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

[Alaskan]

There is no arguing about the need for higher powered motors and higher voltage batteries with folks who either want the bike to do most of the work, or those who just crave ever more power.

Why they even bother chiming in on threads like this about systems they don't like and that don't meet their power-hungry demands is beyond me. I guess they just can't resist the opportunity to rain on the parade of other people's choices that differ from theirs.

I used to be both a pipe smoker and pipe maker and was very active on pipe forums. The guys with their dime store corn cob pipes were frequently igniting flame wars with the guys that appreciated and shared their love for fine artisan, fully hand-made pipes. Like I said earlier in this thread, there is no convincing those who only consider price, that qualities like, craftsmanship, integrity, refinement add any value worth paying for. It is a form of reverse snobbery.

By the way, ebikes have taken over as my main passion. I no longer smoke nor do I make pipes anymore. My shop space has been taken over by ebikes. For any interested, here is a link to a photo album of my pipes...yes you could buy 20 corn-cob pipes for what I got for mine:

RMF Pipes

653 new items added to shared album

goo.gl

 

[reed scott]

I have no opinion ( or I try not to ) on people who ride their ebike as though it is just a lightweight electric motorcycle. It's just so out of my mental grasp that I ignore that genre and don't care to understand them. I am one who at my age (71) with asthma that is instantly triggered by strenuous exercise I want a powerful motor. On flats I ride on eco 2 mostly or 3 once I get tired or on significant climbs. Steep steep climbs I will go all the way up to eco 5. I don't mostly ride for exercise but I know it's good for me. I ride for fun and enjoyment and to get from here to there. I suspect I am not alone. I wish I was young and or healthy and if I were I would have purchased an expensive Bosch or whatever powered bike with all the bells and whistles. They are much prettier than my ugly bike and I really like pretty in a bike. But I am no longer pretty either and I don't care much really.

 

[Alaskan]

Good on you for chasing your bliss on a bike that suits you in the face of a dauting health challenge.

I just wish that everyone could just concentrate on what they like, what they ride, what they want and share information with like minded people.
Time spent attempting to diminish the pleasure of people who make different choices is such a waste. There are many categories of ebikes discussed in this forum that have no appeal to me whatsoever. Occasionally I will see a title and go read a thread about those other styles of ebikes. I do my best to avoid any comments on those threads as I rarely have anything positive to offer there.

Most of us ride our ebikes because we have so much fun doing so. Participating in an informative forum to learn, share insights and enhance that enjoyment is my purpose here and that of most participants.

I guess there will always be a few noisy, obnoxious trolls who get satisfaction from aggravating others. I am old enough to know they will always be with us but I wish they would just stay in their own lanes and not indulge in their delight in irritating others.

 

[tomjasz]

Maybe you can tell people what those features are.

Be my guest.
Someone with your experience ought to know.
Maybe someday I'll have enough experience to have formed an opnion.

 

[Asher]

I used to be both a pipe smoker and pipe maker and was very active on pipe forums. The guys with their dime store corn cob pipes were frequently igniting flame wars with the guys that appreciated and shared their love for fine artisan, fully hand-made pipes. Like I said earlier in this thread, there is no convincing those who only consider price, that qualities like, craftsmanship, integrity, refinement add any value worth paying for. It is a form of reverse snobbery.

By the way, ebikes have taken over as my main passion. I no longer smoke nor do I make pipes anymore. My shop space has been taken over by ebikes. For any interested, here is a link to a photo album of my pipes...yes you could buy 20 corn-cob pipes for what I got for mine:

RMF Pipes

653 new items added to shared album

goo.gl

There's a few notable differences between your pipe shop and Bosch:

