Panasonic Battery Issues

[andyh2]

Dont suppose it'll make you feel any better Tillson, but you're not alone. Just done the diagnostic on my replacement battery and it's at 80%. 1st one lasted 440 miles and 3 1/2 months, second one 230 miles and 2 1/2 months. I was feeling quite sanguine about it as I'd just ordered a second battery to extend range. So I thought I'd not be off the road, but Scott has asked for charger back as well . Makes sense though as it's such an unusual occurrence.

I'm keeping my chin up with the thought that it does seem to be a rare happening, as of course there's all those other Panasonic system bikes, as well as the Kalkhoff, and I'm sure if there was a generic problem it would be showing up across other makes too.

 

[tillson]

Well I'm off to 50C tomorrow to pick up battery number 3. They were very obliging and offered a replacement, again without hesitation. They also reiterated that out of the vast number sold globally and in the UK, the problems reported were minimal.

I must just be really really really unlucky. I just hope I'm not really really really really unlucky.

Edit

Has someone changed the title of the thread? I am sure that it was called More Agattu Batery Problems. Perhaps if the name is to change, "Panasonic Battery Problems" might be more appropriate?

 

[flecc]

Yes, it has been changed, presumably because of a representation made on the grounds that it was unfair to have such a specific criticism of one model from one brand.

I agree that the term Panasonic would have been better since the same battery is common to no less than 10 makes now.
.

 

[tillson]

Well I’m back on the road again less than 24 hours after informing 50C of the problems that I have been experiencing. It is a little frustrating, but these things happen from time to time and I think that I have just been a little unlucky with this bike. Hopefully it has been remedied this time.

I think that it is important to put this problem into context for the benefit of anyone dropping across this thread without knowing the background to it. 50 Cycles tell me that they have sold well over a thousand bikes with this type of battery fitted. They have had to return six batteries or less than 0.5% of the total amount sold. Based on these statistics, I am reassured. Coincidently, the batteries arrive in a box of six, so hopefully it was just a bad box of batteries and they have all been identified now.

I think that it is also fair to point out that this seemingly very small problem is not exclusively a Kalkhoff or 50 C thing. The problem that I have experienced relates only to the Panasonic battery and this is used by other manufacturers. 50C say that Panasonic are experiencing negligible battery returns in terms of total global sales and are demonstrating their confidence with the 2 year guarantee which is still one of the best available.

As far as the bike is concerned, I think that it is an excellent product.

Without wishing to sound too gushing and credit being due et cetera, I would like to say that 50 Cycles response to this battery problem has been absolutely first class. They have without exception, taken responsibility for the problem and sorted it out with the minimum disruption to me. If the best time to make an assessment of customer service is at times of trouble, then as far as I am concerned 50 Cycles deserve much credit.

Thanks Chaps!

 

[bogmonster]

50 Cycles tell me that they have sold well over a thousand bikes with this type of battery fitted. They have had to return six batteries or less than 0.5% of the total amount sold.

Hi,

I'm pleased that 50 Cycles have got you sorted and hope that you will have good success with the new battery. I think there must be about 6 people on this furum who have returned batteries. Given that stated failure rate, you are a have odds a little under 28000 to 1 to get 2 duds in a row if my school maths serves me correctly. I should buy a lottery ticket this weekend.

Worst case, if the batteries are unreliable and you get replacments under warranty for the first 2 years its not so bad. After 2 years, if you need to buy a replacment does that also come with a 2 year warranty? If the warranties continue to be honoured and in a worse case scenario you would then only need to buy a battery every 2 years and that is the life of most batteries anyways.

Given the faiure rate you are experiencing that would be a new battery every 3 weeks for me

Cheers, BM.

 

[styx]

Agattu problems

Hi everybody
I am also only getting four lights on the battery diagnostic.Although I have had the bike about four months now it has only done about 100 miles due to the problems I had in the first few months.I won't go into the full saga of the problems with the bike and getting them rectified but it ended up with my requesting a refund as I was not happy with the bike or the service,two members of staff there agreed with this and the bike was packed up and returned.I rang a few days later and was told the bike had been inspected and was unmarked and in a saleable condition, it was all sorted out and I would receive a cheque in a few days time.I waited nearly two weeks but heard nothing so I phoned to enquire what was happening,it turned out that they had changed their mind and decided I would not now get a refund but they had not bothered to tell me.So they now had my money and the bike!.When I complained I was told I was being paranoid and would have to accept the bike back.In fairness I must say that in the main the people I dealt with were polite, and judging by lots of other messages I have read everyone else seems delighted with their agattus and the excellent service they have received from 50cycles.So as I am probably in a minority of one my experience should perhaps be considered a mere glitch in an otherwise exemplary service.So I shall try to sort out my battery and live in harmony with my Agattu.
Regards
Styx

 

[tillson]

Hello Styx.

