745Whr replacement batteries + 7A charger from E-bike Vision

[bombadero]

So I wanted to also try using a Cycle Satiator from Grin as I mentioned, which will require using their 4-pin adapter paired with E-bike Vision's Bosch adapter for their own charger. However, I could only find the latter on ridewill.it so I broke down and registered so I could be notified when it is in stock. Kind of kicking myself, because they only charge 675 euro for the battery and I'm paying 789. So I would say already that this is a bit of a downside for US consumers... it's very hard to obtain this product or accessories for it. The chargers seem to be easier to find than both the batteries or the adapters, strangely enough. That said, they do work with the stock Bosch chargers. Hollandbikeshop has pretty much every E-bike Vision battery, and I've purchased a lot of parts from them, they're a good storefront. Unfortunately, they are all out of stock right now. So I'm currently holding off on a Cycle Satiator until I know I can get that adapter or I do that other bike build. I also have an HPV trike that uses Rosenberger connectors, but Grin is still working on those.

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

Bombadero: Nice report, I'm looking forward to your test and review of the e-bike vision battery. Though I'm not in the market for a battery at this time, I just might be next spring/summer of 2021. After the arrival of the battery, could you post up the buying experience with that shop dealer; along with a point of contact aid name of business?

Still holding slim hope that one of our bigger US ebike dealers will import these batteries for US ebike owners.

Regards to real world information on the performance of this battery, this linked thread: https://www.pedelecforum.de/forum/i...-akkus-für-yamaha-von-drittherstellern.46096/ has information within from buyers of the E-bike Vision batterie for their ebikes. Not sure if you were able to find this thread in your search of a battery supplier, if you have already, that link can help those others here, on this thread, learn about the 745wh batteries for the Bosch and Yamaha ebike systems. Though in German, a left click of the mouse to "Translate To English" helps clear everything up.

Again, appreciative of your efforts in being the first to purchase one of these high powered batteries.

 

[bombadero]

@Mike TowpathTraveler you're welcome . I don't like to be an early adopter, but I've proven the value of e-bikes in my own life now as a car replacement for the past 3 years, and since the battery technology itself is well established if not this specific battery, I figure it's worth the investment for my own knowledge and as an ambassador for e-bikes to others (although I'll be preaching to the choir here). I'm just starting to face end-of-life issues with my batteries and starting to think about replacing them. I hope to be able to repack my Bosch and GSD batteries if I can figure out how to do it without bricking them; that will save me something like $600-700 per battery. However, if that doesn't pan out, at least for the Bosch batteries I'm hoping these E-bike Vision batteries will be a slightly cheaper alternative given that they cost about the same or a little less, depending on the vendor, as a Powerpack 500 but have 745 Wh worth of cells.

Once I get the battery, I'll definitely post the details about the shop. I don't want to do that until I'm sure that they actually have the inventory and will ship to the US, of course. Wouldn't want other people to spam a dead end until I'm sure. Rosewill.it and hollandbikeshop.com also carry it, but they are both currently out of stock. I know the latter ships to the US, having purchased many parts from them, and I believe ridewill does as well, since the site allowed me to input USA into my billing address when I registered for the site. Hollandbikeshop doesn't require registration, which is my preference.

 

[bombadero]

Ok, I managed to order the battery... almost. The vendor in question is a small shop in Germany. As many vendors in Europe apparently do (I've had to deal with the same thing getting service for our HPV Scorpion), they ask for an international wire transfer. Don't ask me why, it seems horribly outdated and risky, but for some reason that's how they operate over there. I managed to discover Xoom, a Paypal wire transfer service, that you can log into if you already have a Paypal account. So they invoiced me, I figured out how to pay it, and now I have to wait for them to, in their words 'order the battery', which makes me think they don't already have it in stock. However, ridewill.it and hollandbikeshop.com are still out of stock, so just for curiosity's sake I thought I would go down this rabbit hole as far as it goes. Going through a Paypal service I have some protection, and I have excellent fraud protection via my bank, so I'm not too worried about that. I am very curious, however to see how long it takes the battery to get here and whether it ships to the correct address (I take deliveries at a UPS store to avoid package theft). Stay tuned.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

