LiFePO4 Battery Showdown!

[Battboy]

Surely you wouldn't have to answer so many questions if you could post clear and consistent information on your website about the performance and specifications of these cells and packs? I can't imagine that customers for larger (and more expensive) EV packs will be willing to buy without such information either. I realise that margins are small when setting up a business like this and you have to focus your efforts where they're most effective, but good, honest information pays big dividends in my opinion.

Part of the problems we encounter are concerning "performance specs." that individual customers have especially with the larger EV packs. We get specs. that range all over the map and without analyzing their real requirements and developing a SOFTPAK for testing we have no real way to publish what you call "clear and consistent" specs. We are in fact developing these SOFTPAKS now for larger volume buyers and once they have tested and accepted the results, we can then move forward and finish the VMS boards and design the proper Chargers - both of which are required to offer the 3 Year Warranty.

If you require the individual Cell spec. all you need to do is ask. I will attach it here for all to view. In an emerging industry there are many things changing quicky. I try to keep everyone apprised of these as they occur.

What do you not understand about the specs. for the standard small packs that we have on the website ?

Best,

Don Harmon

 

[markcycle]

Looks like missbattery (Yesa on ebay) won the LiFePO4 Battery Showdown

http://cgi.ebay.com/LiFePO4-electric-bike-Scooter-48V-12Ah-battery-pack_W0QQitemZ270177623426QQcmdZViewItemQQssPageNameZRSS:B:SRCH:US:101

 

[flip_normal]

I was just re-reading this thread and was wondering if anyone's got any idea why the links to the evtech list and PHET have died???

edit: It seems these links aren't dead after all!

 

[Joshua Goldberg]

I suggested to Don Harmon that he exit the e-bike Lifepo4 market early Friday for a few reasons but the BIGGIE was because everyone and his dog is lost in space about what Don was offering and why should Don have to spend all his time trying to explain what he is trying to do and have to put up with people peeing on him.

Lifepo4 is a fairly new battery chemistry and we have become used to Li-ions and Li-po not weighting a lot and a smaller form factor and we are expecting Lifepo4 to be just as small and low weight and it does not work that way. Had NILAR released their Ni-MH those packs are huge and heavy comapred to every Ni-MH on the market---but you are buying something that will last years not weeks so live with it.

Same applies to LifeBatt, what do we want? Do we want a Lifepo4 that has a low weight and fails after a few months or do we want a Lifepo4 that lasts 1500 cycles and once you figure that out LifeBatt makes sense.

My suggestion to Don Harmon was that he go off and concentrate on Lifepo4 for cars, aircraft and marine applications and then once LifeBatt has a PROVEN track record then would he be so kind to return to the e-bike market because in a year from now we will still have only Valence and A123 as the ONLY Lifepo4 worth having (SAFT too when they launch).

I have been watching all the crap coming out and am floored by people thinking the Lifepo4 being offered is Good Sh*t when they promise 1500 to 3000 Cycles but only offer a Warranty that is 3 or 6 or 12 Months long. IF they actually believed in the Lifepo4 being capable of 1500->3000 Cycles, why not a Warranty of 3 Years and then you gotta start asking yourself WHY and if you are not asking yourself WHY then you should be.

I have been following Lifepo4 for 2 years, have heard all the hooror stories from people in Taiwan and China. Companies trying to rush Lifepo4 to market and trying to use equipment designed to make Li-Po, the fires, the contaminated compounds being sold at 1/3 the regular price and compounds not being properly aged to get the batteries out sooner.

LifeBatt, A123 and Valence are the ONLY Lifepo4 being tested by an independent lab for safety and durability, the 3 Share having UL Certification.....are the others arriving UL Certified or just CE?

LifeBatt are in a League that places them with Valence and A123 and yet people want to Pee on LifeBatt for being too expensive or too heavy or how Don is making a killing on profits.

Are these Low Cost and Short Warranty Lifepo4 on Ebay or Electricrider or splattered all over the Net being used by Car companies, by aircraft manufacturers---> care to take a wild guess why not???

Don Harmon gave us access to a product designed specifically for the e-bike market and we Pee on him for it, A123 and Valence have not done designed their Lifepo4 for us

E-bikers are unique in that we eat our own and go off and buy utter crap from companies who don't give a toss about us and ship us their scraps and then we seem surprised when it fails.

