Originally Posted by Mr. devenwhite

There are a few reasons why Team Orion hasn't made a saddlepack Lipo yet.

Reason one: Due to the lack of space in all of these new 4WD buggies, If we were to create a saddle pack it would have a very low capacity (relatively speaking). We would probably have a hard time getting the battery pack up to 3000 mah. Since 4WD buggy is only an open modified class, the average consumer would not feel comfortable having such a low capacity battery. Every Lipo battery that we sell is produced by Kokam. If you had 2 different cells of the same capacity from 2 different manufactures, the Kokam cell would be a little larger in size. This is due to all of the safety features that are built into the cells. Kokam cells are undoubtably the safest cells on the market. Neither Kokam or Team Orion will downgrade the quality of the cell to decrease the physical size. We take pride in delivering the best cell possible.

Reason two: 4WD buggy has come and gone once before. At one time it was even more popular than it is now. Then it quickly died and was dead for a long time. It's a big gamble to produce a battery for a class that might die a year from now. Also, 4WD buggy is really the only class of car that would use this kind of battery. And looking at the big picture, it's still a small class. At this point, the demand is still to small to put an entirely new product into production. With the current demand for this type of pack, we wouldn't make enough money to justify the cost of development and production. If the class keeps growing at it's current rate, it will become possible.

Reason three: Due to Team Orion's complete reconstruction of the entire product line, the saddle pack idea has unfortunately been put on the back burner. But that doesn't mean that we haven't tried a battery like this or dislike the concept. With the new Kyosho saddle pack car arriving at the end of the year, it gives us extra motivation to come out with a saddle pack lipo. If we were going to put it into production it would probably be in the hobby shops around the same time as the new Kyosho car.