# [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...



## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

For what it's worth, I just paid $99 apiece for that battery (US8VGC-XC) two
months ago.



> Bob Bath <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Well, you can imagine my amazement that my US8VGC batts. had
> > skyrocketed from $75 ea. or so 2.5 years ago to $130 now! WOW.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

The market high for lead was in 2007 and has declined and started to
increase over the last few months....

Check out this site and put in the dates you want.....

http://www.lme.co.uk/lead_graphs.asp

Sincerely;

Douglas Stansfield
www.StansfieldFinancial.com


-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Dave Hale
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 6:07 PM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...

For what it's worth, I just paid $99 apiece for that battery (US8VGC-XC) two
months ago.



> Bob Bath <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Well, you can imagine my amazement that my US8VGC batts. had
> > skyrocketed from $75 ea. or so 2.5 years ago to $130 now! WOW.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

The thing that I can't understand is why it spiked. It isn't like
there is some new thing causing a sudden spike in demand and we were
not and are not in a lead sortage. Why did lead get so expensive?

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Douglas A.
Stansfield<[email protected]> wrote:
> The market high for lead was in 2007 and has declined and started to
> increase over the last few months....
>
> Check out this site and put in the dates you want.....
>
> http://www.lme.co.uk/lead_graphs.asp
>
> Sincerely;
>
> Douglas Stansfield
> www.StansfieldFinancial.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Beh=
alf
> Of Dave Hale
> Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 6:07 PM
> To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
> Subject: Re: [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...
>
> For what it's worth, I just paid $99 apiece for that battery (US8VGC-XC) =
two
> months ago.
>
>


> Bob Bath <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> Well, you can imagine my amazement that my US8VGC batts. had
> >> skyrocketed from $75 ea. or so 2.5 years ago to $130 now! WOW.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Maybe a sign that the dollar is losing value.
Bill


> evan foss wrote:
> > The thing that I can't understand is why it spiked. It isn't like
> > there is some new thing causing a sudden spike in demand and we were
> > not and are not in a lead sortage. Why did lead get so expensive?
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Because they can raise the price even if there is no shortage.




> evan foss wrote:
> 
> > Why did lead get so expensive?
> 
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

What I was told by our batter supplier is that a couple years ago China
severely cut back on their lead exports since they need more of it at home. 
Our supplier then raised prices and started requiring cores or a core charge
if there were no core available.

John




> evan foss wrote:
> >
> > The thing that I can't understand is why it spiked. It isn't like
> > there is some new thing causing a sudden spike in demand and we were
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

That correlates with something I saw on a news program a couple of years
ago: apparently 8,000 additional cars were hitting the road *per week*
in Beijing alone. That's a lot of car batteries. There are similar
things going on in India and other developing nations as well. Since
2008, China's growth rate has been curtailed a bit, which may be part of
the reason prices on lead (and other commodities) are easing slightly.

--Steve



> AMPhibian wrote:
> > What I was told by our batter supplier is that a couple years ago China
> > severely cut back on their lead exports since they need more of it at home.
> > Our supplier then raised prices and started requiring cores or a core charge
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Ah that makes sense



> AMPhibian<[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > What I was told by our batter supplier is that a couple years ago China
> > severely cut back on their lead exports since they need more of it at home.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

That is an 8 volt battery with an advertised capacity of 170Ah. The 
US8BCSHC is advertised at 183Ah.

Cheers
Peter



> milo0105 wrote:
> > we need to move on to lifepo4 battery. By the way what is the voltage and
> > capacity of US8VGC batt?
> >
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <[email protected]>
To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 8:35 PM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...


> Because they can raise the price even if there is no shortage.
>
>
>


> evan foss wrote:
> >
> >> Why did lead get so expensive?
> 
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

You are also not considering the Li batteries have much more usable capacity
of their 180ah than lead does, so the equivalent cost would be even less.
John



> tomofreno wrote:
> >
> > Whoops! I'm used to comparing to 12V. The US8BCSHC is of course 8V so
> > equivalent to only about 2.5 of the Li cells which cost about $540.00, or
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> John Garbarini wrote:
> >
> >
> > What would I need to start up a battery factory in this country? Cheap
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "AMPhibian" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...