Just out of curiosity, have you posted something about your battery on the 50cycles forum? There was a short thread running on there about a battery but the thread has either been removed or I am being a dumbo. I can't find it anymore and I can't remember the name of the originator. Was it you?

 

[wotwozere]

Hi

I cannot believe this today, I lost my wheel cap and 50cycles sent me one out yesterday and it was in today.

Sound like a funny story stylx do not quite understand what you mean, I am sure you will enjoy your bike but it is not a mountain bike.

thx

Bob

 

[styx]

Hi

I cannot believe this today, I lost my wheel cap and 50cycles sent me one out yesterday and it was in today.

Sound like a funny story stylx do not quite understand what you mean, I am sure you will enjoy your bike but it is not a mountain bike.

thx

Bob

Hi wotwozere. I don't really know what you mean by a funny story or by your reference to a mountain bike!! what's that all about.And what's the connection with your wheel cap?.

Hi Tillson. No I have never posted on the 50cycles forum and this is the first problem I have had with the battery.I was making the point that the bike had only done about 100 miles because of the problems I outlined and this seemed very early to be having problems with the battery.
styx

 

[wotwozere]

styx styx is offline
Junior Member

Posts: 3
Default Agattu throttle
As I live in a rural area there are plenty of shortcuts linking various roads but although they were ok on my mountain bike they are too rough to ride an Agattu along.

Bob

Hi Bob

This is what I meant by mountain bikes and the cap where me pump goes went missing young kids down bargain booze i think on the estate up the road.

Sounded like a funny a story that you sent a bike back.



thx

Bob

 

[styx]

Hi Bob

This is what I meant by mountain bikes and the cap where me pump goes went missing young kids down bargain booze i think on the estate up the road.

Sounded like a funny a story that you sent a bike back.



thx

Bob

Hi wotwozere
I thought it was quite clear from my post that I WOULD NOT attempt to ride the agattu along rough tracks and if I do use them I walk and push!!.Which was why I was enquiring about a throttle I had seen mentioned somewhere which operates only at walking pace.As for returning the bike I think the reasons were also made clear in my post.
styx

 

[frank9755]

Definately buy that lottery ticket!

Hi,
I'm pleased that 50 Cycles have got you sorted and hope that you will have good success with the new battery. I think there must be about 6 people on this furum who have returned batteries. Given that stated failure rate, you are a have odds a little under 28000 to 1 to get 2 duds in a row if my school maths serves me correctly. I should buy a lottery ticket this weekend.

I don't think your maths is that far our, BM. I heard that 1500 Kalkhoffs had been sold, and if there are only 6 defective batteries out of that lot, there could only be 5 chances in 15,000 of Tillson getting a failure the second time round (as he'd already had one of them), which gives chance in 75,000.

That means that if 50 Cycles keep trading at this rate you would not expect another customer to get two dud batteries until the year 2059. Tillson, if you get a third dud then you would have grounds for believing that you have been chosen for greater things, as there is only 1 chance in 2.8 million of that happening, given there are only six duds, and other 50 Cycles customers could rest assured that you had used up the bad luck as you would not expect it to occur again for 18,750 years. That's assuming there have just been the 6 duds, that is...!

 

[flecc]

But if the duds were sent out again as replacements, the maths would go haywire.

Stranger things have happened.
.

 

[PED-AL]

It would be interesting to know if the serial numbers of the faulty batteries are concecutive or random.
If they are consecutive the people with the numbers next to the faulty ones could keep a close check on their batteries and the others probably need not worry so much.
If they are random single batteries then the odds have been posted by others ?? - Allan

 

[Mussels]

But if the duds were sent out again as replacements, the maths would go haywire.

Stranger things have happened.
.

Not an uncommon thing in computer retailing, won't believe there is a fault until it's returned 3 times.

 

[flecc]

Not an uncommon thing in computer retailing, won't believe there is a fault until it's returned 3 times.