I hope Don Harmon does come back in a year or so because by then after every other Lifepo4 has failed LifeBatt will start to make sense to all the people who just don't get it now

 

[flip_normal]

For the past few months I been banging on (to anyone who'll listen) about how there's this guy who's about to start selling these safe fast charge/discharging batteries with a 3 year warranty and how he's been upfront and open and put his company's reputation on the line and freely discussed many technical aspects of a product with potential for a major change in personal transportation. It has been a breath of fresh air to have this discussion (if only everyone in the industry was so forthcoming) and I fully commend Don for doing this.

I hope he can still offer us the individual cells, even without warranty I'm still a potential customer.

 

[Jozzer]

Indeed, lets get real ...we want this product. We get no warrenty with the A123 packs we keep taking apart, lets have some patience and let Don and is crew refine the management system untill its useable for us all.

Several of us will have these cells to test shortly, and Bob Mcree has the full package to try. Lets see what happens before this product gets blown out of the water!

 

[Malcolm]

Thanks for the information Don, that's exactly what I was after! If this was on the website I must have missed it.

This looks like a great product you're offering, and I would still like to buy single cells. I wasn't trying to have a go at you. I was just trying to say that a lot of people are interested in your cells and packs and that they are very hungry for hard facts such as weights, dimensions, life cycles at specific charge/discharge rates, voltage cut-offs and so on. If you could post the cell specification on the website so that visitors can find it quickly then it might take some of the pressure off you to answer questions. I personally think that the decision not to offer tailored ebike packs makes sense – there are too many different possible configurations. Let people buy cells and VMSs and build their own packs.

Cheers
Malcolm

 

[Deepkimchi]

As I see it:

Most guys here are probably buying $100-200 Chinese bikes and slapping about $650 on them for motors & controllers.

Even though Don's product MIGHT be worth it, $1000 is above most of our pain thresholds.

I can afford a BMW 5 series, it has quality, but my upbringing and personality keeps me from buying a car that costs a good sized fraction of a house in SC.

Damn - why can't y'all just say it costs too much, and you'll settle for a Chevy Vega without being so flippin rude.

Don Harmon - only advice I can give: the electric bike crowd are probably middle class tinkerers like me, that can put about $ 1,200 - $ 1,500 in a bike to commute and putt around on. Above that and it competes with the house payment, kids, medical bills and the wife's magazines.

As I have said before, same problem with electric cars. If it costs $ 12 - 15,000 for a fiberglass basicmobile, I'd add $5,000 more and buy a Honda Hybrid. You have to get costs down where it's suitable for the masses and in relationship to what else is available

 

[Jozzer]

Again, these cells are priced very favorable against A123 (for bare cells), and many people are strapping those onto thier bikes. Don should charge whatever he feels he needs to for the moment, and we should pay it, or just not buy it. No need to moan just because it would be nice if they were cheaper. I have full confidence that when LiFeBatt starts mass production runs the price will drop. Same for the supporting electronics.

LiFePo4 Batts ARE the best out there for our uses. If Lifebatt performs anywhere near as well as A123 have, they are worth the money.

 

[GGoodrum]

I don't know what the big deal is either. If these things are anywhere near as reliable as the a123 cells, I'm not going to worry about a warranty so much. After well over a year of torturing a123-based packs in all sorts of RC models, and with a few months now of playing with them in several ebikes, I know the only way to kill one is to overdischarge it. I suspect that the LiFeBatt cells will eventually prove to be very reliable, and have the same sort of limit about not letting them get over-discharged.

The reason I believe this is because these are being manufactred in Taiwan, and not on the mainland. I've seen the same sort of thing happen in the RC world. The best LiPo cells come out of Korea. Soon, however, cheap Chinese varieties started appearing but the QC was horrible and the "C" ratings were about half, but the prices were about half as well. Eventually though, the quality improved and the C-ratings rose, and although the price gap narrowed, it was still cheaper. The difference is the Chinese variants just don't last as long.

The same thing happened with brushless motors. For years the best ones were hand-wound in Germany. Then we started seeing cheap Chinese knockoffs that were about 1/3rd the cost. The quality has improved now, but the performance is still not quite there, mainly because of the use of cheap steel and inferior magnets. What the Germans did was to setup a factory in China that they could control, and they use better steel and better magnets. I found a company in Taiwan tha tdoes its manufacturing in Taiwan, which cost a bit more, but they can better control the quality. They also use high-quality steel from Japan and better magnets. These motors have proven to hold up well and are the best value for the money of everything else on the market.

