PBC Blog

Battery Pack Design, Certification, and Cost Guides

Certification economics, chemistry selection, and program planning for custom battery packs, written from primary sources. By Pacific Battery Company's leadership, for the engineers and program managers who have to get it right.

Chemistry

Sodium-Ion in 2026: Three Chemistries, Two You Can Buy, and What Each Replaces

Layered oxide for mobility and starters, NFPP polyanion for the grid, Prussian blue still emerging. The vendor-by-vendor map with manufacturer-stated numbers, what each family actually replaces, and the transport rules in motion.

Harris Cohn, CCO · 6 August 2026 · 17 min read
Chemistry

How to Choose a Lithium Battery Chemistry: Duty Cycle First

Five production chemistries, one method: find the constraint that binds first, then read the datasheet rows with their conditions attached. Energy, cycle life, charge windows and the certification path, LFP to sodium-ion, from verified documents.

Harris Cohn, CCO · 3 August 2026 · 15 min read
Landed Cost

2026 Tariffs and the Real Landed Cost of an Imported Battery Pack

The duty stack on a Chinese lithium-ion pack changed three times in seven months and now sits at 40.9%. The current math by origin, a worked $50,000 example with fees, and what the graphite-duty headlines got wrong, each number from primary sources.

Harris Cohn, CCO · 31 July 2026 · 15 min read
Program Planning

How Long a Custom Battery Pack Program Actually Takes

Three program types, three clocks: white label in 2–4 weeks, reference-design custom in 9–16 weeks, clean sheet in 6–18 months, all to first article. From PBC program history, plus the requirement-change math that stalls programs.

Harris Cohn, CCO · 30 July 2026 · 11 min read
Chemistry

When Lithium Titanate Is the Right Call, and When It Isn't

LTO charges at up to 6C, charges below freezing, and carries 15,000–40,000-cycle datasheet ratings. It also stores a third less energy than LFP and sells at a multiple of the price. The 1.55 V property behind both, and a duty-cycle decision rule.

Harris Cohn, CCO · 30 July 2026 · 14 min read
Certification

What UN 38.3 Testing Actually Costs, and Why the Lab Fee Is the Small Part

Plan on $2,000–$10,000 for the lab fee. The sample packs the test destroys are the real bill, and one little-quoted clause can zero the whole program out. Sample counts, timelines and thresholds, straight from the Manual.

Harris Cohn, CCO · 29 July 2026 · 16 min read

New articles weekly. Every number traces to a primary source: if we couldn't verify it, we didn't print it.

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