Kalkhoff battery replacement

[robert44]

Hello everyone,
I have not been on the forum for quite some time - my Agattu has been trouble free, so no problems, so nothing much to say.
I still enjoy a regular visit to see what,s new in the ebike world. The Bosch system gets plenty of good reports - pity about the battery price!

My battery will be 5yrs old this December and is still good for 10-20miles.
Now, I'm thinking of buying a new battery and as there seems to be a good saving in buying from abroad, my question is has anybody been down this route?

So, has anyone bought from abroad?
Does anyone know of a supplier address other than 50cycles?
Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[carpetbagger]

I haven't done it yet myself but have a look at German ebay.
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Google Translate

You now have the choice of 8/10/12/18 and 24a batteries. Just a matter of have far you want to go.
Happy hunting.

 

[Hugh]

Hi Robert,

I used this lot recently

NEU Ersatzakku 18 Ah Akku für E-Bikes wie Kalkhoff, Raleigh u.a. mit Panasonic | eBay

I got an 18Ah battery for 430 Euros, delivered (£360 in total). It came within 2 or 3 days of order. Beats £525 from 50Cycles!!
Good luck, Hugh

 

[tillson]

Presumably, there will be a guarantee with these batteries? It might be slightly more involved to sort out a claim, but it could be worth the risk.

I have corresponded directly with Derby Cycles in the past over a warranty issue and they responded very favourably.

 

[carpetbagger]

Thats absolutly superb, when i need a new battery thats where it will be coming from.......

 

[eddieo]

you can get Bosch battery for £350 on German ebay

 

[carpetbagger]

yes but it won't fit my ganny bike

 

[robert44]

Thanks for all the replies.
I have used Hugh's ebay site and placed an order - Result!

I'll let you know how the delivery goes.

Eddieo - is the £350 bosch battery the 8A size?

 

[eddieo]

Thanks for all the replies.
I have used Hugh's ebay site and placed an order - Result!

I'll let you know how the delivery goes.

Eddieo - is the £350 bosch battery the 8A size?

they are all 8Ah? 11Ah out after Christmas. its a very efficient 36 v system and gets my unfit 17 stone (lost 1!) 25 miles or so. Pulls like a train, on hills a revelation...try one

 

[robert44]

My new battery arrived today - so 8 days from placing the order. The battery was showing 3 out of 5 lights so approx 1/2 charged.
I bought the 8Ah battery and the price, incl p&p, was £170. The same battery from our only english supplier is £395!!

So, thanks again for the help - Hugh, I owe you a drink!

 

[eddieo]

worth keeping an eye on German e bay..when I first posted link on here they where under £120

 

[Hugh]

So, thanks again for the help - Hugh, I owe you a drink!

Glad it arrived OK.

I'm getting rather partial to German eBay now - I've had a 14t drive sprocket and a battery from there, and am now awaiting delivery of a Haibike EQ xDuro FS which has cost me E 2700 instead of £2879 - I know which I'd rather pay!

 

[tillson]

I bought the 8Ah battery and the price, incl p&p, was £170. The same battery from our only english supplier is £395!!

That's a staggering difference. How is the extra £225 Treasure Island premium accounted for? I know there are stock holding costs, advertising, a showroom and customer backup, but presumably the company selling the battery at £170 has to fund some of the same overheads. But £395 on Treasure Island v £170 on the incontinent, it really is taking the pi$$.

 

[flecc]

How is the extra £225 Treasure Island premium accounted for?

I'm sure this is the shop versus web buying situation, plus another factor.

On the one hand a low overheads web supplier who has a worldwide market, so seasonally less affected, and possibly selling other lines as well as e-bike stuff, reducing any seasonal effects.

On the other hand a UK based company with two staffed locations, service facilities, a collect and deliver service, a chat-online facility, appearances at British e-bike shows, and they only sell e-bike stuff in Britain so are seasonally affected. Most of their sales will be in the Spring/Summer season but they have to survive through the winter with very low income but hardly any cost reduction.

It wouldn't surprise me if the cost differences are as great as that margin difference.

Of course if we all buy everything online from overseas ebay and the like, these home based companies won't survive, there'll be no service facilities and warranty support will be problematic. Not only that, there will be even greater unemployment, a further collapse of the economy and our even more meagre incomes will mean the ebay prices will take as much of our incomes as the current higher home prices do now.

So beware, ultimately it's a trap, just like the supermarkets were when we shifted to them in an earlier era.

 

[robert44]

I'm sure this is the shop versus web buying situation, plus another factor.

On the one hand a low overheads web supplier who has a worldwide market, so seasonally less affected, and possibly selling other lines as well as e-bike stuff, reducing any seasonal effects.

On the other hand a UK based company with two staffed locations, service facilities, a collect and deliver service, a chat-online facility, appearances at British e-bike shows, and they only sell e-bike stuff in Britain so are seasonally affected. Most of their sales will be in the Spring/Summer season but they have to survive through the winter with very low income but hardly any cost reduction.

It wouldn't surprise me if the cost differences are as great as that margin difference.

Of course if we all buy everything online from overseas ebay and the like, these home based companies won't survive, there'll be no service facilities and warranty support will be problematic. Not only that, there will be even greater unemployment, a further collapse of the economy and our even more meagre incomes will mean the ebay prices will take as much of our incomes as the current higher home prices do now.

So beware, ultimately it's a trap, just like the supermarkets were when we shifted to them in an earlier era.

The German supplier was a bicycle shop called Bad Bikes and has to cope with all the same conditions as listed for a UK based company. Unlike some UK companies he does not have a national monopoly. Like some UK companies he is prepared to sell via the internet and to sell to overseas customers.

