Purchasing a bike from Alibaba (12kw, 15kw) Leili

[cbr shadow]

I paid $3,900 (shipped to my door) for the above linked bike this morning. Please show me a list of parts that are higher grade, but still come out to be 30-40% less money. I'm going to say that's not even remotely possible. Not even close.
The frames that you've listed would take up more than 1/4 of that budget. Statements like this throw off new members who want to learn.

You already bought it, no point me writing anything. I know that what I have built and for how much. :lol:

Other people will read this post and potentially learn from it. I'm going to go so far as to say it's impossible for you to build a full bike that is equally powerful to this one, but have higher quality parts, all for 30-40% less ($2,300-$2,700 including shipping) money than I spent. That's ridiculous.
You made a big statement but can't back it up. We can leave it at that.

 

[Tommm]

I paid $3,900 (shipped to my door) for the above linked bike this morning. Please show me a list of parts that are higher grade, but still come out to be 30-40% less money. I'm going to say that's not even remotely possible. Not even close.
The frames that you've listed would take up more than 1/4 of that budget. Statements like this throw off new members who want to learn.

You already bought it, no point me writing anything. I know that what I have built and for how much. :lol:

Other people will read this post and potentially learn from it. I'm going to go so far as to say it's impossible for you to build a full bike that is equally powerful to this one, but have higher quality parts, all for 30-40% less ($2,300-$2,700 including shipping) money than I spent. That's ridiculous.
You made a big statement but can't back it up. We can leave it at that.

Not sure why you wrote the same thing again. I have built 5 bikes so far in that range and they all include brand name cells, bluetooth smart bms, smart controller and brand name forks.

Just be happy and ride the bike and quit flaming on the forum.

 

[HK12K]

When the controller takes a crap, you try offroading and destroy the rear wheel, the bms kills the joy because of substandard cells, or any other number of unfortunate events that come with the territory please do remember this thread and let us know. Conversely if it treats you well for an extended period of time, please do tell us that as well.

Enjoy the new bike once you receive it. Hopefully you don't get raked over the coals too hard by customs upon arrival.

 

[cbr shadow]

When the controller takes a crap, you try offroading and destroy the rear wheel, the bms kills the joy because of substandard cells, or any other number of unfortunate events that come with the territory please do remember this thread and let us know. Conversely if it treats you well for an extended period of time, please do tell us that as well.

Enjoy the new bike once you receive it. Hopefully you don't get raked over the coals too hard by customs upon arrival.

To be honest what convinced me to go through with the order was that a few members of our local ebike group have ordered from Leili and have been happy with their bikes for a long time. I do wish someone would post a list of parts that would be a better option, but similarly or even a bit higher priced. The guy above is insisting you can get a better bike for a lot less money. If that's true I think lots of people would benefit from seeing it.

Through this post and others I've looked into every company that has been mentioned and there seems to be a common theme; you can get a better <frame, motor, controller, etc> if you pay more.

 

[cbr shadow]

I paid $3,900 (shipped to my door) for the above linked bike this morning. Please show me a list of parts that are higher grade, but still come out to be 30-40% less money. I'm going to say that's not even remotely possible. Not even close.
The frames that you've listed would take up more than 1/4 of that budget. Statements like this throw off new members who want to learn.

You already bought it, no point me writing anything. I know that what I have built and for how much. :lol:

Other people will read this post and potentially learn from it. I'm going to go so far as to say it's impossible for you to build a full bike that is equally powerful to this one, but have higher quality parts, all for 30-40% less ($2,300-$2,700 including shipping) money than I spent. That's ridiculous.
You made a big statement but can't back it up. We can leave it at that.

Not sure why you wrote the same thing again. I have built 5 bikes so far in that range and they all include brand name cells, bluetooth smart bms, smart controller and brand name forks.

Just be happy and ride the bike and quit flaming on the forum.

I'd type out the same post but you'll call me out for posting the same thing 3 times
I believe you that you have built 5 bikes, but they weren't in this price range or else they were a much less powerful bike. Another member told me you can't have high quality, high performance and low price.
I don't know what flaming is. I'm just challenging your statement because I've been running in circles trying to figure out how to get a high quality, powerful bike for a low price and only recently figured out that it's not possible to do all 3 of those.

 

[2old]

The good reports from your acquaintances probably is the best "research" you can do. I had read good reports about the kit that I've used for six years and it was accurate. Took a chance on the battery, and it too worked well. Good luck. Also, note that it looks like the bike has a 40 amp controller and with 3000w, probably 72V or 84V battery. Be interesting to see what the top speed will be.

 

[E-HP]

Any advice would be appreciated.