Eventually, the quality of the Chinese LiFePO4 cells will improve, and the C ratings will increase, but I'm not so sure we're there yet. The one thing that really perked my interest about the LiFeBatt cells, other than the convenient packaging and capacity, is that they are being made in Taiwan.

In any case, if they will still make them available for $55 each, I'm in, whether or not they come with a warranty. I will do the same sort of LVC protection that I'm finding works great with a123 cells, and I will balance the cells when I charge them. I believe that these will serve me well for some time. Eventually, when these start showing up in larger vehicles, and start being produced in larger quantities, I think the prices will come down, and then we'll see the real revolution start.

So, I think it is a good thing that Don concentrates his efforts on higher-volume applications because that's what will get the costs down. In the meantime, I'm still hopeful that we will be able to get these in "raw" form.

-- Gary

 

[DeeL2003]

I don't know what the big deal is either. If these things are anywhere near as reliable as the a123 cells, I'm not going to worry about a warranty so much. After well over a year of torturing a123-based packs in all sorts of RC models, and with a few months now of playing with them in several ebikes, I know the only way to kill one is to overdischarge it. I suspect that the LiFeBatt cells will eventually prove to be very reliable, and have the same sort of limit about not letting them get over-discharged.

The reason I believe this is because these are being manufactred in Taiwan, and not on the mainland. I've seen the same sort of thing happen in the RC world. The best LiPo cells come out of Korea. Soon, however, cheap Chinese varieties started appearing but the QC was horrible and the "C" ratings were about half, but the prices were about half as well. Eventually though, the quality improved and the C-ratings rose, and although the price gap narrowed, it was still cheaper. The difference is the Chinese variants just don't last as long.

The same thing happened with brushless motors. For years the best ones were hand-wound in Germany. Then we started seeing cheap Chinese knockoffs that were about 1/3rd the cost. The quality has improved now, but the performance is still not quite there, mainly because of the use of cheap steel and inferior magnets. What the Germans did was to setup a factory in China that they could control, and they use better steel and better magnets. I found a company in Taiwan tha tdoes its manufacturing in Taiwan, which cost a bit more, but they can better control the quality. They also use high-quality steel from Japan and better magnets. These motors have proven to hold up well and are the best value for the money of everything else on the market.

Eventually, the quality of the Chinese LiFePO4 cells will improve, and the C ratings will increase, but I'm not so sure we're there yet. The one thing that really perked my interest about the LiFeBatt cells, other than the convenient packaging and capacity, is that they are being made in Taiwan.

In any case, if they will still make them available for $55 each, I'm in, whether or not they come with a warranty. I will do the same sort of LVC protection that I'm finding works great with a123 cells, and I will balance the cells when I charge them. I believe that these will serve me well for some time. Eventually, when these start showing up in larger vehicles, and start being produced in larger quantities, I think the prices will come down, and then we'll see the real revolution start.

So, I think it is a good thing that Don concentrates his efforts on higher-volume applications because that's what will get the costs down. In the meantime, I'm still hopeful that we will be able to get these in "raw" form.

-- Gary

I agree, if the consumer can at least get the individual cells, the warranty is not needed. Of course if you're going to buy the whole package(module packs, VMS, charger, etc.) the 3 year warranty is a nice welcome addition.

Selling raw cells will hold most of us through, just like A123, then hopefully once prices go down e-bike module packs will be more readily available to new and old ebikers alike. Good things come to those who wait. :wink:

 

[markcycle]

As I see it:

Most guys here are probably buying $100-200 Chinese bikes and slapping about $650 on them for motors & controllers.

Even though Don's product MIGHT be worth it, $1000 is above most of our pain thresholds.

I can afford a BMW 5 series, it has quality, but my upbringing and personality keeps me from buying a car that costs a good sized fraction of a house in SC.

Damn - why can't y'all just say it costs too much, and you'll settle for a Chevy Vega without being so flippin rude.

Don Harmon - only advice I can give: the electric bike crowd are probably middle class tinkerers like me, that can put about $ 1,200 - $ 1,500 in a bike to commute and putt around on. Above that and it competes with the house payment, kids, medical bills and the wife's magazines.

