[SOLVED] Begode selling Master "LiTech" packs: we have a problem

[supercurio]

12 minutes ago, Sandra said:

Guys, we want to clarify some points that were made. 

Begode, never sold or promised us the batteries specially designed for EWheels NA. We also never took deposits for Masters with such types of batteries. 

All of the clients that reached us received the same information we received from Begode - the materials will be provided by Begode, and Litech will do the assembly. We personally do not believe this extra cost is necessary, but most of our clients still prefer the Litech assembly over the Begode.

Good clarification.

Regardless of the outcome and pending more details, I may suggest modifying the web listing so it reflects the expectation of "LiTech assembly" instead of the current "by Litech"

Even if some customers learned it's only the assembly by asking you directly, it is likely that a fair amount of your "LiTech" orders assumed that the pack was all 100% LiTech's design, which might explain it represent the majority of your orders despite the unclear benefits it would bring if only assembled by LiTech. What do you think?

Current presentation: simple but very sparse in details, leaves room over-optimistic assumptions:

 

Edited May 19, 2022 by supercurio

[.....]

It sounds to me like Begode is run by ex-usa politicians.

[UniBlab]

28 minutes ago, ShanesPlanet said:

It sounds to me like Begode is run by ex-usa politicians.

If that's the case I'm canceling my order!

[Paul A]

BG low quality requires LiTech packs and BMS, for customers to have enough confidence to purchase.

Other manufacturers not needing to do the same.

 

[Tawpie]

17 minutes ago, Paul A said:

BG low quality requires LiTech packs and BMS, for customers to have enough confidence to purchase.

Personally, I wouldn't go quite that far .

True, there is a lot of room for BG to improve and I for one hope they continue to see the light—but perhaps inattention to detail is a penalty worth paying to get the craziest performing wheel money can buy. I watched RogerH's Master road trip video yesterday. In many ways and without using words to praise the Master it totally explains why BG has such a loyal following. In spite of everything.

[alcatraz]

Has there been an official statement on the LG 900Wh pack fires? If so, then maybe Begode has made updates to avoid it from happening. 

[Rawnei]

4 minutes ago, alcatraz said:

Has there been an official statement on the LG 900Wh pack fires? If so, then maybe Begode has made updates to avoid it from happening. 

Begode doesn't make official statements about anything other than new models.

[meepmeepmayer]

So they are selling LiTech assembled packs to non-ewheels dealers, while people buying them expect a better LiTech BMS. A bit scummy and deceptive - both by BG and the dealers (do people pay hundreds extra just for someone else to do a few spot welds!?).

Also, does LiTech know about this, and are they even assembling packs with the Begode BMS? Because I still don't see how having two quality levels would be a good idea for the "LiTech pack" reputation. Is this Begode trying to force the situation and have LiTech break their ewheels exclusivity? Just an attempt at deception without LiTech's involvement?

[supercurio]

At the moment, American YouTubers are looking into this story - although with a lot of skepticism.
Fair enough it is pretty unbelievable story.

Let's see what comes out in videos soon. I'm guessing that since some work closely with eWheels, they should be able to confirm the status of things fairly easily.

[Paul A]

Maybe contact LiTech with the queries.

 

https://www.litechpower.com/contact/

China Factories Address:

Factory Dongguan:
4F, Bldg B, RuiXin HengYe Industrial Park, TaiXing Rd # 18A, ShiGu District, TangXia Town, DongGuan, China. 523710

Factory ShenZhen 1:
3F, Bldg 3, Fulian Industrial Park, Heping Industrial area, Jianhui Rd, Longhua, ShenZhen, China. 518000

Factory ShenZhen 2:
Block 9-10, BaoShan # 4 Industrial Park, PingShan New District, ShenZhen, China.

Tel:  +86 769 8203 3052                  Email: info@LiTechPower.com

[supercurio]

@Paul A I'm expecting a little bit of a delay before a public statement would be put out.
Everyone involved would need to agree and feel confident enough that it is the right choice at that point.

I think LiTech is geared for B2B but not to handle public requests especially in volume, I would suggest being gentle or avoiding additional queries.
Everything is in motion at the moment already IMO.

Edited May 20, 2022 by supercurio

[techyiam]

59 minutes ago, meepmeepmayer said:

Just an attempt at deception without LiTech's involvement?

If this proves to be true, this can be the last straw that broke the camel's back.

Some perspective here.

