On Friday, September 21, 2012 11:22:52 AM UTC-5, wrote:
Dear Peter,



For your info actuall price for new batterie pack is about $8,000, which I think is not so high!



Regards,



Luka



Dne petek, 21. september 2012 14:00:04 UTC+2 je oseba Peter Higgs napisala:

Hi Eric, you have missed one 'Additional Cost'...







Most of the $28,000 will be the cost of the batteries, say $18,000.



These have a life-span of just a few years. So if



they need replacing after 3 years...







Thats an 'Additional Cost' of $6,000 per year.. !!







Pete







At 22:42 20 September 2012, Eric Greenwell wrote:



On 9/20/2012 2:29 PM, Limus wrote:



I was interested until I saw $28K price tag. Jeez, that's more than



what I paid for brand new all electric Nissan Leaf car.







Is your Leaf used for glider launching? If not, probably an irrelevant



observation :^)







Instead, try penciling out the numbers ($ amounts apply to my flying for



a year - 50 flights):







Additional costs:



$280 Interest cost of the $28K



$0 depreciation



$200 added insurance cost



$480 Total extra costs







Avoided costs:



$2000 Tow fees avoided by using auto tow, or low aero-tow



$1000 Retrieve costs avoided (by car, aerotow, etc)



$3000 Total avoided costs







That's a $2520 net savings/year, which is about a 9% return on the



purchase cost, so the financials look pretty good. Now add in how much



you think the intangible benefits are worth (again, numbers for my



flying):







Added value:



$150 Avoiding 3 relights



$500 Avoiding 5 landouts



$200 Being able to fly good flights in unpredictable weather



$200 Flying more aggressively



$200 Starting earlier and/or flying later



$1250 Total added value each year







Now the return is ($2520 + $1250)/$28,000 = 13%







If I owned a LAK 17, I'd be queuing up for the FES, and that's just



using it as a sustainer! If it could really work as a self-launcher, say



in low density altitude places, it would avoid more costs and provide



greater benefits.







--



Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to



email me)



- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what



you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz





Luka,

Is the price yoo quoted for both batteries?