Ok, I managed to order the battery... almost. The vendor in question is a small shop in Germany. As many vendors in Europe apparently do (I've had to deal with the same thing getting service for our HPV Scorpion), they ask for an international wire transfer. Don't ask me why, it seems horribly outdated and risky, but for some reason that's how they operate over there. I managed to discover Xoom, a Paypal wire transfer service, that you can log into if you already have a Paypal account. So they invoiced me, I figured out how to pay it, and now I have to wait for them to, in their words 'order the battery', which makes me think they don't already have it in stock. However, ridewill.it and hollandbikeshop.com are still out of stock, so just for curiosity's sake I thought I would go down this rabbit hole as far as it goes. Going through a Paypal service I have some protection, and I have excellent fraud protection via my bank, so I'm not too worried about that. I am very curious, however to see how long it takes the battery to get here and whether it ships to the correct address (I take deliveries at a UPS store to avoid package theft). Stay tuned.

I hope it works out for you.

Both Yamaha and Bosch will be announcing updated batteries in 2021 and if you have not already completed the transaction, I suggest you wait.

 

[bombadero]

@Ravi Kempaiah I believe they've already been announced along with the Bosch Cargo Line motors; but they're only 625 Wh. The Bosch battery and motor options, even with the latest releases, are still lagging the rest of the industry unfortunately. For instance, the torque numbers on the new Cargo Line aren't too impressive considering they're supposed to be more powerful motors. I can't find the specs for the exact specs for the wattage, but the peak torque is 85 Nm. I'm planning on building a custom cargo towing bike with dual motors, but even just one of those motors peaks around 130 Nm; with both it will peak around 160.

TBH, I'm kind of outgrowing the Bosch platform. The prevention measures for repacking of batteries, combined with lack of easily accessible and affordable third party services to do so, the overall expense, being unable to buy parts or components directly, and the lack of power (for my purposes) are driving me away from the brand. It was a great intro to e-bikes for someone who didn't know any better at the time, especially since--and this is one thing I really do admire about the brand--our little Performance Line CX on our R&M has been absolutely bomb-proof. The fact that a little 250W motor has put up with the abuse I have put it through and not burned up is a testament to the engineering behind it. The motors and batteries themselves are outstanding. Their business practices and lack of direct customer support however are driving me to other options, especially now that I have the bike mechanic chops to build my own e-bike from parts. For half the cost of our R&M, I will be able to build a much more powerful bike that won't cost me another small fortune every time a battery ages out.

Granted, this E-bike Vision battery isn't that cheap. It does however have top-shelf Samsung 35E cells, and 120 more Wh than Bosch's biggest battery. And it's only to tide me over until I can figure out how to wire a Bosch Powerpack 500 BMS so that I can repack my existing Powerpacks. I know it can be done, because there are a handful of services that do it. The R&M, like the Bosch motor in it, is a solid machine, so we will likely keep it indefinitely. If I can spend $250 instead of $1000 every 3-7 years when I need to replace a battery, I will invest the time to figure out how to do that. Bosch is essentially charging you a $750 markup for the case, the wiring, the BMS and the labor. In the meantime, much more capacity for the same price seems like an acceptable trade-off for now. With a new high capacity battery, I will have a few years to figure out how to repack a Powerpack.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

Granted, this E-bike Vision battery isn't that cheap. It does however have top-shelf Samsung 35E cells, and 120 more Wh than Bosch's biggest battery.

Hey it's your money and you can do whatever you like.

What they will announce next year will render your E-bike vision battery redundant.

If you need batteries, we could certainly help you.

 

[bombadero]

Hey it's your money and you can do whatever you like.

What they will announce next year will render your E-bike vision battery redundant.

If you need batteries, we could certainly help you.

