[dragonsgate]

I see a trend with batteries and ev’s that I saw in S. Calif. back in the seventies with chopper motorcycles. Some of you might remember the seventies. Choppers were all the rage. Just about every guy in my age bracket had to have one. As the market grew custom motorcycle shops sprang up everywhere. Many of them were out for the fast buck and I met more than a couple of guys that got burned. I see the same patterns with ev’s. As the market grows so do the businesses that cater to that market. Fortunately we have the internet that allows more people to communicate these business discrepancies to one another. Maybe there could be a category in this forum for us the potential customer to read and give feed back of our experience in dealing with businesses under the company name much like EBay.

[MemphisPapa]

So I bought BestGo (160Ah) with a 2kW BestGo Charger. I installed them in my car. I stand by my original comment. First charge is proving to be as much of a challenge as getting the cells in the first place. Nothing is marked or labeled to show model or type. I would not repeat this experience to save a few bucks. IMHO.

[JerryBattery]

Originally Posted by Tedktis

Was just thinking today (smoke out the ears), that if lithiums become main stream, China takes the place of big oil. I understand that we will be using American powerplants to charge them (another topic for debate), but ALL these lithiums are coming from .... China! I don't know what everyones reasons were for getting into electric vehicles, but I for one wanted to be free of foreign oil. Now it appears we are inundated with foreign batteries and pther components. What are we doing here in states? Please don't try to sugar coat it or say but the electricity is made here. Listen to what I am saying. Big oil. Big battery. Big Government. We all know that even the oil companies are buying battery patents. It's a shell game, everything gets moved around. I am sure they get a big kick out of us fighting amongst ourselves about lead or lithium, Bms or no Bms, AC or DC. I think we need to put our differrences aside and reconsider the whys and hows instead of the tech battles. This country has stood because people stood together. Look at the two World Wars, people came together, sacrificed, even their lives for us to be where we are today. Fighting each other at times and under the oppression of a big gov't and big oil. Now, big batteries.

Does anyone know how much $ China has lemded us? Trillions?

Personally, most of Chinese people like American people than any other foreign people. We eat KFC, we love NBA, we like Hollywood films, we drive GM cars, we use microsoft windows, we use Iphones, ....

I'm sure that the annual profit of a KFC store is sure to be more than that of a midium sized Chinese battery manufacturer. There're more than 3000 KFC stores in China now. So, no worry about the big batteries.

[WarpedOne]

Fighting each other at times and under the oppression of a big gov't and big oil. Now, big batteries.

Not really, dependancy on foreign oil is at least twice bigger than dependancy on batteries. You buy batteries once and run them for what, 10 years if need be or longer. If they don't fail they just get weaker unitl unacceptably weak for you. If current battery prices peak too high you can squize the teeth some more and defere replacement. You must buy new oil every few days at current prices or you are stranded.

Looking through $$$ ... a 50kWh battery pack at 2Wh/$ goes for $25k. Oil now costs me around 2$/l. Those $25k can thus buy me 12.500l of fuel. At 7l/100km this suffices for around 180k km.

And there is no other reason as of cost not to buld our own factories. If Chineese get to greedy/mean we can show them one finger salute.

[ricklearned]

Don't we have a US battery company (A123)? They did make a stupid investment in Fisker, and that may put them out of business.

Kind of hard to blame the Chinese for that one.

[Ziggythewiz]

Originally Posted by WarpedOne

Not really, dependancy on foreign oil is at least twice bigger than dependancy on batteries. You buy batteries once and run them for what, 10 years if need be or longer. If they don't fail they just get weaker unitl unacceptably weak for you. If current battery prices peak too high you can squize the teeth some more and defere replacement. You must buy new oil every few days at current prices or you are stranded.

Good points. You can buy batteries when the supply is there and the cost is good. Unless you have your own refinery that's not an option with gasoline.

Originally Posted by ricklearned

Don't we have a US battery company (A123)? They did make a stupid investment in Fisker, and that may put them out of business.

Kind of hard to blame the Chinese for that one.

You mean had. Thie Chinese bought it out, just like the Russians took EnerDel.

With noone making a practical EV, there's no US market for any battery company, just us.

[Elithion]

Carl Clark of Electric Car Parts came to visit us (Elithion) last month (before becoming an authorized reseller of the Lithiumate Lite).

Carl may be of advanced years, but he is sharp as a tack, and seems to live by business ethics that may not be as common now days. I am really not concerned about his age.

I understand that Electric Car Parts does not stock cells. Instead, cells are air shipped from China: significantly faster than the usual shipping by boat, and long time through customs, but also more expensive. Compare that to companies that stock cells in the US (Evolve, Calib, ...), who went through the shipping hassles for you, so they can offer low prices.

My understanding is that BestGo was founded by the people who abandoned Shandong HiPower due to its poor product quality; supposedly, these people know how to make good cells, with good quality standards.
Strangely, there is no mention on BestGo's website about prismatic cells. However, you can find their spec sheets on the list of Li-ion cells on the Li-ion BMS website.

[MN Driver]

Originally Posted by Elithion

My understanding is that BestGo was founded by the people who abandoned Shandong HiPower due to its poor product quality; supposedly, these people know how to make good cells, with good quality standards.
Strangely, there is no mention on BestGo's website about prismatic cells. However, you can find their spec sheets on the list of Li-ion cells on the Li-ion BMS website.

The cells shown in your pictures are the old version that HiPower hasn't sold in years. It appears that Shandong HiPower New Energy Group Co Ltd. is still selling. http://www.hipowergroup.com/Company/ Not many have used the new HiPower cells but it appears that EV Blue(Wayne Alexander) just recently used HiPower cells in a Saturn conversion I just saw earlier this year, the owners are happy with the cells. The BestGo company is 11.5 hours drive away from Shandong in Zhejiang and their products aren't really even the same form factor. Not to say it isn't an offshoot but it seems HiPower is still operating for what I can tell. FWIW, the offers we've gotten from even smaller orders of HiPower cells have been extremely competitive. I just haven't had that much interest in pursuing it because a single order from China is not something I'm too interested in doing when I'm about as far from an oceanic port as I can get.