I'd be concerned about buying a $1,300 battery-powered skateboard without the ability to replace the battery.
I'm not exactly sure how much it costs them to produce the battery, but it looks like single cells of similar LiFePO4 batteries are about $20/ea. With 12 of them, that's $240. Add maybe $50 for the BMS and $10 for the enclosure, and the whole battery pack is maybe $300?
It'd be a shame to have to replace an entire $1,300 skateboard after a few years when your battery capacity is reduced, when all you needed was a $300 battery pack. Hopefully "non-swappable" means something besides "non-replaceable".
I can't speak for them, but I'm one of the beta testers and am under the impression you'll be able to send in the board for battery replacement when it finally dies. It's just not user serviceable at all.
Alright, so what life time can one expect as a customer? And economically speaking, how expensive will a battery swap be?
The whole reason I'm asking is this 20 year old skateboard I have down the hallway, which is working flawlessly with every single component easily swappable :-/
They are using A123 (or rather B456 now) cells. You can tell this pretty easily by doing a google image search for "a123 cylindrical cells" and comparing the pictures in the blog post.
Also, a cool thing about skateboard is how components (board, grip, truck wheels) get swapped out as the wear out. Each component gets to live out its entire useful life (and then sometimes gets a second life as a spare). The transition between one skateboard and another can be completely gradual. One piece at a time until nothing is left.
User serviceable is a part of the culture. It would be nice if that could survive.
I'm not exactly sure how much it costs them to produce the battery, but it looks like single cells of similar LiFePO4 batteries are about $20/ea. With 12 of them, that's $240. Add maybe $50 for the BMS and $10 for the enclosure, and the whole battery pack is maybe $300?
It'd be a shame to have to replace an entire $1,300 skateboard after a few years when your battery capacity is reduced, when all you needed was a $300 battery pack. Hopefully "non-swappable" means something besides "non-replaceable".