1. The pipe making market is open to anyone who can carve wood and set up a website. You need to be skilled, sure, but there aren't market barriers as such. The barrier to entry is much lower, so there's more competition, on price, quality, etc. In that environment, it would be hard to charge much more than your own costs (including a reasonable hourly rate) and sell in high volumes unless your wares were exceptional in some way.
2. You are selling a pipe to the consumer, while Bosch is selling to brands a fraction of the end product, not the entire product to the end consumer. Consumers and dealers have different motives and needs. If we had an e-bike market where people bought new bikes and batteries separately, and they could choose among different batteries from multiple brands, that would be more similar to your pipe shop, but of course we aren't doing that.
3. You selling a pipe once to someone in no way obligates them to buy from you again. Repeated patronage depends on customer satisfaction and reasonable pricing. You're in a relatively weak position to charge a high replacement cost for a pipe.
4. The time to make each pipe doesn't really decline much with higher volumes, because it's a craft. Bosch uses mass assembly line manufacturing, which routinely yields unit cost savings when things are made in large volumes.

 

[Johnny]

Be my guest.
Someone with your experience ought to know.
Maybe someday I'll have enough experience to have formed an opnion.View attachment 85993View attachment 85994View attachment 85995View attachment 85997

Thomas, I know that you have extensive experience on third party battery packs and bafang motors. If I wanted a custom built ebike I wouldn't hesitate to get these parts from you.

That being said, these are all 3rd party packs. My question was what are the additional features of bosch packs you have mentioned in your post? Among the bosch power packs which ones you have disassembled and tested?

 

[Ebiker33]

I am sure the Bosch power tool division is also able to share it's R & D with it's Ebike division, this battery is cutting edge for the tool industry.
One highlight, a flexible circuit board
Bosch's New 18V Tool Battery

 

[Scott Adams]

it is possible to make highly reliable quality packs with appropriate skill, experience and tools, but cell prices are prohibitive

more price leverage could be applied if it were possible to buy quality cells at competitive prices...

the markup on cells from imr batteries, for example is very high

perhaps there are new suppliers I am unaware of, I have not bought cells in last 3 years

the extent of efforts to close their system off from competition speaks loudly as to the motivations of the mfgrs

 

[tomjasz]

Among the bosch power packs which ones you have disassembled and tested?

There are good YouTube tear down threads. No need to have personally taken one apart. Bosch haters going to hate. FFS LOOK!

 

[Johnny]

There are good YouTube tear down threads. No need to have personally taken one apart. Bosch haters going to hate. FFS LOOK!

So you didn't open one up yourself.

You also don't want to say what those "additional features" you have claimed are.

Next time refrain from making claims that you will not back up.

 

[Xyeet]

So you didn't open one up yourself.

You also don't want to say what those "additional features" you have claimed are.

Next time refrain from making claims that you will not back up.

Yeah I'm curious also what is this magic that Bosch batteries does that other batteries don't.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Yeah I'm curious also what is this magic that Bosch batteries does that other batteries don't.

The fact that they keep on working and rarely explode.

I've got a crazy number of miles on three Bosch Powerpack 500s over the last three years. In both hot and cold conditions and the batteries have often been ridden hard and put away wet, as it were. For all that they are performing at about 95% of what they were when brand-new in 2018.

A lot of the lower-cost battery packs are at the end of their lives after three hard years. I've spoken with people who rent e-bikes and they generally plan to replace the batteries every three years.

Cost is not total cost, and cheapest is rarely the least expensive.

 

[Asher]

The fact that they keep on working and rarely explode.

I've got a crazy number of miles on three Bosch Powerpack 500s over the last three years. In both hot and cold conditions and the batteries have often been ridden hard and put away wet, as it were. For all that they are performing at about 95% of what they were when brand-new in 2018.

A lot of the lower-cost battery packs are at the end of their lives after three hard years. I've spoken with people who rent e-bikes and they generally plan to replace the batteries every three years.

Cost is not total cost, and cheapest is rarely the lest expensive.

If you're spreading your riding over 3 batteries, your miles are not going to be that high per battery. At 10 wh/mi and 500 full discharge cycles, that's 25,000 miles, 75k across three batteries.

How are you getting that 95%?

 

[Mr. Coffee]

If you're spreading your riding over 3 batteries, your miles are not going to be that high per battery. At 10 wh/mi and 500 full discharge cycles, that's 25,000 miles, 75k across three batteries.

