3 ms·
> A salesman from the cell company comes to the maker of electric busses/trucks/LSEVs and says "resales of cells is strictly, strictly, strictly forbidden," and
by akiselev 6y ago
> A salesman from the cell company comes to the maker of electric busses/trucks/LSEVs and says "resales of cells is strictly, strictly, strictly forbidden," and that they will unleash all torts imaginable if they found out.
Because what invariably happens is the automaker rebins the cells based on their own QA and sells the crappy cells as automotive grade instead of sending back to the manufacturer. Next thing you know, Joe Hacker's total electric conversion uses all the imperfect cells in one poorly balanced battery and burns down a city block. I don't know if it has resulted in anything dramatic like that yet but most of the surplus cells I've bought on eBay that looked like they came from automotive stock were subtly out of spec, enough to be dangerous in high power/capacity configurations.
> In comparison, 18650 cells can be easily found in retail at under 125% of the wholesale price in China.
China doesn't have much in the way of consumer protections or a tort system that's as accessible to the general public as in the US/EU.
- xyzzyz 6y agoNext thing you know, Joe Hacker's total electric conversion uses all the imperfect cells in one poorly balanced battery and burns down a city block. And you think manufacturers in China give a shit if that happens?
- michaelt 6y agoI would hope auto companies buying batteries would pay attention to the number of house burned down by batteries from that supplier, yes.
- throwaway2048 6y agoIts not the auto companies restricting resale
- akiselev 6y agoNo, which is why I think they can sell them so cheap. They're largely immune to the consequences so they don't have to invest in risk mitigation which tends to be expensive.
- _ph_ 6y agoYes, if they are the well-known large manufacturers, they certainly do to an extend. But mainly it probably depends on the deal the car manufacturers are getting. Supply prices for things not priced by open markets, are a very big secret. So the manufacturers might give car factory especially good conditions, which they don't want to disrupt the market entirely. Which is fine, as long as the batteries all end up in cars, but they don't want the car manufacturers become battery sellers and disrupt the market. And coming back to safety: they batteries might be specially configured for cars, where proper packaging and electronic control can be guaranteed, but you don't want to sell these configurations to non-manufacturers.
- dooglius 6y agoIf they are knowingly reselling dangerous out-of-spec parts, shouldn't that be an issue for law enforcement?
- akiselev 6y agoUsually when a corporation is involved, criminal enforcement goes out the window. That aside, it would be an issue for regulators if they were marketing to consumers, but the "spec" in this case is usually part of the vendor contract and isn't legally binding except between the original supplier and customer. Putting up a bunch of rebinned "automotive grade" battery cells on eBay doesn't count because for many items it is assumed by default that the customer is qualified to use the equipment and raw battery cells fall squarely into that category.
- eru 6y agoYou can still do criminal enforcement against individuals working for the company.