I thought I would give a little update on the change to the Lithium Battery pack for my EVT168. I took the EVT out for a ride on Sunday morning, at 7:00 am with the outside temp at 3 C . I travelled 40 km and did not find the cold temp having any affect on the bikes' performance. The excelleration remained the same (amazing actually) through the entire ride. The ride was composed of lots of starts and stops with an average speed of 55 K . Under normal conditions with much warmer temperatures the lead acid batts would start to show a reduction in perfomance starting around 20 - 25 k where as the Lithium did not show any reduction in performance at any point, and the battery meter remained at the top. Now (as Ken Finch had mentioned to me) I believe that the battery meter is a little deceiving because the Lithium pack is probably maintaining a consistent level of power and once it gets close to the end of the charge is only when it will start to show, which probably means that once you are near the end it will very quickly drop of after the meter starts to indicate that the charge is low. So at this point I still do not know what the average full range would be.

Upon doing a fair bit of research into LiFePO4 batteries I have come across an extremely reliable battery. Currently I am waiting on pricing specs so will update once I get my quote on 4 12v 20ah batteries connected in a series (the do not make battery packs larger due to having a high standard of quality).

They price I expect to be higher than Ping however their build quality is amazing. Their batteries also come with a 3 year warranty which speaks for itself. They have a good standing and name amongst e-bikers. They have been in the business for quite some time. Their main product focus has been mobility scooters but are not breaking into the battery business for e-bikes (the have a company int he USA called Shopriders that they sell bikes they make with their batteries)

http://www.phet.com.t... Make sure to click on English at the top to have the page translated.

Will keep you guys posted on what I get back.

After 3 years, I need to do battery replacement in the Spring and will be quite interested in what you learn. I'm no expert on this stuff, but assume we would also need to know what chargers are avail and what kind of Battery Management System is needed/provided.

I see they also have batteries with greater than 20ah capacity which could be interesting.

http://www.phet.com.t...

Yah... PHET makes cells for LiFeBATT, and Tesla announced a while back that they are using PHET cells as well.
tks
LocK

Nice article here about PHET:
http://www.cens.com/c...

tks
lloK

Very interesting article, thanks Lock.

Boy o boy... are these ever tasty looking:

http://lifepo4battery...
48V 20AH LiFePO4

BMS built in

about 6"x6"x15" (150mmx158mmx380mm)

11kg so about 25lbs

Rated good for 10C continuous discharge rate and 2C charge rate

2000+ deep discharge cycles

Programmable and w/computer diagnostics

These specs are from the Taiwan manufacturer, so await independent study

If anyone wants on ("...to evaluate for sale...") the mfgr *might* sell ya one as a sample

Likely this seller is not the manufacturer of the cells... or the BMS... but it's a nice packaging job

Lock

More info on these packs:
"...built out of 10Ah cylindrical cell made by PHET (Pihsiang Energy Technology Co., Ltd.). They are power cells, not quite A123, but can provide 100 amps per cell continuous. They fall somewhere between Headway and A123 in performance. Supposedly, 4000 cycles at 80% D.O.D. and/or 10 year life. They are also supposedly the #1 scooter battery in Taiwan."
tks
Lok

Just out of interest, I sent a note from the contact info in the web site and received a reply today. I didn't get any offer of any freebie or test unit. At this point, I don't intend to pursue anything (it's winter!!), but perhaps in the future. Here's my note and reply.

---------My Note:------------------
Subject: 48V20AH LiFePO4 Battery pack
From: Mr Fred Dilkes
To: 48V20AH LiFePO4 Battery pack
Date: Thu, Dec 03 2009 06:07:24 (GMT)

I am a member of our Toronto, Canada "E-bike Riders Group". Most of our members are riding various models of scooters with 500Watt motors and Sealed Lead Acid batteries. We are all in various stages of considering/evaluating/using LiFePO4 packs to replace the SLA packs.

The product above looks very interesting for us. Can you tell me:

Is there any way one or more of us could get one of these to trial and perhaps generate sales to the rest of the group (and other e-bike groups here in Canada)?

Is there a retail outlet accessible from Canada?

What would you expect the retail price to be (in $US)?

Is a Charger included/available?

Many thanks for a quick reponse.

- - - - - - - - - - The Reply- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Yes, of course, you can buy one from us for evaluation to replace the lead acid battery, or group buy from us future after satisfied. At present, no outlet in Canada and the retail price should be similar to the battery packs with same voltage and capacity, we do not have any study on this yet.

What do you estimated the quantity it may be for the members and on the market.

What is the discharge and charge current from your typical 48V E-bike ?

Regards
Raymond

BTW... earlier I mentioned here (somewhere) about the new 15Ah Headway cells that appeared as available on a few web sites but then almost immediately the web pages were deleted and it turned out that their entire production of 15Ah cells had been bought up by one company?

Good news is, that while this one company now has a stranglehold on the Headway 15Ah cells, Headway has now announced that they are making 12Ah and 16Ah cells which fall outside of their agreement for the 15Ah cells. So samples of the 12Ah and 16Ah cells are now making their way to some North American dealers for evaluation...

Lock