Why the big brand (Bosch, Yamaha, Shimano etc.) battery packs cost so much?

[McCorby]

Doesn’t Tesla “lock you to their ecosystem” with their batteries? I’m pretty sure you can’t slide a Chevrolet Bolt battery pack into a Tesla....

 

[Asher]

Actually in the OP's original post the title asks the question;

"Why the big brand (Bosch, Yamaha, Shimano etc.) battery packs cost so much?"

The answer is:

1. They test each cell before installation and have a high rejection rate, resulting in a more reliable battery.
2. They provide a more sophisticated, more trouble free, more completely integrated, package...more plug and play for end user.
3. They have earned a global reputation for reliability & parts availability in the bike industry and/or other industries going back decades.
4. Those companies have invested in distribution centers, parts support and tech support personnel around the world
5. They are more likely to be around next year and five years from now when you might need replacements
6. In the case of Bosch they have committed to support & parts on ebike products for 7 years after they stop selling the item.
7. And yes, because of the above factors, they can charge more and smart people, who can afford it, are still willing to buy their products.

I don't doubt your points, but you would say the same thing whether they were charging $200 or $2000 per kwh. Those practices may only explain a fraction of the price delta. The fact that ebike battery prices have stayed the same while wholesale cell prices plummeted and ebike battery volumes swelled (more volume means lower unit costs, see Learning Curves), suggests they have significant profit margins now if not before too. Ultimately they charge what they and their frenemies in the bike industry can get.

The reliability and support benefits you cite are already available in parts for analog bikes, and they're dirt cheap. A decent new analog bike bought today will be repairable for decades, in almost any stateside bike shop. It's all thanks to modular, non-proprietary interfaces on the bike. E-bikes aren't there, and they aren't heading in that direction given how Bosch and co are doing things. But they very well could be, if say, the industry could be brought to heel, and common interfaces were established.

Companies making money off proprietary interfaces will always insinuate their grip on the market is the only way to ensure prosperity and order, else anarchy and chaos await.

 

[Alaskan]

I don't doubt your points, but you would say the same thing whether they were charging $200 or $2000 per kwh. Those practices may only explain a fraction of the price delta. The fact that ebike battery prices have stayed the same while wholesale cell prices plummeted and ebike battery volumes swelled (more volume means lower unit costs, see Learning Curves), suggests they have significant profit margins now if not before too. Ultimately they charge what they and their frenemies in the bike industry can get.

The reliability and support benefits you cite are already available in parts for analog bikes, and they're dirt cheap. A decent new analog bike bought today will be repairable for decades, in almost any stateside bike shop. It's all thanks to modular, non-proprietary interfaces on the bike. E-bikes aren't there, and they aren't heading in that direction given how Bosch and co are doing things. But they very well could be, if say, the industry could be brought to heel, and common interfaces were established.

Companies making money off proprietary interfaces will always insinuate their grip on the market is the only way to ensure prosperity and order, else anarchy and chaos await.

So I guess you would never own an Apple product then? Clearly very much subject to the identical criticism. Famous for not playing well with others.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Whats cool is I have the same key for my e bike and two battery e tandem and locks and padlock on our garage. I know how much range I will have the computer tells me how many miles I have.yes you have to pay for this but this is my only transportation and the cost is not a problem.

 

[Asher]

So I guess you would never own an Apple product then? Clearly very much subject to the identical criticism. Famous for not playing well with others.

It's not about my personal preference. You can think something is proprietary for profiteering and still see owning it as a wise choice. Certainly there are many charging that Apple has oligopoly or monopoly power.

Apple also deliberately makes products harder to repair, increasing electronics waste, something that Bosch and big brands are probably much better about than their low priced competition like Juiced and Rad.

One big problem with pricey batteries: they make used ebikes potentially worthless. If you've got to replace a battery for $1k, on say a 5 year old bike, people may simply opt to trash the bike instead. Hopefully hobbyists and local mechanics can step in eventually to fill that gap, but I haven't seen it yet.

 

[Johnny]

Apple also deliberately makes products harder to repair, increasing electronics waste, something that Bosch and big brands are probably much better about than their low priced competition like Juiced and Rad.

Being a fanatic requires you to clap even the worst practices of the company you adore. When Iphones were small, people were saying "Apple designed it that way because it is the optimum size", if an antenna is badly designed "you don't know how to hold your phone" then Apple began following the trend and iphones got huge this time the same people talked about its necessity.

