At the time of shipment UPS contacted me and asked for £70.15 import duty to clear the package. It seemed a lot but I paid regardless.
I’ve just received a letter now asking for another £21.44 and late payment fees and interest if not paid immediately, it isn’t clear why this extra is being charged but one part mentions weight adjustment based on UPS audit 1.5/3.5kg?
I noted in the declared value it states 478.94 EUR which could have something to do with the overly large fees? By my calculations 20% of the value I actually paid, including the shipping fee should be around £60.
I’m used to having to pay VAT - Value Added Tax - when importing from abroad. I’m in Norway so not being in the EU is possibly an explanation, but it seems you’re talking about British Pounds and I hear you have been through Brexit lately?
I’m just guessing, but 20% of the value is very familiar so…
I paid the extra through a very frustrating process, no one could explain why the costs increased after delivery. The only thing I can think is that the value was misrepresented on the import document for more than I actually paid.
Duty for each country was NEVER included in the price and clearly stated so. It’s actually quite impossible to prepay duty unless there is an official trading agreement between those countries e.g. UK/China. It is the responsibility of the carrier to collect the appropriate duty and whatever charge (if any) for doing so. I paid mine on the doorstep via the courier (UPS in my case too) by debit card to a direct link for HMRC. It was absolutely zero of a surprise and a simple process. Mine was approx £80 or so.
You may be missing the point, whilst I expected duty, I didn’t expect the price listed on the package to be considerably more than I paid, and I also didn’t expect to pay, receive the item, then get a letter asking for a further payment afterwards.
Add to that there appears to be no road map to actually being able to use my battery as an extender (as purchased, with no mention this wouldn’t be available at launch), a rather frustrating collection of set backs…
No I didn’t miss YOUR issue I was simply explaining the process for others. I agree in your case there seems to some sort of issue. UPS usually ask for payment at the point of delivery or collection as do most international couriers. As for taking two duty payments was your order in two parts? Did you source your cells separately from overseas? I bought mine duty prepaid from Cell Supply Ltd in the UK as they are the UK’s cheapest supplier of Samsung 35E cells guaranteed to be genuine. At the time the nominated preferred suppliers didn’t have ANY cells available at all and besides I have a preference for Samsung from past experience. 42 cells cost me £126.44 fully inc. which, in fact, for that cell is quite the bargain.
If you didn’t make two separate orders liable for duty the I too would be quite angry and quite mystified. It is the carrier though who carries the responsibility for that and not Infinite who simply have zero control over the issue. I hope you get it resolved.
Sadly it wasn’t sorted, I went around in circles with many phone numbers and email teams at UPS, gave up in the end, no explanation was given. But, perhaps not sending at a greater value than paid would have saved all the hassle and expense I went through.
Ps it was an all in one option including cells that came up a while ago.
Get it built mate. Bite the bullet and get stuck in. You WILL have some niggly little issues but I think I’ve encountered everything it’s possible to encounter and still come up smiling….. eventually. If you encounter any issues message me and I’ll help as much as I possibly can. Bluetooth connectivity is a heck of a lot better without the loose end of the antenna stuck the potting. It isn’t connected to anything it’s just there for tidiness so you can simply pull it out and run it along the battery case. I broke the connector on mine and sourced better and longer antenna if you want me to send you one. You are more than welcome as I had to buy 20 of them. They only cost me £8.99 for the twenty off Amazon next day delivery. That’s less than 50p each and you can’t get them that cheap from AliExpress plus they will charge delivery which will take two weeks. The members on here may as well have the benefit as I won’t use any more of them.
Oh I did build it when received and added to app/charged successfully, but, I’m awaiting the development of battery extender for Yamaha motors (was told the focus has been Bosch and Yamaha may be by the end of the year) as I already have a bike and battery. My purchase was to double my current range, but it wasn’t mentioned that this wasn’t developed and is clearly complicated/would take 6 months+
Yup I had the same issue. I was hoping to make good use of it this Summer to extend my range but the Bosch adapter plates only arrived two weeks ago. At 77 years of age in heart failure and with spinal injuries it’s quite the lottery if I am going to be around come Summer 2026 to get the benefit of it. I know when you invest in these things they don’t always turn out to meet expectations but the potential is there. I have only been out on it the once and suffered arcing on the positive terminals of two batteries in one bank. This resulted in pretty rapid battery drain which hit my confidence in it a little. I rectified the problem but now I have a different bank that will only charge to 4.17v whilst all the others charge to 4.19v so the pack charged to 100% but after the BMS did it’s thing 97% is the best I can get but it is holding at that. I suspect just one cell in Bank 2 has a poor connection which will show next time I ride. The weather is shocking here and my consultant whilst encouraging me to ride doesn’t want me to get any sort of chill on my heart so I’m doing gym work till the weather eases a little. I suspect one positive terminal is going to arc but it will at least identify the problem cell. Arcing from poor connections is exactly what the critics of this project predicted and no matter how tight I screw it together it seems to be an issue. The stippled finish on my Samsung batteries didn’t help and I had to rub them smooth so maybe I didn’t quite get the one cell as smooth as it needed to be. If that isn’t the case and swapping out that cell doesn’t solve it then I simply don’t know just what to do to make the contacts reliable. However I’m getting a little ahead of myself. It could be the batteries need to be cycled a few times before I get a stable 100% charge. I know the performance of my OEM Bosch battery improved within a few discharge/recharge cycles. The Bosch battery gives outstanding performance even though it is only the basic 300Wh version. I can eek out 100 miles of range with my riding style on mild terrain so this Infinite battery has a lot to live up to. I am using Samsung 35E cells which should give me a nominal 540Wh yet on the first trip out it used twice as much as the much lower capacity Bosch. Now either the arcing and the need to recycle the charge a few times is the issue or the power delivery of the battery is no match for the Bosch. Only time will tell. Waiting for what you invested in is frustrating I agree, especially when the projected dates come and go. I think they were just a little over optimistic rather than being disingenuous and hit so many production issues with the Bosch side that it has delayed the Yamaha side of the project. I’m sure it will all be worth waiting for.