I highly doubt Bosch will release a 745 Wh+ battery in 2021. They have already announced what's coming in 2021, and it's a 625 Wh battery. They already offer a Dual Battery with double that, but it also costs twice as much, and isn't available in PowerPack format, so it does me no good. And the E-bike Vision battery uses the latest Samsung 35E cells. So for what you are saying to be true, they would have to have engineered their own, higher capacity, proprietary cells and offer something like a 1000 Wh battery in the same size and at the same price as a Powerpack 500, and I very highly doubt that.

What do you mean by 'you could help me' if I need batteries, do you know how to wire a Powerpack BMS in parallel with a benchtop power supply without overcurrent so it can be repacked with new cells? Because this E-bike Vision battery is probably the last ~$1,000 battery I intend to buy. Going forward I'm going to be repacking myself for the cost of new cells, about $250 (plus a couple hundred for a power supply and battery spot welder the first time I do it). If you are willing to share that know-how, it would definitely save me some time.

 

[Ravi Kempaiah]

And the E-bike Vision battery uses the latest Samsung 35E cells.

So does the powerpack 500.
It is 10S, 4p and 4*3.5 Ah = 14 Ah but in reality 35E is more like ~3375mAh and 4P turns out to be 4*3.375 = 13.5 Ah and that is the amperage of the powerpack 500 as well.

36*13.5 = 486 whr

So for what you are saying to be true, they would have to have engineered their own, higher capacity, proprietary cells and offer something like a 1000 Wh battery in the same size and at the same price as a Powerpack 500,

You can wait and watch what Bosch will announce in the 16 months.

What do you mean by 'you could help me' if I need batteries, do you know how to wire a Powerpack BMS in parallel with a benchtop power supply without overcurrent so it can be repacked with new cells?

I am one of the co-founder of Zen E-bikes (startup) and in the future, if you need anything, we would be happy to help you.

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Going forward I'm going to be repacking myself for the cost of new cells, about $250 (plus a couple hundred for a power supply and battery spot welder the first time I do it). If you are willing to share that know-how, it would definitely save me some time.

I wish you good luck. It is not easy but if you have the tenacity and skill, you could do it.

 

[bombadero]

All right, so I can definitely say that the vendor in question, an LBS in Germany, is not recommended for purchases of this battery outside of Germany. After paying him via wire transfer and him dragging his feet and being incommunicado for a couple of weeks, I reached out to check on the status and he now claims he can't ship the battery due to CoVID-19 restrictions and wants a German address to which to ship. I am in the process of trying to get him to either ship the battery via UPS, who says they are still operating, or issue a full refund. If he will not issue the refund, I will arbitrate through Paypal (I paid through Xoom) and then my bank. I had the extra reserves in savings for this experiment and anticipated this might happen (although did not honestly expect it), so I'm not too worried about getting my money back, which will happen eventually if I need to do so, it just might take a month or two.

I'm glad I performed this experiment, actually, because it shows that this battery is still not effectively available in the US, or really outside of continental Europe. Ridewill.it and hollandbikeshop.com continue to list all of these batteries, and both are big retailers equipped to carry out international battery shipping, but they continue to be out of stock at both. Maybe that will change some time in 2021, but for now it's virtually impossible to locate or ship one of these in the US. Fortunately, I have discovered that my own battery needs are less urgent than I once thought, because it seems most e-bike computers dynamically re-calculate range based on usage, and I've been hauling a lot lately, so the currently projected ranges are low and don't reflect the actual unloaded ranges of our bikes. I am still potentially interested in this battery in the future due to its size, but will still be looking to find a solution to repacking Bosch Powerpack cells. I've learned more about wiring in parallel, so I can do so with a benchtop power supply to avoid bricking the BMS, and it appears to be quite simple. According to @Ravi Kempaiah Bosch will be making an announcement in the next 18 months that will make all of this moot. I kind of doubt it unless they are announcing graphene or thorium plasma batteries, battery packs with removable cells you can replace for a couple hundred dollars that are backwards compatible and accompanied by a trade-in rebate for old battery packs, or a price drop of $600 across their entire battery lineup, but we'll see.

Oh, and the shop to avoid at all costs, unless you are actually in Germany, is Pedelec Power Team run by one Carsten Fisher. He might be telling the truth, or he might be a crook, but the difference unfortunately doesn't really matter in this instance; I paid for a product that he cannot deliver, which is inexcusable in retail.