Apple had many shady practices including slowing down their iphones on purpose to make their customers to get a new one. It was not well received and they had to back down.

One thing that goes in Apple's favor, their devices work for a long time without much trouble and if they mess something up they fix it even after the warranty period. There are many people who buy apple because of this. As long as you don't have an accident it should be fine. If you happen to have an accident though, you are in for a big repair bill.

 

[fooferdoggie]

It's not about my personal preference. You can think something is proprietary for profiteering and still see owning it as a wise choice. Certainly there are many charging that Apple has oligopoly or monopoly power.

Apple also deliberately makes products harder to repair, increasing electronics waste, something that Bosch and big brands are probably much better about than their low priced competition like Juiced and Rad.

One big problem with pricey batteries: they make used ebikes potentially worthless. If you've got to replace a battery for $1k, on say a 5 year old bike, people may simply opt to trash the bike instead. Hopefully hobbyists and local mechanics can step in eventually to fill that gap, but I haven't seen it yet.

I can take my battery in and get a printout of what it's been through. spa it is not just my word on it. plus I can get a battery that would work 5 years from now from bosch.

 

[Ebiker33]

I would just like to point out Bosch is now 2 voltage generations behind with their best PowerTube 625 Battery at 36V

When they have a motor with a throttle and at least 120nm of torque and 52V battery then you will have my attention.

​

 

[Xyeet]

I can take my battery in and get a printout of what it's been through. spa it is not just my word on it. plus I can get a battery that would work 5 years from now from bosch.

Bosch batteries aren't doing some hocus pocus magic that others can't do. They are the same lithium ion batteries than everyone else are using. Bosch doesn't manufacture cells themselves and their cells lasts as long as everyone else that uses similar brand cells.

And if you look at this video of Bosch battery teardown the batteries aren't that well designed and they have mistakes in them:

 

[tomjasz]

Samsung

That means nothing unless we know WHICH Samsung cell is used.

 

[tomjasz]

Bosch batteries aren't doing some hocus pocus magic that others can't do.

They have FAR more features than batteries from 4 different and reliable sources I own!
Sadly and as always Bosch brings out those who know all and the bashing begins!

FFS, different strokes, for different folks. A Yugo or a Lexus IS.

 

[Johnny]

They have FAR more features than batteries from 4 different and reliable sources I own!
Sadly and as always Bosch brings out those who know all and the bashing begins!

FFS, different strokes, for different folks. A Yugo or a Lexus IS.

Maybe you can tell people what those features are.

I am genuinely interested in which packs you have disassembled(powerpack 400/500 , power tube 500/625 etc? ) and how you would evaluate these packs. If you have pictures that would be great too.

 

[kmccune]

Again Battery Building 101, really nothing specific to Bosch, not sure why you think so. Manufacturers supply batteries to builders by batch/lot matching internal resistance and age. It's not very difficult to double check this for each individual pack.

And again... You're buying a warranty. Not saying that it doesn't have a value, but that's what it is.

I will say this-Yes!, you can buy a warranty for the same product,I have the feeling that"Click and Clack' were referring to this fact when they said" theres no such thing as a "heavy duty' part" I have had parts vendors telling me the same thing,However!( big however) suppliers do not always vend the same quality parts{I give you the Old NAPA "Silverline' as opposed to their top of the line parts} The electronic and electric "silverline "parts always seemed real cheap.
On the subject of 'cheapness' Wal Mart doubled the price on their"supertech' oil filters and dropped the price on the reddish-orange{use at your own risk filters}( I just buy by the case from "Rock Auto' these days.
If you find good quality at a reasonable cost these days stick with it.

 

[kmccune]

Bosch and its name brand competition has a good thing going. By one European retailer survey, Bosch alone had 69% of sales. That's an oligopoly, if not a monopoly, according to antitrust definitions. It's more profitable to get a small cut of oligopoly profits than it is to try and blow up the oligopoly, if the oligopoly can compete with you even at lower prices, which it can. Especially in an environment like with big bike brands and component makers, where the ecosystem is fairly stable and interrelated, and pissing off your colleagues can be very risky to your long term success.

They command high markup on their goods, and they can use some of that profit to keep their dealers and brands happy, and thereby prevent price competition from entities that would otherwise be their rivals. The big brands have no incentive to engage in serious price competition, no more than a few percent. Internet startups do, but they're in many ways not competing, because they don't operate in retail stores mostly, have much less of a footprint in Europe, and also just make lower-end bikes in general.