Blimey, sorry to hear about your health concerns, it is frustrating the cycling season has passed us by waiting. I reckon it’ll balance itself and perform better, but, are you using to extend, currently, and does it drain both batteries together (or at least that’s the intention?) or is it one then the other? I have heard that bms’ struggle to use 2 different battery types and wonder if this has been fully solved in this instance?
I do hope this all works as intended though, it didn’t really occur to me that we’d get something non functional for all this expenditure.
Thanks for your concern but every day is a bonus and pragmatism is the best policy….. just keep going and enjoy the day as much as possible.
I bought the battery as a replacement really as after almost 8 years of heavy use my Bosch OEM is nearing its projected life cycle though you wouldn’t know it. My bike is in excellent condition and has been customised and tweaked to suit my individual needs and riding style so I decided to ‘future proof’. I picked up a brand new Activeline gen 2 motor for steal of a price off eBay and that plus the Infinite battery should take care of all future major issues keeping it on the road whether it be for me or whichever relative snags it first when I kick the bucket. May the best man win. When I plan my next long ride I’ll just carry the Bosch on rear rack or in my panniers. The extra weight is nothing to the almost five stone I lost through cycling so I regard it as an issue. I did think of using a wiring yolk to run both at the same time but discounted as it just would be necessary for the rare number of times I would need both and they are of widely different capacities which may have caused issues. If they are properly and fully reversed engineered I don’t think it would be an issue but I don’t think they have it 100% correct. My Purion controller wont switch the Infinite off and so it will not go to sleep on the bike as there is a constant drain. Leave the battery on the bike and it will, given time, drain it. I can’t get out to ride due to the current storms we are experiencing and I do need to drain and recharge just for the sake of cell balancing so I will put it on the bike for 24 hours and go to the gym for my daily self torture session. Why on earth do we listen to consultants? . Keep well keep cycling my friend. Steve.
I see, I guess different use case to myself then in that regard. I’m wondering if I can wire mine in so I use current built in battery, then when that runs out switch on the go to the other battery, rather than having them both joined/used together (which I assume the extender and few months wait is to do with).
Maybe an isolator switch in the positive line for each battery would do it but I’m only into simple electronics and don’t know if you would need to isolate all of the wires though I doubt it. Couldn’t you just unplug one side of the yolk or does the yolk need to ‘see’ both batteries to work? Alex himself is getting rather frustrated with supply issues I know and on top of all his running enquiries the poor guy must be working himself into a frazzled. I reckon it’ll all work out for him but ‘burn out’ of owners of start up companies is a very real problem. One of my grandsons has been through that and come out of the other side. His accountant is now telling him he can easily afford to employ up to three staff to ease his burden. It’s just getting the right people in a service industry. Once you find good staff and train them up they either get head hunted or want to branch out on their own as all they see is easy money and not building up the good reputation to be able to secure long term service contracts. Everyone thinks they know better and can do better until the hours off the job buried in paperwork, accounts, certifications, risk assessments and the like. They soon find out it isn’t just a case of counting profits.
If you encounter any issues message me and I’ll help as much as I possibly can. Bluetooth connectivity is a heck of a lot better without the loose end of the antenna stuck the potting. It isn’t connected to anything it’s just there for tidiness so you can simply pull it out and run it along the battery case. I broke the connector on mine and sourced better and longer antenna if you want me to send you one. You are more than welcome as I had to buy 20 of them. They only cost me £8.99 for the twenty off Amazon next day delivery. That’s less than 50p each and you can’t get them that cheap from AliExpress plus they will charge delivery which will take two weeks. The members on here may as well have the benefit as I won’t use any more of them.