A123 20AH cells source?

[oatnet]

40,000 cycles? Surely though - they will ask LG to come up with a way of limiting the cycle life to something lower. No car manufacturer would want a car that lasts that long.

You mean the way today's Gas vehicles explode after 5 years? :lol:
Or are you referring to the 10+ yo RAV-4 EVs that are still running on the toyota/panasonic cells?
Maybe I am spoiled by being a Honda owner for the past 20+ years, but I expect a car to be barely broken in after 5 years. A large chunk of the new car market depends on people being able to sell their old car to the secondary market, in order to have the funds to buy a new car.

I expect long calendar life would be a huge selling point. The GM EV-1 mis-educated commuters that the flaw with electric cars is that the battery had to be replaced after 5 years. If it becomes a resale-able car after the 5-year "payoff" period, that will be a big boost.

LFP, do you know what DOD they used for that 40k cycle life? I still remember a certain lame-ass battery vendor(/faux-manufacturer) long banned from here, who bragged that his LiFePO4 cells had achieved like a 20k cycle life - but the cycle the lab tested on was something lame like from 70% DOD to 60%DOD - a 10% cycle at the sweet spot for LiFe.

-JD

 

[liveforphysics]

40,000 cycles? Surely though - they will ask LG to come up with a way of limiting the cycle life to something lower. No car manufacturer would want a car that lasts that long.

You mean the way today's Gas vehicles explode after 5 years? :lol:
Or are you referring to the 10+ yo RAV-4 EVs that are still running on the toyota/panasonic cells?
Maybe I am spoiled by being a Honda owner for the past 20+ years, but I expect a car to be barely broken in after 5 years. A large chunk of the new car market depends on people being able to sell their old car to the secondary market, in order to have the funds to buy a new car.

I expect long calendar life would be a huge selling point. The GM EV-1 mis-educated commuters that the flaw with electric cars is that the battery had to be replaced after 5 years. If it becomes a resale-able car after the 5-year "payoff" period, that will be a big boost.

LFP, do you know what DOD they used for that 40k cycle life? I still remember a certain lame-ass battery vendor(/faux-manufacturer) long banned from here, who bragged that his LiFePO4 cells had achieved like a 20k cycle life - but the cycle the lab tested on was something lame like from 70% DOD to 60%DOD - a 10% cycle at the sweet spot for LiFe.

-JD

I'm not really at liberty to share data. Lets just say, an absolute life-of-vehicle battery. That's ultimately all that matters.

 

[Hillhater]

40,000 cycles? Surely though - they will ask LG to come up with a way of limiting the cycle life to something lower. No car manufacturer would want a car that lasts that long -...

But consider a Hybrid car with a smaller pack (Prius / Insight) using regen cycles to charge the battery.
how many regen/discharge cycles would that battery see in a days use ?..or a year ??
A regularly used Hybrid city car could rack up 40,000 regen (part charge ?) cycles in a year !

 

[liveforphysics]

40,000 cycles? Surely though - they will ask LG to come up with a way of limiting the cycle life to something lower. No car manufacturer would want a car that lasts that long -...

But consider a Hybrid car with a smaller pack (Prius / Insight) using regen cycles to charge the battery.
how many regen/discharge cycles would that battery see in a days use ?..or a year ??
A regularly used Hybrid city car could rack up 40,000 regen (part charge ?) cycles in a year !

You can literally have thousands of shallow cycles not add up to the wear on a batteries life of a single 100% DOD cycle.

 

[John in CR]

...the company will die if they don't innovate...

My vote is for trimming margins and production costs to hit $100/kwh. Dead chemistry or not I'll take 20kwh right now.

 

[Hillhater]

...You can literally have thousands of shallow cycles not add up to the wear on a batteries life of a single 100% DOD cycle.

I fully understand LFP, but i suspect that on a hybrid like a Prius, with a small pack, there could be pretty deep discharge cycles going on ..( Have you seen the Prius Taxi's ??)

 

[neptronix]

The prius actually keeps it's battery pack around 50% SOC by design, and they have oversized the pack to make that happen.
That's why the ol' NiMH packs have lasted so long in EVs.

 

[oatnet]

The prius actually keeps it's battery pack around 50% SOC by design, and they have oversized the pack to make that happen.
That's why the ol' NiMH packs have lasted so long in EVs.

The Prius is a HEV/PHEV, and it uses a stratagey similar to what you describe.
The Rav4 was actually EV, which IIRC had an 80%DOD on their wet-cell NiMh, and folks reported getting 120,000 miles from those cells - heck, it might even be further now. The EV's didn't use a 50% SOC strategy to get that range from NiMh.