Straight back into stock is common too in computer and electronics components, eventually the dud can go to someone who can't be bothered to return it, so the policy can pay.
.

 

[tillson]

It would be interesting to know if the serial numbers of the faulty batteries are consecutive or random.
If they are consecutive the people with the numbers next to the faulty ones could keep a close check on their batteries and the others probably need not worry so much.
If they are random single batteries then the odds have been posted by others ?? - Allan

There is a manufacturing batch code on the battery. My two faulty batteries were from different batches, so the long odds apply.

Hi,
Given that stated failure rate, you are a have odds a little under 28000 to 1 to get 2 duds in a row if my school maths serves me correctly. I should buy a lottery ticket this weekend.

I did buy a lottery ticket last Saturday as you suggested and this was the first one for many years.

I lost. Is this a good or a bad thing?

ps You owe me a quid for giving me bad advice

 

[frank9755]

Just playing around with statistics a bit more (and assuming of course that the seller was not the sort of company which would return the duds to stock!) if a company sold 1500 batteries in a year, I make it that you would expect to see one customer getting a dud first time followed by a dud replacement (ie Tillson's experience), once a year if 39 out of the 1500 were found by customers to be duds. That would be a dud rate of 2.6%.

To be honest, that's probably not too bad a failure rate, and shouldn't, in itself, put people off buying a Kalkhoff. But if Tillson get's a third dud, or more examples emerge of people getting two duds, the failure rate would climb.

 

[tillson]

Just playing around with statistics a bit more (and assuming of course that the seller was not the sort of company which would return the duds to stock!) if a company sold 1500 batteries in a year, I make it that you would expect to see one customer getting a dud first time followed by a dud replacement (ie Tillson's experience), once a year if 39 out of the 1500 were found by customers to be duds. That would be a dud rate of 2.6%.

50C have returned the failed batteries to Panasonic for more in depth testing and have promised to let me know the outcome, so I don't think there is any likelyhood of them finding their way back into the system. I will be very interested to know what has been discovered by Panasonic.

Also, the guarantee is given by Panasonic, so I don't think there would be much in incentive for a supplyer to feed duds back into the supply chain. That would only increase the number of reported failures, which wouldn't do them much good.

My first battery worked perfectly throughout the summer and it was only when the cold weather arrived that it started to develop problems. The second battery only lasted four weeks and was used daily, quite often in sub-zero temperatures.

Just speculating on the above, will it stress a battery more (to the point where it could cause damage) to deliver X Amps at say -3 deg. C than at +15 deg .C for example? I’m just thinking that I have some pretty long steep climbs on my route to work and the motor will be drawing a higher current for longish periods in very cold conditions.

On my return home, I charge the battery in a heated garage (+15) and give it 5 hours to acclimatise before turning on the charger (5 hours on a timer which is a long enough charge to put all the lights out on the battery). I then leave it for two hours before using the battery. Has anyone thoughts on this charging regime? Is it good / bad / doesn’t really matter? I am looking for anything that may have exacerbated my battery difficulties.

 

[flecc]

Also, the guarantee is given by Panasonic, so I don't think there would be much in incentive for a supplyer to feed duds back into the supply chain. That would only increase the number of reported failures, which wouldn't do them much good.

I didn't suspect it with this make since both Kalkhoff and Panasonic would very much want to know about any failures.

Just speculating on the above, will it stress a battery more (to the point where it could cause damage) to deliver X Amps at say -3 deg. C than at +15 deg .C for example? I’m just thinking that I have some pretty long steep climbs on my route to work and the motor will be drawing a higher current for longish periods in very cold conditions.

No, it wouldn't stress it more, the cold just limiting the amount of current producing chemical reaction reducing the available power, so the stress level would be the same or possibly lower.

On my return home, I charge the battery in a heated garage (+15) and give it 5 hours to acclimatise before turning on the charger (5 hours on a timer which is a long enough charge to put all the lights out on the battery). I then leave it for two hours before using the battery. Has anyone thoughts on this charging regime? Is it good / bad / doesn’t really matter? I am looking for anything that may have exacerbated my battery difficulties.

Certainly that's not bad, and allowing the battery to warm up from a very low temperature before charging is good practice to attain a full charge. However, you don't need to wait to use it after charging, and it could be minutely beneficial to use it immediately, though the gain isn't worth you planning to do that.
.