Glad to see there's a thread running here for the EVG Iacocca bikes. I have a 36v that has been sitting in the garage for years. The battery pack was kept on the charger until probably 4 years ago when I took the bike out for a test drive with the supposedly charged battery and it crapped out less than a mile from home. OK, fine, battery was worn out. I did some research on the web and found the guy/company who bought the rights to the bike. He told me that the battery packs had been the subject of a recall and that some flaw in the design of the battery led to warped plates, short circuits, and fires. Everyone within a certain timeframe had been eligible for a free replacement battery pack. Of course, I was too late to file my claim, but he'd sell me a battery pack for $190 that would go into my original battery housing. Didn't take advantage of the offer because some other project cropped up to steal my attention. Now I'm looking at the bike in the garage again and weighing my options.
1) Found the original email from 4 years ago -- the company that took over all of EVG's assets is e-lectricwheels.com. Their website looks like it hasn't been updated for 4 years, but I'll give them a call to see what they offer these days. Their price may have changed from the $190 shipped they offered 4 years ago.
2) Nycewheels sells a drop-in replacement made up of 6 smaller batteries: http://www.nycewheels.com/36voltbattery.html
With shipping, it's also somewhere in the $180-$190 category. They describe it as a 7Ah solution (lower than the original 8Ah). Their site doesn't show specs on the cells, but a little more searching turned up this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/BATTERY-EV-GLOBAL-MOTORS-E-BIKE-36V-7AH-6-PACK-EA-/310234823746#vi-content
The seller's photo is the same as the one on the nycewheels website, so I think it's safe to assume it's the same unit. His photos show that the battery pack is made up of EVX1272 SLAs. These are 12 volt, 7.2 Ah batteries. The photo appears to show 6 of them connected in series. So wouldn't that make a 72 volt 7.2 Ah battery? Or if 3 were run in series, and another 3 were run in series, then these 2 were run in parallel, wouldn't that give you a 36 volt 14 Ah battery? I'm apparently missing something on their math. If I were feeling handy with the terminal connectors and wire, I could buy the batteries separately and put one of these together on my own. EVX1272 batteries are available all over, and I could potentially get it down to $100 or $120.
3) I'm surprised that there's not a 12V battery that's 1/3 the size of the original battery so I could put 3 of them in the original enclosure. With 6 batteries inside the enclosure, it seems like a lot of the space is taken up by the plastic battery cases...if there were a solution that's twice as wide as the EVX1272, then that's more room for lead and electrolyte. I'm sure Nycewheels has investigated this because they do have a 3-battery solution...but it puts 2 batteries in the original enclosure and a 3rd battery on the rear rack with new wiring to wire everything together (it's also visible at that nycewheels link above). That one is sold as 12 Ah -- a 50% bump in capacity over the original.
4) I've read about the fact that SLAs really only provide something like 50 or 60% of their rated capacity...so if I'm going with the EVX1272 solution, I'm really able to use something like 4 or 5 Ah? That doesn't sound too impressive. That makes me start thinking about other solutions like RC batteries or a Ping battery. Ping (http://www.pingbattery.com/servlet/the-36V-LiFePO4-Battery-Packs/Categories) has a 10Ah 36V pack that's 1/3 the weight and 1/2 the size of the SLAs. This would give me an increase in capacity over the original battery, but it appears that maybe it doesn't have the same ability to discharge at a high rate as SLAs? They say it's for use on "up to 400w motors", and the LE has a 500 watt motor, so maybe I'd need to bump up to the 15Ah solution (which says it's for up to 600w motors). The smaller pack is $318, and the bigger one is $423, so a much bigger initial investment than with the SLA solution, but potentially a much better solution in every way (lighter, double the original capacity, and recharges many more times than an SLA)...but it's 2x or 3x as much money as the SLA solution, so it's more of a commitment.
5) I could conceivably put together an RC solution that would fit in the original case and provide improvements similar to those of the Ping battery.
What I'm hoping for: a solution that will fit inside the original box, provide at least as much performance as the original, and be super-cheap.
As far as I can tell, it's a "pick any 2 of those criteria" situation. Thoughts? (and what's up with the specs on that EVX1272 solution? What am I missing -- if you look at the pictures, it sure looks like 6 12v batteries in series...)
Thanks!