-JD

 

[CroDriver]

My experience with cell_man cells:

We had 300 (100s3p) of them in our car for almost one year. We developed and made our own BMS which monitored and displayed every cell separatley.

This is the battery pack:

...it was modified over the time in a few evolutions. Now there are 107 cells in series.

BMS interface (which was also modified a lot of times):

You can notice that some cells have a slightly lower voltage than the others. This phenomenon is there almost from the beginning, even if the battery is fully charged.

Even when almost all cells are at 3,5-3,65V (shunting), those cells with lower voltage don't rise over 3,4V.

After ONLY 20 Ah (from a 60 Ah pack) is used (so 30% DOD), several cells start to rapidly loose voltage:

So we never really could use the hole battery, but just a small part of it.

We are not sure why that happened. We tried to seperatley charge those bad cells but it didn't help. Since the car is mostly used for racing, the range was good enough for most of the time. Now we have some different plans for this car so we have replaced all cells with genuine A123 cells directly from the factory. Next week we'll test them.

I can't tell which the reason for those bad cells is. Maybe it's the high discharge rate we'll torturing them with. But still there is the question why this happened from the start. Otherwise the cells where great - not a lot of sag, not getting too hot etc...

 

[regmeister]

deleted

 

[oatnet]

Now we have some different plans for this car so we have replaced all cells with genuine A123 cells directly from the factory. Next week we'll test them.

Very pretty pack, and nice BMS display. I am guessing it would have been hard to remove/replace/bypass the bad cells to get the full range from your pack.

What are your plans for the old cells? I've been pondering putting a 50s3p pack of the 20ah cells into my Vectrix, I'd need about 120 more cells than I bought from cell_man already.

-JD

 

[999zip999]

CroDriver, That is Wild. Would love the update.

 

[John in CR]

An extra cell or a few A123 toolpack batteries in parallel with the weak cells would have fixed that pack right up.

 

[EBJ]

An extra cell or a few A123 toolpack batteries in parallel with the weak cells would have fixed that pack right up.

I'd also like to know why you guys didn't just replace those three or 4 bad cells with some new ones?
Amazing Battery pack btw! totally awesome.

 

[bigmoose]

Just for information, I querried these folks about pricing. I have no idea if these cells are genuine or not, or if they are A or B grade.

http://osn.en.alibaba.com/product/4...otive_Class_Lithium_Ion_Cell_AMP20M1HD_A.html


Thanks for your inquiry.
The price for A123 20Ah prismatic is :
US$50/PC for sample
US$45/PC above 100PCS
US$42/PC above 1000PCS
Please indicate your order quantity and we can issue you a formal PI.
Look forward to your soon reply.
Thank you!
Best Regards,
Ms. Yi Cai
OSN Power Tech, Co.,LTD
Email: osnpower@hotmail.com
Tel: 86-755-25609941
Fax: 86-755-25609940
Alibaba Trade Manager: szosn
MSN: osnpower@hotmail.com
Skype: osnbattery
www.osnpower.com
http://osn.en.alibaba.com/

 

[wojtek]

I talked to GEBattery http://www.gebattery.com.cn/geb/EN/Main.asp

they quoted me 55$ [they just got a shipping from Korea of 5000pieces]

They are also willing to build packs out of them.

Funny enough , they sell their own prismatic cells for 62$ - why more expensive? because they are better 10C instaed of 5C.

Just for information, I querried these folks about pricing. I have no idea if these cells are genuine or not, or if they are A or B grade.

http://osn.en.alibaba.com/product/4...otive_Class_Lithium_Ion_Cell_AMP20M1HD_A.html


Thanks for your inquiry.
The price for A123 20Ah prismatic is :
US$50/PC for sample
US$45/PC above 100PCS
US$42/PC above 1000PCS
Please indicate your order quantity and we can issue you a formal PI.
Look forward to your soon reply.
Thank you!
Best Regards,
Ms. Yi Cai
OSN Power Tech, Co.,LTD
Email: osnpower@hotmail.com
Tel: 86-755-25609941
Fax: 86-755-25609940
Alibaba Trade Manager: szosn
MSN: osnpower@hotmail.com
Skype: osnbattery
http://www.osnpower.com
http://osn.en.alibaba.com/

 

[EBJ]

Just for information, I querried these folks about pricing. I have no idea if these cells are genuine or not, or if they are A or B grade.

http://osn.en.alibaba.com/product/4...otive_Class_Lithium_Ion_Cell_AMP20M1HD_A.html

Is "grade A" and "grade B" an official thing or are you guys just dubbing them that ?
Would like to know more on that.
Is there a "grade C" ?

