Flex and Wave Battery Change – What Happened
Jul 05, 2021
Dear customers,
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Thank you for your long-term support and trust for Exway. Since the start of the global pandemic, industries relating to electric skateboarding have taken a heavy blow, and frequent issues have arisen from price increases of raw materials to shortages of electronic components, and insufficient capacity of supply chain manufacturers. These issues have resulted in product shortages in many related industries, and although the Exway team are constantly adjusting to adapt to the global environment, with unavoidable component cost increases and lack of stock, the effects of the pandemic on our sector still had a huge impact on our production capacity and general operations.
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To enable more customers to enjoy Exway’s quality products, our team has been forced to come up with innovative solutions to the major supply problems our industry faces. The most common and severe issue is the widespread cross-industry battery cell shortage - and we are also faced with the problem of continuously increasing pricing of components. That is why we must make timely adjustments to ensure that we can continue to serve our old and new customers in the best fashion. We have been forced to make 3 significant decisions for our Flex and Wave electric skateboards. These are; 1: “domestic cell procurement and replacement”, 2: “maintaining current Flex and Wave costing with no price increase” and 3: "pre-sale Customer Compensation Scheme” (for select cases).
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I."Domestic cell procurement and replacement"
In the face of the general shortage of imported name-brand battery cells (e.g. Samsung, LG, Sony, etc.) and to ensure that we can continue to supply quality and reliable electric skateboards, starting from July 2021, Flex and Wave series boards batteries will be replaced by domestic 18650 cells. To ensure that all safety requirements are met, and close-to-original performance is maintained, we have chosen only the best domestic cells for our boards. Since then, Exway has also succeeded in the localization of all components apart from a few chips!
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The battery is one of the most important components on an electric skateboard, and it is imperative to have a good battery pack for overall product safety. For this reason, we acquired 18650 battery cells from the best 6 domestic battery brands on the market and put them through intensive safety testing (which was a big priority), endurance testing, and performance contrast testing with the old battery cells. From the 6 cells we tested, we then chose the best performing battery cell to be used in our Flex and Wave boards. This new battery cell which we chose has the following characteristics: it meets the highest discharge performance requirements; it fits the mold structure; its maximum capacity is 5/6 of the name-brand (Sony/Samsung) batteries; and the range with the new battery is roughly 1/6 - 1/7 lower than previously - (although different riders may, of course, observe more or less range, depending on factors like weight and riding conditions).
While the capacity is slightly lower than name-brand batteries, we also believe that domestic brands in the industry deserve more support and recognition. In that way, they can grow in strength and influence to break the bottleneck of battery development and make electric skateboarding brands less reliant on imported name-brand batteries in the future.
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II “Maintaining current Flex and Wave costing with no price increase”
Due to the soaring prices of upstream raw materials and spare parts supply, the overall manufacturing cost of our electric skateboards has increased by a significant amount. However, we do not want to transfer these costs increases to our valued customers in these difficult times. Especially as we pride ourselves on delivering our customers the best electric skateboards at cost-efficient prices. After close co-ordination with all links in the supply chain, we hope to overcome the difficulties with all suppliers, consumers, and riders.
The Exway team has therefore decided NOT to increase the price of Flex and Wave boards on all shopping platforms including the official website and dealers prices.
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III. "Pre-sale Customer Compensation Scheme"
Originally, we planned to conduct a full switchover at the end of July 2021, but after receiving some customer feedback yesterday we immediately launched an internal investigation. We found that the production team had mistakenly executed the new battery change order in advance, starting from pre-sale orders shipped in June, which caused some customers to receive Flex and Wave boards with lower capacity batteries ahead of schedule. This is entirely our mistake and we are deeply sorry for it. As we take full responsibility, here are the action points we are taking:
1)For those customers who purchased from the official website from June, we will refund $50 to their bank account within the next 3 business days
2)The official website retail price for the Flex and Wave will be reduced by $15 throughout the battery transition period - (until July 31st)
3)Both new and old Flex and Wave batteries can be used on all Flex and Wave boards
4)The new battery change only affects the Exway Flex and Wave - NOT the Atlas.
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In the future, we will also strengthen the internal communication between our production team and senior management team to prevent such problems from reoccurring. Once again, we deeply apologize for the inconvenience. Please feel free to reach out to us at any time with feedback on your experience as a customer. We always value your advice and feedback. Exway will continue to strive to provide you with quality products, services, and an outstanding customer service experience.
Yours respectfully,
Exway Team.
July 5th, 2021