I'm interested to hear about how the bike works, and how the transaction goes. It's a worthy endeavor that, either way, will provide benefit to the ES community with respect to another data point on another vendor and product. In the end, it's a risk vs reward decision, so an informed decision weighing all the factors is really yours. Everyone else's decision would really be based on "if it were my money", which it isn't.

Good luck, and hope you report back in the not too distant future. :thumb:

 

[cbr shadow]

Update!
I did buy an Alibaba ebike and thought I'd follow up here with an update on how the experience went. I think there are a lot of people here that are either:
- On the fence about buying from Alibaba but are nervous
- Have never bought from Alibaba but say bad things about them

Overall my experience was 'ok'.

The Bad:
- it took 5 months after paying for the ebike. I was told it would take 3. Most of the extra time was on the US side, so I can't fault the chinese vendor on that. They did take more time to build the bike than they quoted me at first, but only by 20 days.

- Alibaba Trade Assurance is no good. It favors the vendor. I could get into details in another post, 'd pay through PayPal in the future (even with the 3% fee)


The Good:
- I'm happy with the ebike! I was worried it would feel too slow, but I like the performance.

- Their support person through Alibaba was pretty good. She answered my questions and responded to my concerns, kept me up to date with progress etc. When the shipments came she sent me videos for how to assemble things.

 

[999zip999]

How about a link let's see that bike what battery did you get and what kind of motor how many amps is the controller. Can we see a picture of the display ?

 

[jdmvette]

How about a link let's see that bike what battery did you get and what kind of motor how many amps is the controller. Can we see a picture of the display ?

yes, would love to hear & see more of the purchase.

i've seen leili bike videos and have been on the fence for a bit now....thanks

 

[cbr shadow]

Here's the bike I bought:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/china-super-fast-12000w-most-powerful_60760714262.html?spm=a2756.order-detail-ta-ta-b.0.0.37272fc2WEjF8Q

It's a 72v 49ah battery. I paid $4,050 shipped to my door. I got a few extras added onto my order (included in the $4050 price) like 2 types of seats, a horn, key, and a few other things.

It came with a Cycle Analyst display. It's a Sabvoton 72150 controller.


Buying Experience:
They encouraged me to use Alibaba Trade Assurance for payment, which I did. I looked into it and people generally say you're well protected and Alibaba Trade Assurance hold them to the contract, so it's very important to review the contract. Initially the company I went through (Leili) told me it would take 40 days to build the bike and 50 days more for it to arrive at my door.
When I reviewed the contract I noticed it said (90) days to build the bike. When I questioned it they told me "We put 90 days just in case, but it will only take 40 to build". After I pushed back we finally agreed on (50) days to build the bike. Their justification for it not being (40) days like we originally discussed is that she "Meant business days, and we get Sundays off". A general theme with this purchase is that they're always trying to get more time.
They are concerned with what is in the contract, because Alibaba Trade Assurance holds the money until the contract is fulfilled. If they don't ship on time they have to give me a full refund. If they want a time extension they have to get me to agree to the extension or else risk me getting a refund.
I signed the contract and the clock started. They had 50 days to make my bike. At 45 days they messaged me asking for an extra 30 days to build the bike because their factory was affected by floods. I said no (heartless, maybe) and they asked if they could have 15 days. I said no. They asked for 10, I said no. So they ended up shipping my bike on time.

Shipping
By contract, if Leili doesn't ship on time I am allowed a full refund. The issue is that I don't have a way to truely document that shipping has occurred. I was told "Your bike has shipped" so I asked for documentation and a tracking number. They gave me a tracking number (in chinese, but I used Google Translate to figure it out) but I noticed some weird discrepancies. The tracking number said my shipment went from China to Hong Kong to Europe and back to China. I mentioned it to Leili and they 'fixed it'. That's when I realized that the tracking number wasn't automated - it was a person entering information in. That also makes me suspicious that the shipment actually shipped on time. They were pushing really hard for extra time to build the bike, then the only proof of shipment that I receive is a tracking number that leads to a form that has data being entered by a human.

The tracking number finally indicated that the boat had arrived in the USA, but was sitting in the port waiting to be unloaded. From that point on I don't see the shipping delays as being the vendor's fault. Our US ports were backed up so that's not their fault. FedEx received my boxes and shipped them across California to my local FedEx warehouse (only 2 miles from my house!) where the boxes sat for 2 weeks! FedEx finally got my (5) boxes to me in good condition, and everything else went smoothly.

Assembly
Assembly of the bike was pretty simple. I know bicycles reasonably well, but Leili provided some pretty good assembly videos for me showing how to assemble the fork to the frame, connect the battery, etc. Every cable was labelled very clearly, and almost everything was already connected. Assembly took me about 90 minutes. If I did a second one I could do it in 45 minutes.

