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Comment by oulipo | Hacker News Reader

The Infinite Battery is made to be repairable and refillable:

It's launching as a Kickstarter in September (disclaimer: I'm affiliated), and there is an offer for early-backers here https://get.gouach.com/2 for a 33% discount on the shipping price!

- refillable in 5 minutes (put new cells every 3 years, costs $48 instead of buying a new battery)

- change the electronics easily

- connected (sends data and safety alerts)

- FIREPROOF casing! there's been waaaaaay too many lithium fires!

The battery has already been produced for 1500 bikes running in shared mobility for multiple years in France!

Don't forget to register on the pre-launch if you want to have a discount on the price when we launch in September! ($330 instead of $450)

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> FIREPROOF casing!

Have you tested this, perhaps by shorting a few unprotected cells in a full pack? Have a video? :)

A lithium ion cell in thermal runaway produces a LOT of heat that must go somewhere. An aluminum case would get hot enough to start a fire, even if it doesn't catch fire itself.

I think the cells will just burn through the cast aluminum. Maybe enough if lifepo4?

No! We've managed to design the casing such that it can sustain the fire (and exhaust the fumes with vents), check our doc here https://docs.gouach.com/fireproof-casing

The casing is fireproof, but that doesn't mean the things around it are fireproof!

Of course! But at least your house doesn't burn down, the casing contains the fire and dissipates the heat, check our doc here https://docs.gouach.com/fireproof-casing

yes check this out https://docs.gouach.com/fireproof-casing

Who are the people endorsing your battery pack? Are these real people? Why did they say that in 2022 they have used the "Infinite Battery" already for a year? Your product has not launched yet.

>- FIREPROOF casing! there's been waaaaaay too many lithium fires!

How do you substantiate that claim. On your website you are claiming that Bosch packs are a fire hazard, what tests have you done which Bosch hasn't. What certifications do your Batteries have which the Bosch ones do not?

Specifically since your packs can have various types of cells, how do you make sure that different cell types and chemistries are all safe?

as we manage a lot of batteries in free floating we had fires after some batteries where massacred by users. We worked a lot on the fire issues and if you want to learn more read this: https://docs.gouach.com/fireproof-casing

> a 33% discount on the shipping price

33% of how much? Why is there no price listed anywhere? Saying there's a percentage discount but not saying how much the price will be makes it feel very scammy.

if you move on to the next step you'll see the price (330$) https://get.gouach.com/reservation

Where in France? Can one find them somewhere over here?

Edit 1 -- Tried to do the reservation using Google Pay, it didn't work. The browser blocks the popup by default. If the popup is manually allowed, it appears entirely blank.

Edit 2 -- Tried again. Google Pay did work but said "Your billing details will also be shared with the merchant", which means the CC number is sent to the merchant. Thanks but no thanks.

Thanks for the report! We’re using a third party framework for this pre order site so I’m not sure where the bug comes from I’ll report it!

hello, thanks for this. We had a lot of orders without issues. The process goes through stipe and the only information we get is the name and email adress of the paying customer. tell me if you have any problem: alex@gouach.com

If you’re finding 18650s in bulk so cheap that $48 fills the entire pack, I’d be amazed.

$48 would require some pretty large order quantities and probably low end cells.

https://www.18650batterystore.com/collections/featured-produ...

Currently that is the lowest price I can find for a cell at low quantities, that puts it at $62 to fill the pack which is not too far off. Looks like you would need a 33% discount on those cells to get to $48 which is within the realm of possibility if you purchase in large volumes.

To get a decent quality samsung cell you are looking at $118 to fill the pack. https://www.18650batterystore.com/products/samsung-30q

hello, we have selected a few tier 2 cells suppliers after many testing. One of them is DMEGC that had a much better results in terms of performance and impedance spread than Samsung or LG (based on 40k cells)

You don't mention the battery chemistry on the website. What is it?

I'm a chemical guy but that's not really a question to me.

Looks like it's supposed to be the same kind of cells as "90%" of all other ebikes.

The big difference is that the cells are not welded together like ordinary power packs are, allowing for straightforward exchange of cells individually.

Kind of a brilliant engineering design which lots of users should be able to accomplish the task using minimal tools, without having to go to a repair shop for a renewed battery.

Plus you could make sure you used only the best cells having an impeccable reputation and highest reliability.

The guy is a physics PhD, and for me it's still measurement & testing 24/7, so I would wonder what kind of test equipment he has at his disposal, or maybe has his own lab without relying on outside facilities, if any.

I'm no battery expert but that would probably give me an idea of what kind of readings I would like to see.

It would be great if we could count on a level of technical documentation far in excess of what's out there from the non-PhD-run companies.

A possible deficiency that comes to mind is the convenient, but small number of tools that are supposed to be enough for routine maintenance. If it doesn't already exist, maybe there should be a PhD-level cell checker that is affordable for the user also, to go along with the hand tools. Also a final assembly test rig would be good and that would seem to allow a layer of quality control to reach down to the user (re-)assembly process.

The "physics PhD" is also posting fake reviews on his website...

which one ?

All of them presumably. The first one claims that the customer in 2022 has had used the battery for a year already, meaning he has received it in 2021.

He specifically claims that it is the battery which is promoted on that site, which will get a Kickstarter in a few months. Obviously that can not be a genuine review.

Fake endorsements are a very common tactic on scam sites, where some snake oil is sold and you have "real people" giving extremely nice quotes about how great the product is.

Hi! Thanks for your comment!

We are a legit company, and we exist for 3 years (we even fundraised: https://www.breega.com/gouach-secures-e3-3m-seed-funding/)

The battery that we sell on the Kickstarter is our final product (the "v3" of our battery), but we had many initial clients (who came for bike electric conversion in our shop) and B2B customers on our previous prototypes, hence the reviews

We just thought we had a product which worked great now that we can open it to the general public, hence the Kickstarter: as we're still a startup, the economic model of the Kickstarter where we get the cash upfront will allow us to build a large batch of batteries for much cheaper

What's so snake oil about this? This is not claiming something impossible or outside of realm of engineering. It's just a battery case.

The cells are standard 18650 cells with according chemistry. You are supposed to supply them yourself!

(maybe not initially, but they emphasize multiple times that you can/should change the cells inside the pack every three years)

Whatever type you buy to replace the cells.

classical NMC cells. In our case DMEGC 32E

Why would they need a Kickstarter if the product already exists?

Hey! The product does exist but the financials to bring it to the market for B2C customers is a bit complicated

The kickstarter allows us to get the cash upfront to start the orders

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