Hello halg, I should have clarified I bought my QS138/Votol kit sea shipped thru Alibaba, as the suppliers on AliExpress would only air freight. Amorge told me the same thing, about 600 orders backlog. Yikes! I am currently working on several different battery pack configuration options, will post pics in a couple days. Good luck with your build !
Interesting. I went the route of emailing qs motor from their web site
QS MOTOR Official Web Electric Motor Leading Manufacturer. According to their
posts on endless-sphere (a site I highly recommend by the way), there are a lot of vendors selling these motors and some of them are not real qs motors. I do not know for sure about those claims but I can say that their presence on that forum and feedback from others there that they stand behind their sales lead me to purchase from them directly. I think this saved a bit of money but the shipping really is a large part of the equation. So, if you are not in a hurry and can figure out a way to purchase without air shipping it can significantly lower the expense.
Below is my quote from them. I ordered an extra accelerator unit which gives me the option of keeping the stock throttle. Here is an
example from amazon. This is the direction I am leaning.
These are some of my first experiences purchasing stuff directly from China. But, my conclusion is that finding a real deal vendor and dealing with them directly is the best route. So many listings on alibaba and aliexpress have the words QS138 and QSMOTOR and SIA and SIAECOSYS that it was hard for me to know who I was dealing with. Those sites are fine but making sure you have the correct vendor seems to me to be critical.
EDIT: I should add that purchasing through alibaba or aliexpress does provide the benefit of having a route to handle any disputes which is a factor. I chose not to but others might think that benefit is important. Again, just make sure you have the correct verified vendor.