Possible Bulk Battery Buy?

[Kathleen]

Hi, my name is Kathleen, and I've only been to one meeting - about a year or so ago. I"m involved with the biodieselStL group which has now morphed into an alternative /sustainable energy group, and one of our members is building e-bikes. He wants to buy some batteries in bulk directly from a factory in china, and would need to buy more than he needs to get a good deal and to make shipping affordable. I thought of the electric car club, and wondered if somebody in this group would want to go in with this guy to make a bulk buy? For instance, he said that a battery that would normally cost him $325 he could get in this deal for $200. Not exactly giving them away,..... And I don't claim to know squat about batteries. I think the name of the company is Heter and would be happy to provide more info.

THe guy who is interested in buying batteries in bulk is named Gavin. He said to me:
"From Gavin's email : Kathleen, your truck battery would probably be this one: HETER72150-F LiFePO4 Nominal Volt:72V Rated capacity:150aH Or any size you want to pick: http://www.heterbattery.com/eng/product ... how&id=575 You can also buy the individual cells in 100Ah up to 250Ah "

[Ebiker]

How many E-bikes is he building? I might be interested in some batteries for my bikes.

Mark

[Gavin]

Hi Mark,
I order the kits for people as they request them.
I work with a dealer in Georgia on e-bike kits
I get batteries direct from China.

How many of what size do you want?

[Ebiker]

A list of batteries

30--60amp hour batteries

20--30amp hour batteries

[Gavin]

Is anyone still interested in LiFePO4 batteries?

Sorry I dropped the ball in March, I didn't check back here and my notification was set incorrectly so I didn't see the replies.
I have a few 36V 10Ah batteries for e-bikes that I ordered as extras, I have not placed the order yet for car batteries.

I will need more specs to get you a quote:
Quantity, Voltage, Capacity Ahr, Peak Amps, time at peak, Average Amps, charger current

For smaller systems you can get a package, including
Pre-wired cells in an Aluminum case
Battery management system
Connectors for charge and discharge
Charger

E.g. for bicycles the 36V, 10Ah, 30A peak, (10 sec), 5A avg, with 3A charger mentioned above
You can get these on line for as much as $700, I get them for $300, or less in quantity.
It's the shipping from China that makes all the difference, buy one and you pay another $100 to ship it!
Most of the packs I have in stock I would prefer to sell with an e-bike kit for $585 (extending spring sale price).
see the kit at http://www.worldwideelectricbikes.com/B ... _Kits.html
But make me an offer.

For cars I recommend individual cells 3.3V, 50-250Ah
Separate BMS, and charger as spec'ed in order.
View options here:
http://www.heterbattery.com/eng/product.asp?lmid1=171 (and surf around the site)
Not the best web site, but I have a friend at the company (in China), so I can get the datasheets for any products.
She translates them from Chinese for me.

Gavin
Try gavin53perry at gmail dot com if all else fails....

[Ebiker]

I am still interested in buying batteries. I am wanting to make (4) 24 volt 20 amp hour battery packs. That I can interchange between my bikes and robotic lawn mowers. Currently the mowers use sealed gel cell lead acid batteries in the U1 size of which there are (2) 12 volt batteries in each case.

[StrawbearV]

Where are the prices of these batteries for a full sized electric vehicles? I might be in on this with you ebiker.

[Kathleen]

Yo - my peeps - it's battery decision time for me, and I'll probably go w/SLA due to cost, but would like to make a last minute check on lithiums. Has Gavin talked to anybody about a bulk buy? I'll try to remember to contact Gavin off-board if I don't hear from anybody.

And another question - has anybody designed something that would allow all this battery power to be the backup storage system for grid-tied solar panels if the grid goes down? I'm thinking that the solar panels productivity could be routed to our electric vehicles if the grid went down, and then the house electrical system be connected to the car via an inverter (from d/c to a/c) so that you don't have to buy batteries for a backup system - you can use your car. Or maybe the inverter would be connected to the car, feeding it's batteries a/c for storage, then somehow get that power out of the batteries to power the house. It's so obvious a solution that somebody has already done this or there's a good reason that it isn't being done.

[Kathleen]

So, I called Gavin and he is a very busy man these days. He did give me some important information. One thing he said is that not all deep cycle batteries are suited for cars, because most deep cycle batteries don't get bumped around like a battery would in a car. So we need to ask about "vehicle quality batteries", though I'm not sure how to detect if a salesperson is giving you some bull.

Another thing that Gavin mentioned was that he has bought batteries from Heter (chinese) and Fuson (? not sure of spelling) and that it's very important that if you get a bunch of small lithium batteries, that they all are "matched". He said that some Heter (I think) batteries that started out matched are not staying matched after a year or so of use.

I would prefer to buy american, but Gavin said that no american factories would sell to him. Maybe because he just buys small quantities? Not sure. And he also opined that the american battery factories are gearing up for electric car batteries - isn't that good news??

It appears that there is no bulk battery buy in progress at this time. Sorry I can't provide more info at this time. I'll post more when I know more.