T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] New member, new electric & solar powered motorboat

Monday, March 18, 2013

Re: [Electric Boats] New member, new electric & solar powered motorboat

This is not a US vs EU price disparity. This is a made only for Marine use vs General use battery price difference. If you priced US Marine Batteries suppliers you would get the same high prices. Balqon sell general use batteries, Mastervolt purpose made there very nice Marine barratries.

When there is a clear difference between the Marine version and the land version (paints, cables) I pay the Marine markup. With the Lithium batteries the price difference between Marine and General use was to much for me and I went general use batteries. But that was a personal decision.

Mastervolt is a good company and they will not only sell you the battery but a whole marine system. Make sure you know what all is include in both batteries quotes. I had a good experience with Balqon, so I am a satisfied customer, But there maybe good reasons to pay the markup for the Mastervolt cells. Insurance reasons system integration simplicity....etc....etc......

I am sure you can source some general use LiFePo Winston cells in the EU for similar prices to Balqon if you looked. Finding a Warranty and built in BMS could be another matter.

Again good luck!

On Mar 18, 2013, at 8:32 AM, Yme Bosma wrote:

That's not a WOW if you live here. I've asked Balqon whether they will ship their batteries to Europe, but I don't really understand why their is such a huge price difference betweet US and Europe battery brands.

--- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "cire" <cirejay@...> wrote:
>
> So, You were quoting plus VAT? WOW
>
> Eric SV Meander
>
> --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Yme Bosma" <mail@> wrote:
> >
> > Unfortunately not, I have to add another 21%...
> >
> > --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "cire" <cirejay@> wrote:
> > >
> > > Do the eur prices include VAT?
> > >
> > > eric SV Meander
> > >
> > > --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Yme Bosma" <mail@> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > I now see I miscalculated the Mastervolt vs Balqon offering. The Balqon's are indeed about 40% of the Mastervolt price. That's quite a difference... Now let's see how much they cost when delivered to Europe...
> > > >
> > > > --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Eric" <ewdysar@> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > I think that the most comparable offering that Balqon has to the Mastervolt batteries that you are considering is the Balqon 20kWh (48V 400Ah) forklift battery with BMS for $7950 US. That works out to $400 per kWh. This is very similar to what I paid in 2009 when I bought 8kWh for $3100 including BMS modules. So we can see that in 4 years, the price of LiFePO4 cells has remained fairly stable. For those of you that are waiting for lithium batteries to get significantly cheaper, you may be waiting a long time.
> > > > >
> > > > > I use this pricing when providing estimates to friends. I know that some people have been able to score better deals from business liquidations or limited time pricing, but the rest of us should be able to buy lithium at $400 to $500 per kWh fairly consistently.
> > > > >
> > > > > Fair winds,
> > > > > Eric
> > > > > 1964 Bermuda 30 ketch, 5.5kW Propulsion Marine drive, 8kWh lithium batteries
> > > > > Marina del Rey, CA
> > > > >
> > > > > --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, "Yme Bosma" <mail@> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Yes, they have a 48v combined charger/inverter and their batteries can be used in a 48v setup (like mine as well).
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The Balqon product (even without BMS) is similarly priced to the Mastervolt batteries however ($1000 per kWh), so I don't really understand how you were able to get to $270?
> > > > > >
> > > > > > --- In electricboats@yahoogroups.com, James Sizemore <james@> wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > I ordered my cells from Balqon. I bought 16 cells and built my bank from scratch that was before they sold them in a complete packages, if I where ordering them today I would buy four of these:
> > > > > > > http://www.balqon.com/store.php#!/~/product/category=3262346&id=13216609
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Mastervolt is a very good company I looked into there batteries systems, at the time they only had 24 volt systems. (Do they yet have a 48 volt charger/inverter?) My Electric Yacht motors needed 48 volts. They are extra pricey in the US with the current exchange rate. So they priced themselves out of my budget.
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