Ping batteries still the same price !

Has anyone looked at ping's site lately ? I would have expected the cost to have dropped a good bit since I bought mine 3.5 years ago ?

I would have thought the price of batteries in general would have fallen a lot over the few years but they haven't.

I know what you mean. I just checked on HK for lipo and it has went up too.

Doing business with paper thin profit margins leaves very little breathing room..... often resulting in service compromises, thankfully Ping has been strong and true since the start, he's a good man.

Not surprised that ping hasn't raised his prices much, or lowered them either, since the big change when he went from 1c pouches to 2c pouches. What he sells was worth every penny to me.

But I have to admit, I wish he could have gotten the pouches cheaper by now, allowing him to lower prices back to what the original duct taped packs cost. The cost per mile on that first pack I bought in 2008 was stellar.

Even better, hoped for but not happening yet, was that cheap lifepo4 would improve it's c rate allowing a typical 20 amps controller to run well on 10 ah of it. We have that with the better limn cells, but not in 5 ah pouch lifepo4 at cheap prices. 5c ping would be great. Then you could run a 30 amps controller on 10 ah, and only be running it at 3c.

My old 3.5 year old ping is still going strong, granted he doesn't really run it down to lvc and it still gives him around 19ah from a 20ah pack, that's pretty good value in the long run I suppose.

Perhaps LiFeP04 would make great renewable energy storage, but the costs would have to come way down and I don't believe this will happen.

Here in Ireland the cost of the feed-in-tariff is 9 Euro cent per Kwh and the cost to buy is 18. So the company pays you half what you got to buy it for which is really shit.

If I had an ev, I could export during the day and get a night meter installed, so I got to buy at night at 9c/kwh meaning I don't have to pay back what I exported.

I estimate I would need 6000 kwh for about 20K miles a year + my house supply.

Going by the EPA's estimate of 30 kwh per 100 miles means I would need about 6,000 KWH per year to do 20K miles in a Nissan Leaf.

SO about 8,300 kwh total including house use.

This site http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/cmaps/eu_cmsaf_opt/G_opt_IE.pdf says I should get 900 kwh yearly from a 1kw setup, so 9.5 kwp would get me just over what I would need in total for a year.

The thoughts of driving on absolute 0 emissions would be great, though the cost is another thing, even though I would be charging mainly at night I'd be offsetting any fossil fuels generating the electricity.

The cost of battery storage for 8,300 KWH would be huge.

How many kwh of batteries would you need for this ?

o00scorpion00o said:

The cost of battery storage for 8,300 KWH would be huge.

How many kwh of batteries would you need for this ?

Click to expand...

Why would you need to store a full years worth of electricity? The storage is just a buffer to keep you going when your demand is greater than your generation. So how much buffer do you really need? A full days worth? Then your battery needs to be 23 kWh. A weeks worth? Then 160 kWh. More reasonable numbers.

An aspect of the battery use for distributed generation/storage is that energy density is less critical than for EV applications. So there are some (and will be more) programs too re-purpose EV batteries after they meet their end of life performance in vehicles which is about 80% charge. The reuse of these batteries could lower the cost/kWh by over half to the home owner.

So 4 or 5 old EV packs might be all you'd need.

o00scorpion00o said:

Has anyone looked at ping's site lately ? I would have expected the cost to have dropped a good bit since I bought mine 3.5 years ago ?

I would have thought the price of batteries in general would have fallen a lot over the few years but they haven't.

Click to expand...

Dont want to come across as sarcastic, but what are you buying today that is cheaper than 3.5 years ago.
I cant think of anything or anywhere. (*except*Walmart that hammers their suppliers continually to reduce their cost.)
Pretty much all products and services are the same or more expensive than years past.
Why would labour intensive battery packs be different.
I would love to see a flood of cells hit the market reducing prices.
Just dont think that many companies will reduce prices at the expense of increased profit.
We've been fed a story about cheap powerful cells just around the corner, 6 months a year tops, for the 5 years I've enjoyed this ebike life.
I quit holding my breathe 3 years ago.
Breathe people, breathe.

major said:

o00scorpion00o said:

The cost of battery storage for 8,300 KWH would be huge.

