sigh...
how I love those forum experts...
as a design engineer, I have to estimate how much our products will cost. I will give it a try:
£500 minus 20% VAT -> £417 (£83 for her majesty)
Dealer/distributor markup of another 25% -> abt. £333 left.
Dunno if there is an import tax from Switzerland to UK for electronics - 3% sounds reasonable:
£323 left.
The housing looks high quality and has a complicated form. I would estimate the tooling cost (mold and stamping parts) at 50000 Euro, especially if swiss made. My employer makes molds for diecast and plastics, so I know something about that.
The circuit boards look high quality, the charging circuit and the distribution board would set you back about 20 Euro complete with wiring.
Design cost for electronics including layout and EMC/compliance testing 25000 Euro minimum. Testing charging circuits takes lots of time and money - you will wear out many battery packs in the process.
The battery pack is made by Hy-Line, a well known german Distributor/manufacturer with a swiss sales office.
http://www.hy-line.de/en/product/li-ion-akku-technology/ I would estimate that the battery pack complete with protection board and all necessary certifications (air transport certification to IATA standards anyone?) costs 50 to 60 Euro.
Now lets guesstimate how many battery packs are made: if they sell 1000 per year (which seems high to me), this would give 5000 in 5 years. NRE costs divided by this gives 15 Euro design cost
per piece. If the bean counters want to recoup the NRE cost in two years, or if they sell only 2000, design costs would go up to 37,5 Euro per piece...
And those are only the hardware costs. Now you have to assemble it. There is no 100% yield - plan for rework cost and rejects. After assembly, you should test it for proper function. You need test equipment and fixtures. Quality management is not free - ISO9000 anyone? Then there are regulations that you must comply with - CE, FCC, UL, CSA to name a few. Managing all this paperwork takes time, and time is money, as we all know.
Packaging is not free either. A colleague at work does nothing but packaging design - mostly drop tests to parcel service standards to ensure that our products get to the customer working and in one piece
There must be someone who writes the product documentation, and some other people who translate it into other languages. Don´t forget the service documentation.
Then there are RohS/WEEE fees for future recycling (you need a registration in every EU country where you plan to sell it - its not free of course).
Put aside spares for warranty claims and repair, and store them safely and in a way that you can find them. Each square foot of warehouse floor space costs money. Do not forget to recycle unused battery packs if they sit on the shelf for longer than 2 years - most LiIon cells are EOL then.
I am very sure that I forgot some other costs - especially the hidden costs that come with laws and regulations apart from EMC, safety CE and RohS/WEEE. The statistical office sends paperwork to be filled in, the tax office, the chamber of commerce, the board of trade... Anyone dealt with customs lately?
And then Nagra Kudelski should earn a little bit with their products - so they can design new products and pay income tax for their profit. Or do you work for the love of it?
So my advice - think iceberg when guesstimating cost of manufacture. Its easy to claim a ripoff if you are not knowledgeable...
Greetings,
Rainer