Performance
- This bike feels fast. I have the "12kw" version. I've ridden the 3kw, 5kw and 8kw versions locally, but never the 12kw. I was expecting 'ok' performance but I was pretty shocked at how much torque and acceleration it has. It's super fun. I ride/raced motorcycles for years so I'm not a wimp about speed, but this thing has been fun. Top speed seems sufficient - I got it up to 62mph before I ran out of road. I think it was still accelerating but I'll have to test that again with a longer road.
- The front brake is great, but the rear brake is just plain bad. It needs a bigger disc rotor for sure. I'd say the brakes on this bike are poor overall. To be truly safe you need quite a bit more braking power than this provides.
- Suspension, especially the front fork, isn't great. It's fine for the road, but this bike is called "Enduro" so I'd expect it to be decent offroad as well. I did pay for the upgraded front fork (DNM Volcano instead of the 'Leili fork') but it's still not great. I'll mess around some more with tuning it.

Support
Leili seems to care about continuing to support even after the transaction has concluded. I had a small issue with getting the bike to turn off. They quickly connected me with one of their engineers to diagnose the problem. It ended up being a loose connector which was an easy fix.

--------------------------

That's about all I have to say for the initial review. For anyone thinking about buying from Leili or from Alibaba at all, I'll write up another post later this week to explain why you should use PayPal rather than Alibaba Trade Direct (ATD). ATD has a clear flaw in my opinion, which greatly favors the vendor. If you have a shady vendor (Leili is not shady) ATD allows for them to rip you off. Paypal protects you and allows for you to get a refund if you get ripped off.

 

[99t4]

It came with a Cycle Analyst display.

This i find interesting. Do they get the CA from Grin Tech?

- Suspension, especially the front fork, isn't great. It's fine for the road, but this bike is called "Enduro" so I'd expect it to be decent offroad as well. I did pay for the upgraded front fork (DNM Volcano instead of the 'Leili fork') but it's still not great. I'll mess around some more with tuning it.

Not surprised, as DNM are not known for quality suspension forks.

That's about all I have to say for the initial review. For anyone thinking about buying from Leili or from Alibaba at all, I'll write up another post later this week to explain why you should use PayPal rather than Alibaba Trade Direct (ATD). ATD has a clear flaw in my opinion, which greatly favors the vendor. If you have a shady vendor (Leili is not shady) ATD allows for them to rip you off. Paypal protects you and allows for you to get a refund if you get ripped off.

Agreed, PP or credit card is the safest way to to, worth the extra fees.

(Leili is not shady)

Well, to my thinking they are at least a little shady. Their insistent haggling over build time, extensions, controversy over actual ship date, etc. looks to me like they did not deal with you completely honestly or transparently.

Good that you are happy overall with the product. Do you know what brand/model the actual cells are in the battery?

Thanks for your clear report of your experience. Hopefully it can help future buyers.

 

[cbr shadow]

It came with a Cycle Analyst display.

This i find interesting. Do they get the CA from Grin Tech?

- Suspension, especially the front fork, isn't great. It's fine for the road, but this bike is called "Enduro" so I'd expect it to be decent offroad as well. I did pay for the upgraded front fork (DNM Volcano instead of the 'Leili fork') but it's still not great. I'll mess around some more with tuning it.

Not surprised, as DNM are not known for quality suspension forks.

That's about all I have to say for the initial review. For anyone thinking about buying from Leili or from Alibaba at all, I'll write up another post later this week to explain why you should use PayPal rather than Alibaba Trade Direct (ATD). ATD has a clear flaw in my opinion, which greatly favors the vendor. If you have a shady vendor (Leili is not shady) ATD allows for them to rip you off. Paypal protects you and allows for you to get a refund if you get ripped off.

Agreed, PP or credit card is the safest way to to, worth the extra fees.

(Leili is not shady)

Well, to my thinking they are at least a little shady. Their insistent haggling over build time, extensions, controversy over actual ship date, etc. looks to me like they did not deal with you completely honestly or transparently.

Good that you are happy overall with the product. Do you know what brand/model the actual cells are in the battery?

Thanks for your clear report of your experience. Hopefully it can help future buyers.

Yes it came with a Grin Tech manual, so it's a legitimate CA display.

Alibaba Trade Assurance actually has similar fees to Paypal, so I don't really see any reason to use ATA over PP.

Leili says they use genuine Panasonic battery cells, but I'm not sure on more info than that.

IMO the only way they were 'shady' was under-estimating the time it would take to build the ebike. They took 20 extra days for that. They said it was because of a battery cell shortage, which is probably legitimate, but they knew about the shortage when quoting the build time.