>
>
>


> > John Garbarini wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >> What would I need to start up a battery factory in this country? Cheap
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Here is a graph of lead vs batteries from producer price indexes. I have
posted it before but now it is updated (and corrected to show lead acid size
8D and smaller rather than large lead acid).

http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd106/skskarda/?action=view&current=LeadvsBattery.jpg

Many commodities (especially metal) skyrocketed in 2007. As you can see
from the graph, prices of lead are coming back down and batteries lag the
price of lead so hopefully that will come down also. Time will tell.
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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

But I found that a lot of retailers used the spike as an excuse to make
excessive profits. They kept the prices high even though the price to
them had come down. When I finally found a retailer that was not lying
anymore (I mean the others were telling me that the batteries were
costing them more than they were, I knew what the warehouse sold them to
them for ), the price dropped from 180.00 to 150.00 for exide orbitals.

> ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]>
> To: "Electric Vehicle Discussion List" <[email protected]>
> Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 8:35 PM
> Subject: Re: [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...
>
>
>> Because they can raise the price even if there is no shortage.
>>
>>
>>


> evan foss wrote:
> >>
> >>> Why did lead get so expensive?
> >
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

I know when I bought my pack of 24 US145 batteries from US battery last year I got a decent discount for being a member of the EAA. I don't remember if it was 10 or 20% but it was well worth the $40 a year membership, not to mention the great newsletter they put out. I was dealing with US battery directly. Ask your dealer for the EAA member discout and see what they say, every dollar helps and I'm sure the EAA can use new members as well.

TiM
'61 Electric Corvair Rampside
http://www.evalbum.com/656





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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> milo0105 wrote:
> > we need to move on to lifepo4 battery.
> Things take time. History shows that most new things move through
> several stages:
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Good question. I emailed them a number of times trying to get specifications
and prices. I got a few vague replies, the last one asking me how many
cells I'd need each month. When I responded that it would be a one time
order of about 30-40 cells I never heard back from them again. I guess they
are just selling so many batteries they aren't interested in another few
thousand dollars! Rather frustrating to have to get my batteries from China
when the same thing is being made 5 hours away from me. Maybe someone else
will have better luck than I did:
<ahref="http://www.internationalbattery.com/contact.php">http://www.internationalbattery.com/contact.php 
John



> Bob Rice-2 wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

> John Garbarini wrote:
> > What would I need to start up a battery factory in this country? It seems the real problem here is making sure we have ample batteries made in this country, not overseas, regardless of where they're made. Why set ourselves up for future embargos, tariffs, shortages, etc? Let's make the batteries here, in the USA!
> There are certainly lots of rules and regulations to meet. Your best bet
> might be to contact battery manufacturers, and ask their advice.
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

Automobile magazine in the 1909-1911 timeframe carried some in-depth
articles on the Edison batteries. These included some fairly detailed
descriptions and photos of how they were made. The equipment used was huge,
with multiple passes of nickel plating of thin copper sheet involved to make
the nickel "discs" required. The iron part was fairly crude, involving what
is described essentially as filling up a perforated nickel plated cage with
iron-oxide chunks (i.e. rust).
-Myles Twete

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf
Of Lee Hart
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 2:30 PM
To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List
Subject: Re: [EVDL] Skyrocketing price of lead...



> John Garbarini wrote:
> > What would I need to start up a battery factory in this country? It seems
> the real problem here is making sure we have ample batteries made in this
> country, not overseas, regardless of where they're made. Why set ourselves
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

I e-mailed them and they also responded with the question as to what kind of
volume and production program I intended to support, then added "Pricing is
around $4Ah currently. For example, our 160Ah Iron Phosphate cell currently
sells for around $425 per cell." 

(that's a direct quote, not my arithmetic)

--Dave
http://evalbum.com/2500





> AMPhibian wrote:
> >
> > I emailed them a number of times trying to get specifications and prices.
> > I got a few vague replies, the last one asking me how many cells I'd need
> ...


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## EVDL List (Jul 27, 2007)

So even including shipping from China to my door International Battery is
either 2-3 times more expensive than TS/SE, depending on the math. Oh, and
you have to have a production program in place. No thanks, I guess my
batteries will have to be well traveled for the time being.
John




> halestorm wrote:
> >
> > I e-mailed them and they also responded with the question as to what kind
> > of volume and production program I intended to support, then added
> ...


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