On 3 Jan 2019 at 13:18, Willie via EV wrote: > Valence salvage batteries
I vaguley recall reading -- and I might be remembering wrong -- that when Valence went belly-up maybe 8-10 years ago, they dumped a huge load of batteries in various states of charge and condition behind their warehouse, on the loading dock. I wonder how many non-Valence employees helped themselves to those batteries, how many of them were still in usable condition, and whether the batteries you're seeing on Ebay came from that pile (if indeed it really happened that way). Valence Mark I hit the scene with the U-Charge batteries (I think then called K-Charge) around 2003, and there was a lot of discussion of them for a couple of years, including here on the EVDL. Valence batteries were, if memory serves, LiFePO4. The big sales point, other than the fact that they were a direct marine battery replacement, was their relative safety. Initially they were manufactured in Ireland, and later in China. They were drop in replacements for marine batteries, and even used a lead battery charger. The BMS was built into each module. They made some small waves in the hobbyist EV arena. Valence donated a bunch of them to Tour de Sol teams. A few Solectria Force owners installed them in place of their lead gel batteries and seemed to be satisfied. They could be run in series strings of up to 28, IIRC. But the hobbyist reaction was fairly muted because they were hopelessly expensive. In 2003 or so, Valence sales people were quoting $1450 per kWh in hobbyist quantities. In 2005, a single group 24 12v 100ah Valence U- Charge battery cost something like $1600, which was still over $1300 per kWh. THey also made a 40ah U1 (wheelchair) size at $650 and a 130ah group 27 size at $1900. Maybe other sizes too; I don't know. IIRC, this was also the era when Thundersky was starting to sell to hobbyists, at a much lower price. David Roden - Akron, Ohio, USA EVDL Administrator = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = EVDL Information: http://www.evdl.org/help/ = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = Note: mail sent to "evpost" and "etpost" addresses will not reach me. To send a private message, please obtain my email address from the webpage http://www.evdl.org/help/ . = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org Please discuss EV drag racing at NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
