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EScooter with swappable battery? $500-$750
(midwest.social)
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this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2026
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Buy it for Life
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So, with a small personal electric vehicle like this, a very large portion of the overall value will be in the battery, and the batteries don't last for life. They are wonderful investments, but just know that your looking at around 50% of the cost of the vehicle to replace the battery every 2-5 years, maybe a few more if your willing to deal with shit range as the battery degrades.
You can save a ton of money if you buy a spot welder and learn how to build the batteries yourself. The first battery costs about what you'd have paid retail, or a little more, after buying tools and supplies, but as you are able to repair and salvage cells and rebuild a whole new one you will save ass loads of money over your lifetime. That's the real "buy it for life" strategy here. Buy a kweld and learn how to weld 18650 cells together, and the scooter can absolutely last you a lifetime. But be prepared to spend at least 1500 dollars for "buy it for life" quality (I don't know the scooter market, but a $750 electric skateboard is low tier chinesium), and understand that you will need to learn to repair it if you want to keep it more than a few years.
you don't even need to do it yourself, there are places who will repair batteries for you.
Ok... But isn't that somewhat antithetical to the concept of buyitforlife? Isn't the whole thesis of buyitforlife that you are going to spend a bit more money up front from a product that reduces or frees you from the need to continually spend money to maintain a capability for yourself? That's why the spot welder is the buy it for life move. Because it is the purchase that makes a escooter as close of an analog to an axe that you will pass down to your children because it was well made and not trash.
You can absolutely get other people to fix your battery, you can just buy a new one every time it breaks, hell you can get a whole new scooter when the battery breaks.
But that ain't solar punk, and it ain't buy it for life mentality.
Why the hell are you people so opposed to teaching a man to fish?
This community also allows recommendations for items that only last significantly longer than usual, not just literally something that will last for an entire lifetime :)
I get that. I was just making sure he was aware of the consumable nature of the batteries, given the large portion of the total cost of the item it represents, it's relatively short life span, and the fact that he posted to buyitforlife asking for beginner information about pevs.
An electric scooter / bike / skateboard is an awesome investment, but I regularly see people who don't understand that it's not like a ICE car where the battery is a tiny portion of the cost. The things are half battery by value. He should totally buy one, but I am not sure why I am being down voted for providing him the information he needs to actually understand the long term cost of ownership and providing suggestions about how to reduce those costs.
Quite frankly, I am shocked to see these kinds of replies on a damn instance called solar punk....
Spot welding recycled e cig batteries into large packs is the most solar punk thing you can possibly do, and it's nowhere near as difficult as you guys are making it out to be.
I fully agree being able to build your own DIY batteries is indeed very solarpunk. I only wanted to clarify that we allow non-literal BIFL suggestions, as you mentioned that all personal ev's are not technically BIFL (which is true).
The replies you are receiving are not from slrpnk.net accounts, but instead are from off-instance, likely from people who simply subcribe to this BIFL comm or saw it in in the /All view, and who do not consider themselves solarpunks.
Batteries can be very dangerous, people shouldn't build themselves without knowing how to do it safely.
It's sensible to pay more to not set the house or garage on fire.
There are forums full of people who build these things themselves without burning their houses down. Why do you trust someone who didn't even finish highschool working on a battery assembly line in shenzen more than you trust your own hands? Does not seem very solar punk of you guys to me...
Nah, the problem with that is then you have to spend on welding tips, gas, flux, etc.
What you really got to do is find a good lithium mine, and build a small manufactory and foundry. Also a chemist lab. Oh, and glassworks of course. Luckily quartz is easy to find. Then you can produce your own argon, oxygen, etc. maybe an iron mine as well. Those deposits of course you should make sure have enough resources to last you for life.
Spot welding is not the same thing as welding. A spot welder shorts a high discharge dc current across two electrodes to melt nickel strips to the battery terminals to connect them. It does not use gas or flux, nor does it consume the tips of the electrodes.
It is both considerably easier to learn than real welding and the equipment is considerably cheaper. I think I paid around $125 for my k weld, plus another 40 bucks for the high discharge lipo to run it and another 20 for a charger for the lipo. It is not anywhere close to real welding in complexity or cost, and you can learn in one afternoon.