Overall if someone's on a tight budget I don't see how the price for performance can be beat. The only exception I've seen is when someone uses scavenged battery cells and builds their own battery really cheap.

 

[999zip999]

When you get a chance can you tell us how much range you get on 49 ah ?

 

[cbr shadow]

When you get a chance can you tell us how much range you get on 49 ah ?

Yes I'll report back numbers in the future, but it really depends on what speed you hold. I always thought "I'll just hold 30mph" but it's hard to go 30mph when you have open road and the ability to go 60mph.

I did a 26 mile loop averaging about 50mph and used a bit over half the battery. That's not very scientific but I imagine you could get really long range on this bike if you kept the speed low like 20mph. Easier said than done though!

One thing that I really like about the speed of this bike is that I can hop onto a busy/fast road and easily keep up with cars if I need to. To get to some local mountain trails I have to go on about 4 miles of street with 45mph speed limit. It's no issue at all

 

[dadeky]

I paid $4,050 shipped to my door. I got a few extras added onto my order (included in the $4050 price) like 2 types of seats, a horn, key, and a few other things.

So you didn't have to pay customs?
I'm asking because i've spoken to Flora from Leili and asked her, do I need to pay customs or some extra fees upon arrival of the package, and she told me: "You don't need to pay any fees or customs,we will pay for you".
So I guess they are taking care of that too.

 

[cbr shadow]

I paid $4,050 shipped to my door. I got a few extras added onto my order (included in the $4050 price) like 2 types of seats, a horn, key, and a few other things.

So you didn't have to pay customs?
I'm asking because i've spoken to Flora from Leili and asked her, do I need to pay customs or some extra fees upon arrival of the package, and she told me: "You don't need to pay any fees or customs,we will pay for you".
So I guess they are taking care of that too.

That's correct you wont need to pay customs. That's included with shipping. They should ship it by sea, Fedex picks it up and delivers it to your door. Be ready to wait a long time, though! Where are you located, btw?

 

[E-HP]

Yes I'll report back numbers in the future, but it really depends on what speed you hold. I always thought "I'll just hold 30mph" but it's hard to go 30mph when you have open road and the ability to go 60mph.

I did a 26 mile loop averaging about 50mph and used a bit over half the battery. That's not very scientific but I imagine you could get really long range on this bike if you kept the speed low like 20mph. Easier said than done though!

One thing that I really like about the speed of this bike is that I can hop onto a busy/fast road and easily keep up with cars if I need to. To get to some local mountain trails I have to go on about 4 miles of street with 45mph speed limit. It's no issue at all

So is this the commuter bike?
(or are you full time remote now?)

 

[dadeky]

That's correct you wont need to pay customs. That's included with shipping. They should ship it by sea, Fedex picks it up and delivers it to your door. Be ready to wait a long time, though! Where are you located, btw?

Croatia - EU

 

[cbr shadow]

Yes I'll report back numbers in the future, but it really depends on what speed you hold. I always thought "I'll just hold 30mph" but it's hard to go 30mph when you have open road and the ability to go 60mph.

I did a 26 mile loop averaging about 50mph and used a bit over half the battery. That's not very scientific but I imagine you could get really long range on this bike if you kept the speed low like 20mph. Easier said than done though!

One thing that I really like about the speed of this bike is that I can hop onto a busy/fast road and easily keep up with cars if I need to. To get to some local mountain trails I have to go on about 4 miles of street with 45mph speed limit. It's no issue at all

So is this the commuter bike?
(or are you full time remote now?)

I'm full time remote for now, but it'll be my commuter bike once I'm back in the office. I have a 14 ish mile commute each direction, and it's wide open empty and straight road the whole way.

 

[ebike11]

Yes I'll report back numbers in the future, but it really depends on what speed you hold. I always thought "I'll just hold 30mph" but it's hard to go 30mph when you have open road and the ability to go 60mph.

I did a 26 mile loop averaging about 50mph and used a bit over half the battery. That's not very scientific but I imagine you could get really long range on this bike if you kept the speed low like 20mph. Easier said than done though!

One thing that I really like about the speed of this bike is that I can hop onto a busy/fast road and easily keep up with cars if I need to. To get to some local mountain trails I have to go on about 4 miles of street with 45mph speed limit. It's no issue at all

So is this the commuter bike?
(or are you full time remote now?)

I'm full time remote for now, but it'll be my commuter bike once I'm back in the office. I have a 14 ish mile commute each direction, and it's wide open empty and straight road the whole way.

The motor you have is the QS273..do you what wi ding type? Is there a long number(specs) stamped on the edge of the motor?