The original 20967-00001 Segway lithium battery packs used LiFePO4 cells to make the 73.6V / 5.2Ah battery that was sold for the last 15+ years. The benefits of LiFePO4 are that it is intrinsically safe, has double the cycle life or Li-Ion, and is more tolerant to over-discharge to name a few of the major differences. There are plenty of videos available out on the internet which show that the LiFePO4 is a much safer battery if it is over-charged or punctured. The cycle life is going to be the key difference. LiFePO4 cells have an average rated cycle count of ~2000 in comparison to Li-Ion having an average rated cycle count of ~1000. This means that the new NCG2004-N Li-Ion batteries are expected to have approximately 50% (if you are lucky) of the overall life compared to the older LiFePO4 battery packs under normal use. You may be asking why in the world would anyone wish to go with the new Li-Ion batteries after reading what we just wrote?? The reason is that you can certainly get additional range off the Li-Ion battery packs compared to the LiFePO4. The "actual range" of the battery has been tested by a Segway dealer that we are acquainted with and we have provided their test results below.
Test environment: 85F temp, 165lb rider, riding around a perfectly flat track at a school until the machine does an emergency shutdown. Batteries were on the machine and plugged in for 24hr prior to testing. The rider held a steady 11-12mph during the test.
20967-00001 LiFePO4 tested on Segway i2 @ 22.6mi
NCG2004-N Li-Ion tested on Segway i2 @ 28.4mi
The results clearly show that the Li-Ion will absolutely provide a longer run time per charge but at the expense of safety, a shorter cycle life, and at a much higher annual operating cost.
NCG2004-N Li-Ion @ $1400 per battery = $1400 / 4yr @ $350/yr
MTO 20967-00001 Battery Rebuild @ $800 / 8yr @ $100.00/yr