I can't really see any difference between this German shop and the UK equivalents - assuming all retailers are buying the same goods at the same price. I guess only our UK retailers know the answer to that.

Like most people on this forum, I hope the UK ebike industry prospers and would prefer to buy locally and not have to bother/risk buying from abroad.

 

[Scimitar]

Apropos of bIIgger all...

40 years ago, I was intrigued to see a regular car accessories advert in a few national car performance and tuning magazines. I happened to know of the shop the adverts came from, indeed I was a regular walk-in customer of theirs.
I wouldn't have believed the scale of the business they did mail-order, until one of the owners told me about it. It was staggering, and the bulk of their profit came from the magazine adverts.
The shop itself was just a single-fronted unit on a provincial main street, but they did all the mail-order stuff from a house up the back.
These days, you don't even need a physical presence to start a mail-order business and if you can get past the hump of buying enough to bring prices down and get into real competition with the bigger boys, you can be laughing on the way to the bank.

My point is; this is nothing new - it's all been done before, just the methods have changed slightly.

 

[flecc]

I can't really see any difference between this German shop and the UK equivalents - assuming all retailers are buying the same goods at the same price.

The difference is two-fold. The German e-bike market is huge, many time the size of the UK one, giving a strong home base with quantity sales. The online battery sales are an extra to the bike shop's main business, a perk whatever little they make per battery.

I can't defend what our retailers charge, but I do know they could not survive year round in the UK's trading conditions on these sort of narrow ebay margins.

 

[tillson]

I'm sure this is the shop versus web buying situation, plus another factor.

On the one hand a low overheads web supplier who has a worldwide market, so seasonally less affected, and possibly selling other lines as well as e-bike stuff, reducing any seasonal effects.

On the other hand a UK based company with two staffed locations, service facilities, a collect and deliver service, a chat-online facility, appearances at British e-bike shows, and they only sell e-bike stuff in Britain so are seasonally affected. Most of their sales will be in the Spring/Summer season but they have to survive through the winter with very low income but hardly any cost reduction.

It wouldn't surprise me if the cost differences are as great as that margin difference.

Of course if we all buy everything online from overseas ebay and the like, these home based companies won't survive, there'll be no service facilities and warranty support will be problematic. Not only that, there will be even greater unemployment, a further collapse of the economy and our even more meagre incomes will mean the ebay prices will take as much of our incomes as the current higher home prices do now.

So beware, ultimately it's a trap, just like the supermarkets were when we shifted to them in an earlier era.

I agree with a lot of this and I don't automatically buy on-line in order to obtain the cheapest possible price. I like going into shops and having a look at the goods before I buy and I think it's worth paying a premium to preserve a presence of goods and tangible after sales support on the high street.

However, there reaches a point where the high street premium starts to stray into the regions of greed, especially if the retailer perceives that they have a monopoly on an essential item. I think that a 132% high street premium is not only straying into the region of greed, it firmly established itself there. I find this quite infuriating because it makes customers feel ripped-off. This must ultimately play into the hands of the on-line retailer or foreign supplier, which in turn will bring all of the economic ills which you prophesies.

 

[robert44]

I've been riding an ebike for the last 5 years and still am impressed every time I use the bike. However, during that time, whenever I'm been queried about riding an ebike, often the final reaction to my enthusiasm is "How much!" - when the battery price is revealed. All interest then rapidly diminishes.

My LBS does not sell ebikes. He does not need to sell batteries to stay in business. He sells bikes,offers a repair service and sells all that goes with biking. He does not need to sell items at twice the price of the likes of big names like Wiggle. For that reason, I buy all my consumables from him although they are obviously cheaper online.
Batteries must be cheaper if ebike sales are to grow. Kudos bikes are showing what is possible with batteries and deserve success.

Now, if only batteries could be sold at cost price - a loss leader?

 

[flecc]

Batteries must be cheaper if ebike sales are to grow. Kudos bikes are showing what is possible with batteries and deserve success.

Now, if only batteries could be sold at cost price - a loss leader?

I'm not confident that e-bike sales would grow if batteries were cheaper. In the two largest European e-bike markets, the Netherlands and Germany, both are characterised by premium price sales of EU products, not low price Oriental products. Clearly it wasn't low prices that produced their large market. Nor is it in Britain. The reason e-bikes do so poorly in Britain is the same as that for ordinary bikes, most of the British just won't cycle and these days often won't even let their kids cycle for safety reasons. The outcome of the latter over recent decades is a mature generation who have never learnt to ride a bike and have no intention of trying now. The car is king here.

Kudos are in a unique position, backed by a large company with more than adequate finance to live through quiet winters and a period of hoped for market growth. Most of our small e-bike companies just don't have that luxury and have to make enough in the season to limp them through each winter, that or fold. And the simple proof is the large number of e-bike firms who have already tried to sell at lower prices over the last decade and now no longer exist, the list of names is long. Unless or until the British take to cycling and e-biking in a much bigger way, we won't get many low prices.

Batteries as a loss leader sounds good, but for most firms not on for the same reason of their tiny market. Loss leaders can only be sustained if there are enough e-bike sales for a company to afford such luxuries. Even that market leader Wisper tried it once and had to stop. On indications that batteries would fall in price within two years they took the brave decision to drop the price in advance and hold at what must have been cost until the two years were up. But the prices from manufacturers didn't drop and the exchange rates became less favourable, so Wisper had to give up and return to adequate margins. They keep batteries for all the many models they have ever sold, and that is a very costly business. They couldn't possibly give that service on the same margin as opportunist ebay retailer sell at.

As I said above, I can't defend individual prices, but I insist that expecting ebay type prices from our suppliers whose costs are far higher and circumstances very different is totally unrealistic.