Thanks.

 

[John in CR]

Government giveaway (grants), obsolete chemistry (can't win even a GM contract), yet they still want high prices on this grey market stuff. These cells should already be in the $20/ea range with shipping from the US. Once your product is inferior you have to be the low price leader. Doesn't AOne know anything about business? It's acting like a sinking ship with a captain oblivious to the hole in the hull.

 

[oatnet]

Government giveaway (grants), obsolete chemistry (can't win even a GM contract), yet they still want high prices on this grey market stuff. These cells should already be in the $20/ea range with shipping from the US. Once your product is inferior you have to be the low price leader. Doesn't AOne know anything about business? It's acting like a sinking ship with a captain oblivious to the hole in the hull.

Too many businesses in this industry are running on a shoestring and trying to recoup their investment up front, instead of establishing themselves as THE brand and making it later. Reminds me of Sony, whose MinIdisk format came long before MP3 and could have owned the market, but they wanted $600 for a player in 1990. Same with Betamax/VHS. Same with Tidalforce/E+, who could have owned the market if they focused on building the brand with lower-cost sales, instead of recouping their R&D costs from the early adopters. I tried to counsel E+ otherwise in 2009, but they didn't listen, and they lost their window of opportunity. They could have been the RollerBlade of Ebikes , and they are now selling at the 2k price point I advised them on, but there are too many competitors on the market.

Kenny at xlyte is another example; by inflating his costs, and allowing an x5 monopoly in the US to jack their markup way up, he generated an opportunity in the market for 9c and 8fun to grab market share. He is compounding that error with the proprietary sensorless tangent he is trying to force on the market. BMC vs MAC is yet another example...

I'd love 20ah a123's at $20. Honestly, I'd probably pay $30 for A-Grade and be OK with it, $25 B-Grade with tabs. $50 would make the pack more expensive than I want to have sitting around in an easily-stealable scooter.

Word has it that motorcycle theives in SoCal now drive around in Sprinter vans with the rear bumper etc removed - they just open the rear doors, and back over a parked motorcycle. Then they can close the doors so nobody can see, hoist the moto up at their leisure, and drive away with it.

-JD

 

[davec]

for anyone interested -

mavizen - price list
1 – 4 $99.95
6 – 29 $83.00
31 – 59 $79.00
61 – 119 $76.00
121 – 500 $73.00
501 – 800 $68.00
1001 – 1500 $65.00
1501+ POA

affordable if we do a group buy.but the cells are A- coming from the factory.
All other Chinese sources are good enough for ebikes but their grade B/ rejects/ dismantled used sources, etc....

 

[jimw1960]

bigmoose, I bought some cells from OSN several months ago. They were the ones with the short tabs. Ms. Yi sent me an email saying they have just got a new batch that includes both short and long tabs. I'm assuming the price she gave you if for the long tabs because she sold me the short tab ones for considerably cheaper. You should definitely ask before you buy.

Just for information, I querried these folks about pricing. I have no idea if these cells are genuine or not, or if they are A or B grade.

http://osn.en.alibaba.com/product/4...otive_Class_Lithium_Ion_Cell_AMP20M1HD_A.html


Thanks for your inquiry.
The price for A123 20Ah prismatic is :
US$50/PC for sample
US$45/PC above 100PCS
US$42/PC above 1000PCS
Please indicate your order quantity and we can issue you a formal PI.
Look forward to your soon reply.
Thank you!
Best Regards,
Ms. Yi Cai
OSN Power Tech, Co.,LTD
Email: osnpower@hotmail.com
Tel: 86-755-25609941
Fax: 86-755-25609940
Alibaba Trade Manager: szosn
MSN: osnpower@hotmail.com
Skype: osnbattery
http://www.osnpower.com
http://osn.en.alibaba.com/

 

[freesky]

Watch testting on these cells on youtube starting time about 1:12:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BasB7E5PUGI

 

[bigmoose]

Thank you Jim. Did you cells match rated capacity?

 

[jimw1960]

Bigmoose, I tested about 10% of them on a CBA3 and all matched rated capacity. I haven't been able to get a clear explanation on why the tabs are shortened or why they are going to China from Korea. You'd think A123 Company would be on top of the situation where cells from their factory are going out to the public through back channels, but I am starting to get the impression that, although they have a good product, this is not a well-run company.

 

[bigmoose]

Thanks Jim for the info. The cut tabs may be from cells used in prototype runs, where the assembler was required by A123 to neuter them so that they could not be used for their intended purpose, but still sold for scrap/reclamation of copper/aluminum and salts. I would bet the scrap yard brokered them back into the supply stream.