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

Bombadero: Thank you for trying. I check in on RideWill often, just to see if the e-bike vision yamaha batteries are in stock, but they've been out of stock for many months now. E-bike Vision's website and facebook page are not up to date and say nothing of the big Euro vendors being out of stock for a long time.

I suspect and it's just my opinion, that the Covid has halted transport of the components and battery cells from the far east markets needed for E-bike Vision to manufacture these batteries.

And I'm now beginning to think that it's going to take a big time US Vendor (think Crazy Lenny's) who would be willing to be the US distributor of these batteries; rather then for the individual ebike owner who has to financially put their necks out on the line such as you've had to go through.

A shame, cause there is a market here. It may not be a huge market, but alot of batteries will be in need of replacement in the coming years from the big ebike drive makers. Bosch and Yamaha need to think about that.

 

[bombadero]

Bombadero: Thank you for trying. I check in on RideWill often, just to see if the e-bike vision yamaha batteries are in stock, but they've been out of stock for many months now. E-bike Vision's website and facebook page are not up to date and say nothing of the big Euro vendors being out of stock for a long time.

I suspect and it's just my opinion, that the Covid has halted transport of the components and battery cells from the far east markets needed for E-bike Vision to manufacture these batteries.

And I'm now beginning to think that it's going to take a big time US Vendor (think Crazy Lenny's) who would be willing to be the US distributor of these batteries; rather then for the individual ebike owner who has to financially put their necks out on the line such as you've had to go through.

A shame, cause there is a market here. It may not be a huge market, but alot of batteries will be in need of replacement in the coming years from the big ebike drive makers. Bosch and Yamaha need to think about that.

Yeah, it really is sort of a gotcha 3-5 years in, and 3-5 years ago is exactly when e-bikes started to blow up as a mainstream option. They've been around much longer than that, but a few years ago is when the iPhone-ish versions of bikes started to come out--the bikes that started putting e-bikes in people's awareness in the same way the iPhone made people consider smartphones for the first time. You would think they would have anticipated this, but as usual with capitalism, they either only cared about profits today, or figured they would lock people in and then hit them up for expensive batteries every few years. I expect it's a combination of those two depending on the company. It's too bad, because I think it will put some people off. You can certainly build your own batteries for a DIY bike like the one I'm building, but for these proprietary bikes like our R&M and HPV, you really are locked in. E-bike Vision is a bit of a holy grail--a 3rd party battery with higher capacity for a proprietary system which, given how hard it is to bypass the locked BMS'es on these systems is like magic. It indicates that it's possible, but it really does require some serious engineering muscle. Even Grin tech, from whom I'm buying parts for my new DIY bike, isn't really addressing this. They have just barely begun to consider making Rosenberg adapters, and plan on making Bosch adapters some day, so that you can at least charge these batteries with their Satiator charger and hopefully extend their lives. There are a handful of Bosch rebuilding services if you can find them, and it's cheaper than a new battery, but only by a couple hundred dollars. Hopefully as people start complaining to their LBS'es it will trickle up to the manufacturers. You really ought to be able to buy a third party battery, or even buy a hot swap pack you can switch out in the existing case. I'm fine with the price point for the first battery, but there need to be cheaper replacement options for sure.

 

[bombadero]

This shop owner offered to ship the battery to my brother-in-law, who lives in Germany, but that wouldn't have done me much good as it would still be in Germany. He is now citing the coronavirus lockdowns saying that he cannot ship the battery and is offering a refund via Paypal. This could be legitimate, but I read up on Merkel's 'lockdown light' and what he is saying isn't consistent with that. In the meantime, I've noticed that hollandbikeshop.com and ridewill.it have both de-listed all E-bike Vision products. There is a single remaining site, in Germany, that offers the batteries, but will not ship to the US. I suppose I could try to have it shipped to my brother-in-law and see if he can ship it to me, but I think I'm going to call it at this point that this battery is not available anywhere outside of the EU, and is even difficult to come by there. It's not exactly fake, but it is a pipe dream for anyone outside of the EU. I can't help but wonder if the company is going/has gone out of business.

