is from www.portapower.com , but they only sell ready-made packs, for low-power applications. Their prices are around 6$ a cell, but with a good BMS and a charger. But - MOQ 50 packs!
Otherwise, if you don't trust what I'm saying, order a sample from Evvatech, maybe a 10S4P pack, and test it! Only thing I didn't like: They came with duct-tape finish... but OK inside!