As I have said before, same problem with electric cars. If it costs $ 12 - 15,000 for a fiberglass basicmobile, I'd add $5,000 more and buy a Honda Hybrid. You have to get costs down where it's suitable for the masses and in relationship to what else is available

I have to agree with Deepkimchi, just to much money for the average E-biker

Also you have to look at the history of these batteries, first he comes out with a battery pack in a form factor that's not good for E-bikes, but tries to sell us this pack. Don didn't do his homework before selling, you have to know your market. So right away my confidence is lost, I'm saying to myself, "he doesn't understand the E-bike market how do I believe these cells are going to work for me?" Then he starts backtracken offering them every which way to see what will click with the market. Thats not how you sell product today, you learn your customer and offer them the product they want. Also I don't want a 3 year battery I want a reliable 1 to 2 year battery. The market is changing to fast to make a large investment forcing me to lock into what is potentially a old outdated product in just one year. For cars, it's different they are looking for a long term - 5 year plus battery. From my research this market can't support a battery greater than 800 dollars, for most people. Sure some will pay more but it's at the fringe of the bell curve and they will be second time around people looking to upgrade. No first timer is going to pay those prices, thats the reality of it.

 

[Battboy]

We are actually finding our role is better defined as a Battery Solutions Provider of LiFePO4 chemistry. We have established a few key accounts like the Sky Gypsies, who we are now building custom SOFTPAKS for, to test on their Electric kite wing aircraft. We have on board now a bright young electrical engineer from UNLV who is working directly with the Sky Gypsies engineer to develop the SOFTPAK design in conjunction with Lifebatt USA & Taiwan.

This way we build a solid foundation with these enterprises and become their "out-sourced battery resource" on LiFePO4. The eventual payoff is a production pack that will meet their needs exactly and can be produced on a larger scale sales platform. Once we get to this point we have a commercially viable small aircraft LiFeBATT pack that we can offer out for the small aircraft industry. We will have real world Tests and documentation on the project as a whole design process which can be used by others who are working on new EV concepts.

We are doing this for several Electric Car companies as well. When these SOFTPAKS are eventually converted into PRODUCTIONPAKS, with tooling and large volume runs, we expect it will have an effect on the pricing of our Raw Cells but this won't happen probably until Q-2 of 2008 to be honest.

We have decided to part company with the "battery sellers", and concentrate on special projects instead, that will lead to future sales to OEM accounts. It makes so much more sense than scrambling to meet the needs of what will become a "commodity market" once the Chinese flood it with their version of LiFePO4. Especially since our flagship product is a Large Format Cell to begin with and uses Phostech licensed materials and has passed all the Testing agencies including UL & BATSO.

Don't get me wrong, once we can establish a warranty policy for Raw Cells, we will offer them to this market and probably a basic 4-cell VMS and a Charger. What I have to settle is how much warranty we can offer on Raw Cells ? From what I understand, without the VMS & Charger that LiFeBATT recommends, it is possible an end user could damage the cells by experimenting with their own home made circuitry ? Therefore it would be ridiculous for us to warranty the cells for 3 years. It may be that if we get buyers to purchase our VMS & Charger we can offer a 2 year warranty on the combo package ? This is what I am hoping for. BUT I have not received approval yet from our partners in Taiwan. Give me one more week and we should be able to put this issue to bed. There will be some kind of warranty for LiFeBATT Raw Cells - I just can't say until next week. It has to be fair for both LiFeBATT and the buyer in order to work.

In any event, I hope you see our point about where we want to take LiFeBATT moving forward. We are not abandoning the e-bike market - just taking a break and moving into a consulting position with OEM companies who really need to develop a LiFePO4 solution for their forthcoming EV's.

Thanks for today's fair and honest posts!

Best Regards,

Don Harmon

 

[Drunkskunk]

Don, I'm glad to hear you're opening up into the electric Car market. that can only be good for everyone. The Ebike market is admitivly small in the US right now, with probably under a million of the comuter type on the road on the continent. But the technology is the same as that used in everything from Electric wheelchairs to kid's powerwheels, and all of them need a light weight, long life battery. But its not just here, China has 30 Million electric bikes on the road, right now. Most of them are running SLA, and currently, watt for watt over the life of the battery, your battery is cheaper than SLA.

While the price is still high for many of us on a technology thats still evolving faster that the life cycle of the batteries, I don't think its the problem.

The problem is the packaging. Your battery's footprint is simply too large for the market. With bikes, and wheelchairs, and most of the worlds small electronic devices, size is possably a bigger consideration than weight. The power density needs to be as high as possable in the smallest package possable.

