Narrowing prismatic cell selection down now...

I see a lot of battery activity from you Electriccar.... You're doing what I was doing a while ago. I went round and round and back and forth.... I finally settled on Calb. Of course you have to satisfy yourself.

I am going through the same selection process myself right now. It is really great to have this forum as a sounding board. The experience and knowledge of everyone is a great asset to have before pulling the trigger on a $10,000 investment. My greatest concern right now is trusting a vendor. I think that TS or CALB is a good choice for me. I want to buy from someone that has stock, and knows what it is that they have. Being a retailer myself, I understand that everyone that hopes to stay in business has to make a profit (both today and in the future). So I am still lurking, learning, and hoping to not make a big mistake! Anyone have any specific vendor recommendations??

JACK

factory direct - Calib in Long Beach, Ca.

It's your best shot that if you need to file a warranty claim during the 2 year warranty period they will still be at the other end of the phone...

No offense, but the importers in the US tarnished the market with the much publicized and STILL discussed fraud that took place almost a year ago.

gravelydude said:

Anyone have any specific vendor recommendations??

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http://www.alliancerenewableenergy.com/ source a lot of cells and have a long record for delivery

EvolveElectrics.com retailers for them and may have stock

http://currentevtech.com has a short track record, but a stand-up owner who will play straight and let you know if he has stock ready to ship, or have to FOB china....

dtbaker said:

http://www.alliancerenewableenergy.com/ source a lot of cells and have a long record for delivery

EvolveElectrics.com retailers for them and may have stock

http://currentevtech.com has a short track record, but a stand-up owner who will play straight and let you know if he has stock ready to ship, or have to FOB china....

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Thanks for your links. You guys make it all so easy!

I'm thinking of going with this instead of the 180ah, since they don't make a 200ah. I'm wanting OVER 100 mile range. Heck if you're going to use it for a vehicle you may as well use it to the max! More importantly, the higher the AH rating, the longer the life expectancy. 0.3C on that battery would be 72A. All my driving but hills and acceleration would be less than that!

I'm requesting a price from Keegan in Ca. along with info on what hardware comes with it.

ALSO OF NOTE: I'm going to see about getting a shipment COD. That's the way business used to be done a lot. I don't mind paying the freight up front but sending someone $10,000 BEFORE delivery is more risk than I'm prepared to take, witness the EVComponents fiasco.

I'm satisfied there are lots of people who TRUSTED them with their money are now not even in an EV. And that is most unfortunate.

ElectriCar said:

ALSO OF NOTE: I'm going to see about getting a shipment COD.

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I don't think any of them accept COD. The issue is that they can't afford to front the purchase w/ China to maintain stock. Alliance I think is the highest volume and has a pretty good chance of having some in the US rather than FOB china, but they didn't like to deal with credits cards even in the past because it nibbles into the margin too much. The other two are smaller but have established personal credibility.....

ElectriCar said:

I'm thinking of going with this instead of the 180ah, since they don't make a 200ah.

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They actually do make a 200 Ah ...http://cali-battery.en.alibaba.com/product/219196040-209626885/Lithium_ion_Battery_Cell_200AHA.html

Calib's ship hit the dock in LA today. I just got an email with a copy from the shipper. My cells should be here around Christmas

BTW - I had to mail a check in advance. (credit card is accepted too)

One pays their money and takes their chances I went with Thunder Sky in large part because of the extensive documentation available on their web site.

I read over the information from Jack that ElectriCar linked to. It looks like the 180 ah CALB cells have an internal resistance of 0.94 milliohms and the 200 ah new Thundersky cells have an internal resistance of about 1.1 milliohms. Based on initial drop my 60 ah TS cells have an internal resistance of about 1.5 milliohms and that is plenty good for me. It allows 300 amp draws at slightly over 2.9 vpc. I haven't noticed any heat yet, but I've mostly just done a little playing around with the car while working on the car. What driving I have done has included a lot of full throttle blasts but little freeway driving.

Tahoe Tim said:

Calib's ship hit the dock in LA today. I just got an email with a copy from the shipper. My cells should be here around Christmas

BTW - I had to mail a check in advance. (credit card is accepted too)

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I love it that you're so trusting of someone but I just can't do that with that kind of money. Seriously. Lots of folks trusted EVC too and in the end several people got hosed, no product no refund. Screwed!

I'm talking to them about COD...CASH ON DELIVERY! He didn't know what that meant lol.