How many kwh of batteries would you need for this ?

Click to expand...

Why would you need to store a full years worth of electricity? The storage is just a buffer to keep you going when your demand is greater than your generation. So how much buffer do you really need? A full days worth? Then your battery needs to be 23 kWh. A weeks worth? Then 160 kWh. More reasonable numbers.

Click to expand...

Yes of course a day's worth, what was I thinking ? it would have to be more to reduce cycling on the battery ? That would be expensive.

major said:

An aspect of the battery use for distributed generation/storage is that energy density is less critical than for EV applications. So there are some (and will be more) programs too re-purpose EV batteries after they meet their end of life performance in vehicles which is about 80% charge. The reuse of these batteries could lower the cost/kWh by over half to the home owner.

So 4 or 5 old EV packs might be all you'd need.

Click to expand...

Yes exactly what I've been hoping for, this is what our Electricity company is looking into. But there is one problem, Nissan still won't give you a new battery and will only repair weak cells.

Tesla on the other hand offer a 5 year unlimited mileage warranty and will install a brand new battery. And you got the option of a brand new battery after 8 years outside of warranty.

Brentis said:

o00scorpion00o said:

Has anyone looked at ping's site lately ? I would have expected the cost to have dropped a good bit since I bought mine 3.5 years ago ?

I would have thought the price of batteries in general would have fallen a lot over the few years but they haven't.

Click to expand...

Dont want to come across as sarcastic, but what are you buying today that is cheaper than 3.5 years ago.
I cant think of anything or anywhere. (*except*Walmart that hammers their suppliers continually to reduce their cost.)
Pretty much all products and services are the same or more expensive than years past.
Why would labour intensive battery packs be different.
I would love to see a flood of cells hit the market reducing prices.
Just dont think that many companies will reduce prices at the expense of increased profit.
We've been fed a story about cheap powerful cells just around the corner, 6 months a year tops, for the 5 years I've enjoyed this ebike life.
I quit holding my breathe 3 years ago.
Breathe people, breathe.

Click to expand...

Indeed, a breakthrough is always just around the corner.

But we're told that economics of scale will drive down the cost, maybe not for us but for car manufacturers ?

I loved my Ping before it was stolen. Great service and fast replys to problems. Like when using a 40 amp controller. It could have done better except for all the hills here.

Not holding my breath, but I wouldn't have minded if they flooded the market with the cells pings uses. So you could get them at V power HK prices.

Speaking of VP HK packs, anybody noticed this on ebay? http://www.ebay.com/itm/48V-15AH-LiFePo4-Lithium-Battery-Electric-Bicycle-Scooter-E-Bike-Rechargeable-/281229104765?pt=US_Rechargeable_Batteries&hash=item417a8f967d

Claims to be A123's , but has a 20 amps rating on a 15 ah pack? WTF? Ships from hong kong, and the seller has WU in the name. Jimmy Wu again?

major said:

o00scorpion00o said:

The cost of battery storage for 8,300 KWH would be huge.

How many kwh of batteries would you need for this ?

Click to expand...

Why would you need to store a full years worth of electricity? The storage is just a buffer to keep you going when your demand is greater than your generation. So how much buffer do you really need? A full days worth? Then your battery needs to be 23 kWh. A weeks worth? Then 160 kWh. More reasonable numbers.

An aspect of the battery use for distributed generation/storage is that energy density is less critical than for EV applications. So there are some (and will be more) programs too re-purpose EV batteries after they meet their end of life performance in vehicles which is about 80% charge. The reuse of these batteries could lower the cost/kWh by over half to the home owner.

So 4 or 5 old EV packs might be all you'd need.

Click to expand...

Precisely.

this is the same reason that I never run out of remote control batteries. When primary cells are done for high draw jobs, they get put into other jobs until they are REALLY done.