 

[Mike TowpathTraveler]

Appreciate the latest heads up, B. Your efforts as well as a lack of US vendors, tell me we won't be seeing these batteries here in the US.

Again, I believe it's a combination of any of these listed factors: Covid 19 put a big crimp on their battery production. At this point, it's a fair assumption they aren't releasing any batteries for sale. Their facebook page addresses nothing in regards to this, but the proof is in the stock on hand for a big euro bike outfitter like Hollandbikeshop. E-Bike Vision may be finding the supply of battery cells are being taken up by the big battery builders, thus leaving minimal supplies for the rest to fight over. One gets the impression just looking over their facebook site that things have been stagnant for a good while; their latest efforts directed at a small piggyback battery for an in-tube Bosch bike.

It's a possibility that these German bike shops carrying the battery are not qualifed nor equipped to send this kind of hazmat shipment overseas. It must be a great surprise for any of them to begin their business day getting an order thousands of miles away and across the Atlantic, at that.

Finally, I kinda get the feeling there is some kind of low grade trade war that some businesses in Germany are using against US buyers, especially individual buyers. Case in point, earlier this month, I put in an order for a speed de-restrictor for my Yamaha powered Haibike. Ebay ad says they ship worldwide and to the US. Before placing the order, I thought I'd double confirm this by verifying via ebay's messaging system to them. Got a short but sweet reply back "We don't ship to the US." Contacted the builders of the de-restrictor, Pear Tune in Czechoslovakia and I got an instant reply back and was able to have the part in hand less then a week later.

And of course, I contacted E-Bike Vision about buying a battery directly from them and they weren't much help at all. Ignore a country of 360 million with quite a few Yamaha and Bosch edrives out there with owners who want to upgrade....foolish!

 

[bombadero]

@Mike TowpathTraveler yes, there is a lot of trade war foolishness going on right now. I have another post going about how CBP and Fedex decided to delay my nearly $3000 shipment of DIY bike parts from Grin Technologies in Canada, including a brand new motor, wheel and controller, over concerns of Chinese parts. It's also a confluence of the incompetence of a Grin employee, who told me I need to deal with an import clearance delay myself. I did that, with the effect that the Fedex Custom Tracing Agent and the CBP seem to have mistaken me for the seller rather than the buyer. In so doing, they released the import invoice to me, which reveals a grand total of $63 of Chinese parts. The remaining balance are all Canadian parts. I looked up the tariffs on those small parts, all wires, and it is 3.5%, coming to all of $2.20 worth of tariffs. I, too, have noticed a number of German sites suddenly not offering shipping to the US even though other German or EU sites seem able to ship the same goods to the US just fine. I suspect in both instances the motives are largely political. The funny thing is the Germans are punishing us for Trump; while the CBP and Fedex agent in Tennessee, a deep red state, are probably punishing me for living in San Francisco and ordering from Canada.

Fortunately, Hollandbikeshop, many German shops on ebay, Italian, Swiss and UK shops and Chinese sellers on Amazon and ebay all seem to be open for business. I have to buy a lot of my parts overseas, so that's good news. It's foolish to me as well that there seem not to be many US sellers for some of these parts. So you either have to brave international waters, as it were, or go to your LBS. I've found I prefer the former because I seem to have better search literacy than my LBS, and it takes them weeks or months to get back to me on purchasing something. Yes, they have relationships with distributors and manufacturers, but they also have more hoops to jump through, don't want to piss off those other companies by purchasing something not 'approved' by the design team of a particular bike, have many other customers to service, et cetera. If someone could figure out to get some of these goods to the US they could clean up with a drop ship company specializing in some of these hard to find but essential parts. Some of them are pretty straightforward too, like kickstands and fenders. Finding the right kickstands to allow me to use my R&M Homage for hauling required me to move small mountains. I finally found a couple of kickstands by a German company called Hebei that were perfect; and of course only available in the EU.