[Latitude 28]

I have been in the market for new batteries for several months now.  The coach came with Interstate FLA batteries which was a mixed bag of older and new batteries from the RV dealership.  I did not really like the FLAs so that eliminated debating the FLA.  That left AGM or Lipo...running the numbers and warranties of the current offerings I came up with the following;

• Trogan Motive AGM - $650 each or $4,173, 2yr warranty
  
• Crown AGM - $710 each or $4558, 3yr replacement warranty
  
• Lifeline AGM - $668 each or $4,288 1yr replacement plus 2yr prorated
  
• Oreilly's - $396 each or $2,548 (note: these batteries are made by Deka) 1yr warranty
  
• Battle Born Lipo $979 or $5,874 for six, 10 yr warranty
  

So with that information I tossed around in my head the different manufactures and was just about to pull the trigger on the Oreillys AGMs. 

I came across this new manufacture of a 12.8, 100 AH Lipo battery that has a promotion going on for the first 350 batteries...https://fourvolt.com/products/lifepo4-battery....at $379 each or $2,274.....list price at $779.  Well that got my attention for some further investigation.  These batteries are made up of individual cells like that of BB batteries use however they are completely assembled in China with an internal BMS just like the BBs hence the cheaper price.  Knowing this and several other risks as follows;

• New company
  
• Bleeding edge manufacturing-not sure what they have done before...could have production issues to iron out.
  
• waiting on 350 units sold to start a production run....June ship date.
  
• Product support????
  

Some pluses;

• Being a new company the units are going to be built as solid as they can to be able to compete....possibly even more so in order to gain a foothold in the market.
  
• Free shipping
  
• With the promotion price point they are cheaper than Oreilys....if they crap out on me in a couple years i'd be no worse than with Oreily's 
  
• 10 yr warranty
  

Having said this, I pulled the trigger on six batteries....I may come to regret this decision but figured it was worth the risk to give lipo a try.  

The following emails are my conversation with 4 Volt;



Hi Stephen,

Thank you for your e-mail.

We recommend charging between 14.3V > 14.6V. Most standard chargers are able to provide this charge for fully recharging your battery.

It's only important to check that a lead-acid charger doesn't have a desulphating mode, and in case you should turn that off. Most GEL/AGM modes do not have this, but you should always check the documentation for the charger in question, just to make sure you are within the above mentioned voltage range.

We have recently posted an update on our homepage explaining the effect of the COVID-19 situation. For more info let me send you a direct link to our update here:

https://fourvolt.com/blogs/news/covid-19...pre-orders

To update since the above post, we have been pushed back a couple of weeks which means deliveries should start taking place during June.

We're currently waiting to close in the final pre-orders in the following 1-2 weeks (to reach the production target), then begin production, following distribution center delivery.

Once the production goes out to our distribution partner (Amazon MCF), delivery will take aprox. 2-5 days, but again - that would most likely be in June based on how things are currently looking. As soon as we are able to give a precise time-frame we will let all our customers know.

The highly discounted price is of course part of it still being pre-orders at this stage and prices are scheduled to go up soon as we move to production.

If you mistakenly made a pre-order and expected earlier delivery of your battery, I do apologize and I will be happy to cancel and refund your order immediately.

Please don't hesitate to get back in touch if you have any further questions.

Best regards,

Nicholas L.

Hi Stephen,



Thank you for your reply.



As for warranty concerns, we offer a 10 year warranty, in case of any defects you can return the battery to our distribution partner (or we will find the nearest possible alternative locally to you). We will then either replace/refund/repair depending on the issue. I can't give you an exact timeline, that would depend on the issue, but most likely we would simply replace it with a new model and figure out the defects on our end, unless there would be clearly visible damage caused by misuse.


First step would always be trying to identify and resolve the issue between us, if that fails then the above would follow. Naturally things that would be excluded would be: Damage due to improper installation, Environmental damage (exposure to extreme hot or cold temperatures, fire or freezing, or water damage), Damage caused by collision, Product that has been opened, modified or tampered with, under-sized for the application use.

I hope this gave you some more insight.



Please don't hesitate to get back in touch if you have any other questions.






Best regards,

Nicholas L.