I'll use cell phones for an example. You're probably not going to be able to tell the diffrence between a 2 ounce cell phone, and a 3 ounce cell phone, if they are both roughly the same size, because one is using Li-ion batteries, while the other is using Lipo. as long as the size is similar, the weight is less important. But if one of those phones used a NiMh battery, it wouldn't matter if it was only 3 ounces, it would be bigger and bulky.


So you understand, its less about us wanting individual cells, and more about us, the Ebikers, wanting a package we can use. Sell us a brick of 24 volts worth of cells, with a built in BMS and minimal packaging around the cells, and you would have a market, and something you could put a waranty on.

 

[Battboy]

Therefore LiFeBATT will drop the e-bike sales idea altogether and develop the larger cell market.
Don Harmon

Wow, that is faster than even I expected. I guess we won't be getting that factory report you promised on this thread a week or so back? The one that backs up your unsubstantiated assertion that all Chinese LiFe cells fail within 3 months of factory testing?

...hopefully by the time we return consumers will be more aware and better educated of the advantages of the LiFeBATT Lifepo4.

I can think of no better opportunity to 'educate consumers on the advantages of LiFeBaitt' than by publishing that report, it would back up your frequent trashing of any LiFe product cheaper than the one YOU were planning on selling.

It is within your power to establish your comments as Propaganda or as Fact - I can't wait to see which you choose.

-JD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB1iKYgKSqo

Any report I would publish would inevitably be mis-construed as self serving hype, so I will decline your challenge and let the unbiased market place make their own conclusions based on their own purchases and resulting tests.

Don

 

[xyster]

Seems the old business axiom "give the customers what they want" has gone out of fashion this decade. Perhaps hubris coupled with market inexperience is just another part of the business cycle.

 

[Jozzer]

Some of us will trust you, untill proven otherwise Don, hang in there, we need you! The question isn't so much "are other cells no good", the question is only "are LifeBaTT as good as they seem."
I hope to find out next month...

 

[TylerDurden]

Seems the old business axiom "give the customers what they want" has gone out of fashion this decade. Perhaps hubris coupled with market inexperience is just another part of the business cycle.

Every new enterprise has one primary priority: survival. Like they say in the pre-flight briefings: "put YOUR mask on first". LifeBatt has a long way to go to get back into the black... that best way is to supply the bread-and-butter customers first, then expand to the niche areas like e-bikes. By that time, high-volume production should be ramped-up and costs/prices should be down.

 

[Battboy]

Thanks for reading and understanding my post Tyler. Instead of offering silly platitudes like the poster above you always does.

Cheers!

Don

 

[Battboy]

That silly poster I was referring to is Xyster!

DH

 

[TylerDurden]

People are pretty predictable: most of em get upset when the parents change their minds and dessert will NOT be served before dinner after all.

 

[Battboy]

Thanks Tyler, I'll take a polite aphorism anyday over a trite platitude!

DH

 

[Jozzer]

:lol:

 

[Battboy]

Here is an update on our release of LiFeBATT Individual Cell Packs. We will be offering them without cases but with our VMS boards & Chargers under a 2-Year Warranty from LiFeBatt. We will not sell the individual cells without the VMS Boards and Chargers. I am glad we can offer this market something, and hope our critics will also appreciate what we are doing here is for the benefit of all e-bike folks, and to prove our cells are equal to (or better) than A123 cells any day. Now you have an opportunity to test them for yourselves, and we are confident enough to offer a 2-Year Warranty, which is not to be found anywhere else for individual cells.

Box of (4) Individual Cells & (1) VMS Board (2 Year Warranty) = $ 270.00 USD + Shipping
Box of (8) Individual Cells & (2) VMS Boards (2 Year Warranty) = $ 540.00 USD + Shipping

Chargers: Will be available in 12V, 24V & 36V Models. Purchase of our LiFeBATT Charger must accompany the purchase of the Individual Cell Packs & VMS Boards in order to maintain the 2 Year Warranty Protection!

12V LiFeBATT Charger with automatic cut-off protection = $ 155.00 USD + Shipping
24V LiFeBATT Charger with automatic cut-off protection = $ 165.00 USD + Shipping
36V LiFeBATT Charger with automatic cut-off protection = $ 175.00 USD + Shipping

Availability is early December - just in time to fill your Christmas stocking with some cool LiFeBATT Cells!

Cheers!

Don Harmon

 

[Battboy]

Box of 8 Individual Cells & (2) VMS Boards (2 Year Warranty) = $ 540.00 USD + Shipping

Don't know how Smiley got in there ????? Sorry.

DH