How are you getting that 95%?

That depends on how far you are riding and how hard.

With a lot of elevation gain (which almost all of my rides have) 10wh/mi is wildly optimistic. On some long, brutal uphills on steep slippery surfaces 50wh/mi is more representative. 5000 feet of elevation gain over 20 miles pretty much drains two of those batteries, and there are multiple such rides right out my door. Since the last two miles is a bonus brutal uphill three batteries for that forty-odd miles is a realistic minimum.

I have a couple of known circuits with known distances and elevation gain, and using the range estimator at the end of the ride I can make a pretty good guess at how much battery I have actually used (much more accurate than the bars) and in particular I can compare it to previous years. Most of the variance is due to temperature more than actual wear on the battery, but while there is a noticeable decrease in charge capacity it certainly isn't very large. I consistently saw 21 miles remaining at the end of those circuits with new batteries and typically see 20 miles today.

 

[Johnny]

The fact that they keep on working and rarely explode.

I've got a crazy number of miles on three Bosch Powerpack 500s over the last three years. In both hot and cold conditions and the batteries have often been ridden hard and put away wet, as it were. For all that they are performing at about 95% of what they were when brand-new in 2018.

A lot of the lower-cost battery packs are at the end of their lives after three hard years. I've spoken with people who rent e-bikes and they generally plan to replace the batteries every three years.

Cost is not total cost, and cheapest is rarely the lest expensive.

Any decent battery will rarely explode or catch fire. The highest risk, other than an accident, is when charging the battery. Well known EV's which are also fast charged unlike your ebike batteries, almost never catch fire. Although risk is never zero, it is very low in quality packs.

I don't know what you mean by crazy miles, you should be more specific. The best is to give full cycles.
In terms of miles ridden things can change significantly depending on how your ride. The cells that they use, which is used by all other companies like Yamaha, Specialized etc., are rated for <%20 degradation for at least 500 cycles. If you take the 50 mile per charge figure that translates into 25K miles before %20 and that is if you are constantly fully charging the battery and completely draining it. If you keep these batteries n the 20-80 range the cycle life significantly increases (tests show well over 1000 cycles). This is about the quality of the cells not about anything done by bosch.

"A lot of the lower-cost battery packs are at the end of their lives after three hard years". This is a vague statement. The argument by op is that you can build a battery with the same cells as bosch,yamaha, specialized uses for much cheaper while keeping the same quality(at least before the pandemic it was the case). I have no idea what cells were used in those cheap batteries, if lower quality cells are used they will degrade faster. You also don't know how those rented bikes are ridden. No battery will last if you let them get hot, leave them fully charged or drained all the time and I don't think people care about these things when renting a bike.

Btw I have both powerpack 400 and powerpack 500. These packs seem identical except the cells used inside. I have observed more degradation in the 400 compared to 500 after similar number of full cycles. Which is expected given the older cells were used in my 400 pack.

Things have changed in the recent years. Tesla batteries from 2017 are reported to lose %10 in 150000 miles which is a great figure. So cells are getting better, attributing the advancements in battery technology to a pack builder is not right.

 

[m@Robertson]

The fact that they keep on working and rarely explode.

Yeah but thats true of well made packs of all stripes, from reliable vendors. Sure you're putting your home's and your safety in jeopardy with your typical AliExpress/UPP battery. But thats just one small segment of the marketplace. The bottom of the barrel. Nobody here questioning the value delivered from a proprietary type battery is saying these are a remotely intelligent alternative.

But it does seem as if the argument from the name-brand side is there is nothing in between their brand and that barrel bottom. This is untrue.

Just as its unfair to ram a poker up the butt of a name brand buyer, it is similarly bogus to pretend all other batteries are unsafe. It DOES take some education in the marketplace, and knowledge of batteries and sellers. Its understandable that some don't want to take the time to go there and instead buy a brand they trust and swallow the cost. But this decision doesn't invalidate the quality alternatives.

