Some time ago I bought into the whole Lithium Iron Phosphate battery solution. Although maybe I should rephrase that as problem generator. I bought four of the Ballistic LiFePO batteries, and the fancy charger. The early batteries all had manufacturing issues. They didn't work right. It took me until today--years and years to get a solution. About a month ago one of the batteries was replaced with a working unit. One of the four that I had bought originally worked. That brought me up to two working batteries. Ballistic really didn't seem to stand behind their product, but the rep for my dealer worked it out so that the store got credit for the batteries. The store then ordered a couple of the Shorai's for me as replacements. I got those today. Huge thanks to the rep, and the store for making this happen.
So how do the two batteries compare? On the Ballistic side I have the EVO2 4 cell 100-010. It retails for $109, weighs .979 pounds, has 2.3Ahrs, and 120 CCA (cold cranking amps). There are two Shorai's for the Derbi. The LFX07L2-BS12, and the LFX09L2-BS12. the 7 is listed as the standard and the 9 as the "duration" model. I went for the 9 because I just didn't want issues. Specs for the 7 are $99 retail, weighs .93 pounds, has 102 CCA (they don't list Ahrs). The 9 retails for $115, weighs 1.28 pounds, and has 135 CCA.
The Ballistic is much smaller, and a little bit lighter than the 9. It looks much sexier thanks to being black and red, has nicer brass battery posts, and just gives off the impression that it is high tech. The Shorai is shaped like a standard battery. Has the same kind of lame battery posts as a standard battery, and just looks totally boring. It's not the sort of thing that people are going to look at and think wow that looks nice. And yeah those lame style battery posts that are a pain in the ass to use.
The Ballistic employs closed cell foam for placing it in the battery compartment on the bike. They provide an over sized piece that can be cut down to fit. Works quite well, and looks cool. Shorai provides multiple layers of foam padding that is taped to the battery. You keep adding layers until you get enough to keep the battery in place. You can guess which one I think rocks, and which one is a dumb total pain in the ass.
Both batteries employ a special control connector so that when you charge them it can direct the charge to an individual cell. This is a huge benefit because you can ensure that all four cells are charged to the same level. You can also find out if a cell is going bad.
This is the Ballistic charger setup to do a four cell balance.
This is the Ballistic getting a balance.
This is the Shorai getting a balance.
Conclusion at this point. I've not yet employed the Shorai. You can tell that I actually prefer the esthetics of the Ballistic. I think the Americans just did a better job with the looks, and packaging than the Japanese. This is why I probably stopped buying Japanese bikes. I appreciate things where the design doesn't look like it was developed to hit a price point. Sure the European bikes are designed that way too, but they don't look like it.
Whenever a new technology comes around there are growing pains. It takes a while to work out the issues. I can totally cut Ballistic some slack in that direction. Clearly they figured things out, and fixed the issues. But they did something so morally apprehensible that I just cannot recommend their product--yeah even though I honestly believe they have a better product (at least with regards to looks and design), but the way they treat their customers is total bullshit. Right away they should have admitted they had a manufacturing issue, and just replaced the batteries. But they didn't--they didn't do it for years. And they made it so difficult on the dealer, the rep, and on the customer. That's just wrong.
The Shorai doesn't look as nice with regards to design. But it does look like it is a quality product. They too have had a few years to work things out so I expect that these batteries will be problem free, and I hope I never have to find out about their customer service.
Wrapping it up. Yup the Shorai is what I would suggest you check out if you are in the market for one of these hi-tech units. Now does a $115 dollar battery really succeed as all that when a $20 Yaussa can do the same job with a bit more weight? Probably not really. Which makes you wonder why Ballistic didn't support a customer that could have spent $80 buying lead acid batteries actually spent $500 getting four LiFePO batteries, and charger.
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