DIYguy said:

They actually do make a 200 Ah ...http://cali-battery.en.alibaba.com/product/219196040-209626885/Lithium_ion_Battery_Cell_200AHA.html

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Just received email from Keegan who said the 240Ah cell isn't made and after March the 200 & 210Ah won't be either. Wonder what they're replacing them with?

I'm talking with them now but if they can't get the price where I want it I'm not going to buy now. As I understand it Calb doubled their sales and capacity to produce cells in 2010, currently have 1 automated line running now and are expecting to have 4 online at end of 2011 with much more capacity. So with so much capacity expected and other forecast of lower prices next year I may just hang in there a few more months. They say there are so many battery companies gearing up production capacity, even with the new cars hitting the market there expecting a market flood.

I have one pretty highly respected mfg on this site already offering me a pack at just over $1/ah now but I don't know if I want to go that route yet, and it's not TS either. I may go with that company if Calb won't work with me as I'm ready to do this!

At some point you have to trust someone. The way I see it, no one is going to ship you a pallet of batteries COD. I certainly wouldn't if I were in the business.

I am trusting that the CALB factory will not "screw" any customers and will be around should any warranty issues pop up. (You do realize that Calib is the CALB factory warehouse in the U.S., right?)

I wish you luck waiting for pricing to come down. It could go up with increased demand - supply and demand forces could result in the opposite effect you are hoping for. I have waited until the last minute to order my pack. My project is ready for the pack. Every month I wait I lose the fuel savings. When I ride my Zero S motorcycle in the summer I saved $100 a week over fueling up my F150 4x4. Even if I thought I could save 10% on my $6000 battery purchase, it's not worth waiting more than a month or two. At some point, you just have to jump in and start driving.

Hi Tim. I am in talks with two companies and hope to order this week or next. I'm hoping to get the price down a bit which I am confident to do so but will see.

Re waiting. I'm already driving an ev and using lead and saving about 19 cents/mile. Just can't go very far and am waisting power heating the batteries every time I charge/drive. I'm at about 480wh/mile on average and am hoping for around 320 or less when done. But with a lot more power!

ElectriCar said:

Hi Tim. I am in talks with two companies and hope to order this week or next. I'm hoping to get the price down a bit which I am confident to do so but will see.

Re waiting. I'm already driving an ev and using lead and saving about 19 cents/mile. Just can't go very far and am waisting power heating the batteries every time I charge/drive. I'm at about 480wh/mile on average and am hoping for around 320 or less when done. But with a lot more power!

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sent u a PM

Got it. Thanks. May go that route.

ElectriCar said:

MORE HELPFUL INFO: After getting the specs on the new HP 200Ah cells, they fit right in my existing battery boxes. Two of them measure 10"W X 5.5" X 9.375"H, replacing one lead battery with room to spare! Carl Clark said he suggested to HP they modify the cases for this reason and they listened. Well it couldn't have been a better fit.

I wanted the new batteries to have a half inch gap all the way around the box for a heating/insulating material. I'll have that with HP batteries. My battery boxes were made with batteries in rows of two on each side of the drive shaft. Now I can have 4 rows of cells with a 30mm gap for whatever between each set of two rows. There is one battery box like this on each side of the drive shaft. Gives me a total of 47 under the bed with NO mod to existing boxes and room to insulate/heat all the way around! Total KW under bed: 30Kw

With the Calb 180's odd dimensions, I struggled to get 48 total under the bed. Wouldn't have enough clearance in some directions for insulation without lots of steel bracket modifications and would have to make lots of shims/spacers to fit them all in. Totak KW under bed: 27.6 and lots of cutting/welding/downtime to do.

Also of note, with a 1C discharge, the HP cells outperformed the new TS and Calb and maintain over 3.2V at that rate for about 45 minutes. HOWEVER this is from their data sheet so take that for what it's worth.

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Yes, proper fit is a big deal for sure. I know it weighed heavily in my choice also. I think I spent an inordinate amount of time on my battery boxes, and really didn't want to have to hack them up too much. Like you, I also want some room around them for insulation.

Well after reviewing the Calb info again and the fact that their batteries typically have more charge than specified according to you guys, I'm going with them. Keegan had told me that but I discounted it as sales crap.

I looked again at the layout of my battery rack with the dimensions of their 200AH units and I'll get them in but with a little less room for insulation than I wanted and NO CUTTING OR WELDING! I may go with that bubble wrap from radiantbarrier.com in addition to what I have now for insulation. And I got Keegan to come down a bit more on price than I expected.

I'm so jacked about this I can't stand it but I've go to wait on that "slow boat from China" lol. He said I would have them by late February. They have a 10 day "spring" holiday of some kind and nobody apparently works then.