 

[Xyeet]

The fact that they keep on working and rarely explode.

I've got a crazy number of miles on three Bosch Powerpack 500s over the last three years. In both hot and cold conditions and the batteries have often been ridden hard and put away wet, as it were. For all that they are performing at about 95% of what they were when brand-new in 2018.

A lot of the lower-cost battery packs are at the end of their lives after three hard years. I've spoken with people who rent e-bikes and they generally plan to replace the batteries every three years.

Cost is not total cost, and cheapest is rarely the least expensive.

Bosch doesn't make their own cells they just assemble the cells in to the battery pack. Everyone else who uses same cells get similar performance.

 

[RunForTheHills]

Why does it matter what features the battery has? If you want the features that the overall Bosch bike has, you have to buy into the proprietary battery. If you want an iPhone, you have to buy into the Apple ecosystem. Many people are happy with that trade off and most people understand that when they buy the bike. There are only two things to be concerned with: Will Bosch still be selling the battery in five years when I need one and can I afford it (or want to spend the money)? Or maybe you will want an excuse to buy a new bike in five years anyway and that much money is chump change to you.

I have a DIY bike that uses a generic battery from EM3EV and I just bought a Brompton Electric that uses a proprietary battery. I am comfortable with both models as I like to work on bikes and I have had a non-electric Brompton for years that I love and wanted an electric one for my wife so that we could throw them in the back of the car and not worry about racks or security.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Methinks the goalposts keep getting moved in this thread.

For me and the kind of riding I do the Bosch batteries work well and are worth the money. Ride your own ride and make your own decisions.

Also, a pet peeve about the use of "proprietary". Most people purchase the battery with the e-bike and are unlikely to be able to replace it from any other reputable source but that manufacturer. Since there are a bewildering set of possibilities with respect to voltage and connector type it can be a bit of a challenge to replace any of those no-name batteries even if they don't meet your definition of "proprietary".

I know of no battery manufacturer that open-sources their BMS so I can inspect it and possibly modify it if I have the need. There are probably damned good reasons to not do so, but it does make it difficult, absent systematic experimentation, to determine if one batteries BMS is superior to another. It probably isn't reasonable to assume that they are all the same.

What I'm saying here is that almost all of the e-bike batteries in existence are to one extent or another "proprietary".

 

[Asher]

Methinks the goalposts keep getting moved in this thread.

For me and the kind of riding I do the Bosch batteries work well and are worth the money. Ride your own ride and make your own decisions.

Also, a pet peeve about the use of "proprietary". Most people purchase the battery with the e-bike and are unlikely to be able to replace it from any other reputable source but that manufacturer. Since there are a bewildering set of possibilities with respect to voltage and connector type it can be a bit of a challenge to replace any of those no-name batteries even if they don't meet your definition of "proprietary".

I know of no battery manufacturer that open-sources their BMS so I can inspect it and possibly modify it if I have the need. There are probably damned good reasons to not do so, but it does make it difficult, absent systematic experimentation, to determine if one batteries BMS is superior to another. It probably isn't reasonable to assume that they are all the same.

What I'm saying here is that almost all of the e-bike batteries in existence are to one extent or another "proprietary".

You talk about proprietary interfaces as if they're this inevitable outcome, and we don't already have a whole analog bike industry largely built on open interfaces, which makes servicing bikes cheap and simple. Proprietary interfaces are proprietary usually because the benefits of open interfaces primarily flow to the users.

Why does it matter what features the battery has? If you want the features that the overall Bosch bike has, you have to buy into the proprietary battery. If you want an iPhone, you have to buy into the Apple ecosystem. Many people are happy with that trade off and most people understand that when they buy the bike. There are only two things to be concerned with: Will Bosch still be selling the battery in five years when I need one and can I afford it (or want to spend the money)? Or maybe you will want an excuse to buy a new bike in five years anyway and that much money is chump change to you.

The 'shut up and accept what you're given' school of thought. Thankfully antitrust law was implemented precisely in disagreement with your acquiescent approach.