Paying extra for safety is already a bitter pill to swallow. But this is the world of euc's, where your well being and limbs kind of depend on it. So you would reluctantly pay for it. Can you imagine at a later date the customer discovers that he has been duped.

This action would be an unscrupulous act that borderlines on a malicious one because it relates to lithium ion batteries that can cause ferocious fires.

We have a back drop of a string of Gotway/Begode euc fires. People become really concern for their safety. Gotway change their name to Begode. Then, they pull an underhanded stunt like this, and stab the safety conscious riders in the back. Come on, what kind of people can do that?

And there are people who would only buy a Begode wheel if it has the LiTech battery packs. So Begode turn around and give him a wheel with a battery pack that has a fake LiTech label only, not the actual pack itself. Wow.

Especially now, Kingsong and Inmotion have started putting out performance wheels. Begode is no longer the only game in town.

Personally, I find it hard to believe. But, like the saying goes, never say never

Edited May 20, 2022 by techyiam

[Dreygun]

Begode might need to change their brand name again 🤔...

[FunTech4Real]

I read every post... my thoughts.....

The replies from the two distributors are terrible:

• There is NO CHANCE that anyone would assume that the options listed on their sites (and AlienRides.com which I looked at myself prior to reading this thread) for the litech packs are actually the exact same components just put together in a different location. Their listing makes no such mention and its an outrageous markup no one would want. EVERYONE who has heard of litech packs has heard of them for ewheels, and they are packs made by litech. SCREW YOU dealers who are saying everything is cool. Your listings are wildly misleading!! I DARE YOU TO PUT ON YOUR LISTING "litech packs are 100% identical, they are just assembled in a different place" - NO WOULD WOULD BUY THAT SHIT.
• The dealer responses basically ignore the very well presented evidence from this thread .. .the dealers are basically saying "well we trust begode" - this is ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGEOUS! I'm glad I will never do business with the two distributors who replied because I'm in North America. Why the hell would anyone trust begode? The crap that Gotway/Begode/Extgreme Bull has done in the past gives no one a reason to trust them. HOW THE HELL DOES YOUR REPLY NOT INCLUDE "we are contacting litech ourselves to see what is going on" ???

 

Sorry... I'm angry... I hate people who won't be straight with you. @supercurio I appreciate your calm replies to the dealers stating the obvious in a much nicer way than I just did... but someone has to tell it like is, I'll take care of it this time 🤙

Edited May 21, 2022 by sevin7

[FunTech4Real]

@supercurio Can you please tell us how you were able to talk to the CEO of a company? You can't just google "phone number for CEO" and make a call... If you can provide details of how you accomplished this it would help satisfy any lingering suspicions that many of have

[supercurio]

@sevin7 yes good point.

I've been talking with Jason at eWheels a few months ago about how to get Smart BMS functionality into Begode wheels as well as effective communication between BMS and mainboard to communicate, without having to add CANBUS or even firmware support on the mainboard.

With the launch of the Master and after some more feasibility research, I got renewed interest and decided to get in touch with LiTech directly as well with the same goal.

After describing my project and connections to a couple sales rep on their Alibaba store, they shared LiTech's CEO's contacts, introduced me and he actually called me right away.

We kept emailing since, usually with Jason at eWheels in the loop about how to make Smart BMS functionality happen, but then the focus shifted on getting the basics first, which is for eWheels as top priority a redundant pack configuration, using all the bandwidth, favors and attention both eWheels and LiTech can get from Begode including hardware changes, on-site testing etc.

Then when my friend Raphaël from Bonheur sur Seine asked "what's the difference between [...]" to be accurate in his incoming Master review, we both started asking more questions, and couldn't believe the answers. I mean now we figured it all out and the whole chain of events and motives make sense, but we were both stunned, and asked again questions in all sort of ways to make sure it wasn't a misunderstanding.

Edited May 21, 2022 by supercurio

[supercurio]

I expect that today you will start to hear from some distributors, confirming that Begode will not make Master with "LiTech assembled" battery packs.

Probably with a spin on it with who's to blame, the result for everybody who ordered a "LiTech" upgrade will be the same.

Now, thinking ahead and that would require some work: if the demand is big enough and European/worldwide distributors would like to work together, I think there is a way to get Begode wheels with LiTech packs everywhere.

Ask your dealer again about it today!

Edited May 24, 2022 by supercurio

[Meserias]

thats exactly the moment when many of us will switch our Master per-orders to S22....