The few companies that might change this mold, like Canyon, show little interest in the lower end of the e-bike market, and are anyways still a brand that's not going to make their own parts. Also in the US, they seem pretty focused on high end bikes ($2k+ even for analog ones).


How could things change?
A motor maker like Brose is interesting because their motor can be used with third party batteries. If Brose or other motor makers keep their battery interface open, AND reliable low cost battery suppliers emerged, that could upset the apple cart. Brose doesn't seem to have much market share, while Bosch does (I don't know about the other makers and their battery interface standards). For battery competition to arise, the battery OEM would likely need a lot of volume to compete on price effectively.

And even then, the case for Brose specifically as savior may be weak, since they now also make their own batteries, and may eventually forbid third party batteries in new models. Plus, it's not clear that consumers are even aware of the problem, because you aren't buying a battery separately when you buy the bike (I doubt more than 10% of customers buy a spare upon purchase of a new ebike), so a brand has little effort to go to all the trouble to use batteries that are cheaper on the post-purchase retail market, a cost that the end-consumer won't experience until ~5 years later.

Juiced, for instance, was selling the same battery for $500 and $1,300 - $500 if you bought a second battery for your Hyper Scorpion and $1,300 if you bought it separately, same battery. Usually though it's not so obvious.

Also, the battery prices you show are based on non-e-bike sources where costs are significantly lower due to bulk sales, especially Chinese e-buses which have even lower costs than cars.


People who ignore cost fundamentals will often defend oligopolistic pricing, because they think prices far in excess of cost are essential to quality. Before Toyota brought out Lexus, German brands say luxury cars had to be far more expensive and less reliable than what Lexus offered. And more bluntly, Alaskan's apologia ignores the *trend* over time of prices declining, while Bosch et al batteries haven't.

Interesting that you should mention the 'Oligopoly", even a share of such a company or market is "money in the bank"-"CIP", Chevrolet wanted their little relation in the "Orient" to stop competing in the compact truck market, so the deal was"we( Chevy or GM" will give you 25,000 small trucks( Hombres' if you are interested) to sell under your nameplate if you give us total control or sales of this segment ( I thought Egads! Pt Barnum must be turning in His grave( till I ran the numbers)I will bet the Executives at "Isuzu' cried all the way to the bank.
Being a "symbiote" has its moments.

 

[Xyeet]

Maybe you can tell people what those features are.

I am genuinely interested in which packs you have disassembled(powerpack 400/500 , power tube 500/625 etc? ) and how you would evaluate these packs. If you have pictures that would be great too.

Here is powertube teardown:

 

[Johnny]

Here is powertube teardown:

Thank you, I actually liked that video. I have seen powerpack 400/500 teardowns but not he tube batteries. I was wondering if Thomas can elaborate since he claims these packs having "far more features".

 

[fooferdoggie]

I would just like to point out Bosch is now 2 voltage generations behind with their best PowerTube 625 Battery at 36V

When they have a motor with a throttle and at least 120nm of torque and 52V battery then you will have my attention.

​

don't need it. don't want it. I=if you want that there are plenty of bikes out there with it. I much rather have a smaller battery and less weight. a much more efficient setup.

 

[Ebiker33]

don't need it. don't want it. I=if you want that there are plenty of bikes out there with it. I much rather have a smaller battery and less weight. a much more efficient setup.

I used to live on the prairies of North America and I would agree with you all flat there, now I live on the west coast, lots of mountainous hills that need more power to be conquered.
Geographical location effects the Ebiker needs. As for less weight all carbon fiber frames help a lot and get me to where aluminum frames would be with smaller motors and batteries at just 55 lbs.

 

[fooferdoggie]

I used to live on the prairies of North America and I would agree with you all flat there, now I live on the west coast, lots of mountainous hills that need more power to be conquered.
Geographical location effects the Ebiker needs. As for less weight all carbon fiber frames help a lot and get me to where aluminum frames would be with smaller motors and batteries at just 55 lbs.

I can climb over 20% grades on my bosch powered bike my wife and I have climbed many hills on our bosch powered tandem over 16% portland is loaded with hills. I am not that healthy and I manage just fine.
this hill no problem I can still get up it.

 

[McCorby]

Could they maybe use some more tape and “paper” wrap to hold it all together?Meh......no thanks!

Aliexpress battery example, again no thanks.