[tk463]

Damn, I was expecting something else I guess. The master's HT motor pulled me away from the S22 but I can't afford my place burning down because of a crappy battery solder. I guess I'm back on track for an S22 then.

[Wolverine]

The more you dig in, the more exciting it becomes:

 

[Freeforester]

From another perspective:

So far, it is my understanding that the Master’s battery packs have to date been 34 volt packs or thereabouts, and are not the same item as the earlier 100v 900Wh ‘suspect’ pre July 2021 battery packs;

there is (as far as I am aware) no evidence anywhere yet of either BMS failure nor battery fire in Master battery packs;

if I’m not mistaken, the earlier ‘suspect’ 100v 900Wh packs were superseded by what has been generally accepted in the meantime as ‘improved’ packs in August 2021; I may well be out of touch,  but I’m not aware of there being any inherent propensity of such ‘improved’ packs to be any greater fire hazard than any other EUC manufacturers’ offerings (wasn’t there other EUC makes in the meantime that burned?)

Despite the clamour surrounding the ‘inherent dangers’ of the parallel battery configuration as used in the Master, I’ve not as yet heard of a failure attributed to said design (again, apologies if I’ve somehow missed a lot of bad news). I have heard of Adam’s recent possibly firmware-related misadventure on an Inmotion V12 HT, which Denis Hagov also mentioned but felt would be rectifiable in fairly short order by an update, and so was pretty relaxed about; this again is completely unrelated to Begode, LiTech, North American exclusivity deals versus rest of world supply agreements etc. 

I’m not for a moment looking to suggest that there is not some lack of clarity concerning the Battery pack origins and supplies to be offered in North America, nor is it my intention to somehow denigrate the concerns raised above, I’m just wanting to provide a little context with which to inform riders around the rest of the globe. Feel free to correct me on any of the above, I’m just a casual rider, still riding an unmodified ‘ticking time-bomb’ pre-July 21 MSP HS among other things. As such, feel free to judge too!

[supercurio]

3 hours ago, Wolverine said:

The more you dig in, the more exciting it becomes:

 

Yes as anticipated, it's everybody else's fault.

On how credible is Begode's story, you can verify it for yourself with public information, starting with "begode has received only a small proportion of orders from Litech battery pack"
Given MyEWheel @Sandra statement in this thread

On 5/20/2022 at 1:28 AM, Sandra said:

We personally do not believe this extra cost is necessary, but most of our clients still prefer the Litech assembly over the Begode.

And the fact that @Afeez Kay e-RIDES only offered the former "LiTech assembled" variant to buy on his website.
Trying to save face I guess.. anyway the result is the same.

@Alien Rides is the first distributor I'm aware of to inform their customers 👍
Note that as US distributor, there was no chance from the beginning they would have the ability to ship LiTech packs since eWheels has a regional exclusivity.
Their website is also updated.

@Sandra and @Afeez Kay I'm sure you will have a statement soon as well.
Know that there is an effort ongoing to keep offering (actual) LiTech equipped wheels ongoing, via an alliance of European distributors. It's early stage but if your customers really want that, I think it is feasible.

Edited May 25, 2022 by supercurio

[Chriull]

1 hour ago, Freeforester said:

there is (as far as I am aware) no evidence anywhere yet of either BMS failure nor battery fire in Master battery packs;

?Noone? knows if something changed and if, if something substantial changed.

It's also not really clear imho what exactly caused the fires - be it cells, nickel strips, welding, missing q&a or whatever.

Just some fires were caused from batteries getting wet/humid, some batteries were not from begode but third parties.

The only official publishing from begode was the famous battery guide - to always charge outside and buy a new battery every ?6/12? month...

1 hour ago, Freeforester said:

wasn’t there other EUC makes in the meantime that burned?)

Every li ion cell is dangerous as they are (mis)used with eucs. Overburden and mechanical stress is not really wanted.

Still accumulations of fires without any proper response is not building up trust.

[supercurio]

It was not necessarily publicized, but there was multiple DOA battery packs (didn't work or wouldn't charge) for those who got their Master air-shipped.
For customers who order from a shop who checks everything before shipping to them that's no big deal, but if your wheel is drop-shipped it's more annoying.
At least, packs are very easy to swap which is a benefit of this design.

At least that's an indication that there were some Master Begode BMS failures already.

[Paul A]

Gotway should be checking everything before shipping.

Seems a bit strange that air freight could cause multiple DOA battery packs.

If Gotway had checked, and air freight has indeed caused DOA battery packs, that is even more concerning.