The 7 Sections Every Lithium Cell RFQ Should Include
Seven sections carry the entire cell RFQ: cell specification, volume and demand profile, delivery and packaging terms, required certifications, test data and quality evidence, a line-item cost breakdown, and a response format that locks in lead times alongside the scoring you will do later. Each one exists to turn a supplier's answer into a cell you can drop into a column and compare against every other bid. Leave one thin and the bids come back in shapes that cannot be compared — and the damage is not a wrong price, it is nine prices that each mean something different.
I keep an old bid folder I use as a teaching example. Nine responses, all to what I had called the same 48 V, 13S pack. One supplier quoted the cell alone. One quoted the assembled pack with the BMS. One was FOB Shenzhen, one DDP to our dock, one never named a term at all. Two quoted at 500 units, one at 20,000. When I stacked them in a column the spread was a little over three to one, and I could not tell you whether the cheap one was genuinely cheap or simply quoting a different product. I spent four days doing archaeology on my own RFQ.
The fix was not better suppliers. It was admitting I had asked for a price when what I needed was a cost model.
The RFQ is a form, not a letter
Most first-pass cell RFQs read like a polite email with a datasheet stapled to it. The version that works is a workbook: one tab per section, locked cells, defined units, a place for the supplier to type. When it comes back, the answers land in the same coordinates they landed for everyone else, and the comparison happens in an hour instead of a week.
That is also how you get cost visibility without waiting on a pricing round. You are not asking anyone for today's number. You are asking for the structure underneath the number, which does not move with the market and which you can re-run in your own spreadsheet when the volume assumption changes.
1. Cell specification — write the duty cycle, not the nameplate
The first thing I do with a new datasheet is find the footnote under the capacity number. It almost always says something like 0.2C, 25 degrees C, down to a cutoff you will never actually use. Your device pulls 2C inside an enclosure that sits at 45 degrees. Those are different cells.
So the spec section states chemistry, format, nominal voltage, and the dimensional envelope with tolerances — including a swell allowance, because a pouch or prismatic cell that fits on day one will not fit at cycle 800 if you only gave the fresh-cell dimension. Then it states the load profile: continuous and peak discharge, charge rate, the temperature window you actually operate in, and cycle life expressed as a percentage of initial capacity at a stated depth of discharge and a stated temperature. Give the conditions, not just the number, because the conditions are what the test will be run to.
Two more lines save real money. Ask for a discharge curve at your rates and temperatures, not just the rated capacity. And ask for the cell part number and the manufacturing site by name, with an approved-alternate clause that requires your written approval. If the RFQ says "or equivalent," you will get a quote on a different cell with a different cycle life and you will find out at qualification.
2. Volume and demand profile
A single annual number is a guess dressed as a requirement. I want the ramp: quarterly volumes, which portion is firm and which is forecast, the minimum order quantity, the minimum pack quantity, and the lot size the factory naturally runs. Then I ask for pricing at three volume bands so the step function is visible, and I ask what happens at 40 percent of forecast — because that question surfaces capacity reservations, prepayment terms, and non-cancellable material commitments before they become a surprise.
3. Delivery terms, packaging, and dangerous goods
Name one Incoterm, version 2020, and name the place. Not "FOB" floating alone — FOB where. Ask for freight as a separate line even when the term bundles it, so you can see what the freight actually is instead of discovering it inside a DDP number you cannot decompose.
DDP deserves its own warning. Under DDP the seller is importer of record, and a meaningful share of cell suppliers either will not do it or will price a risk you cannot see. If a bidder cheerfully says yes to DDP on a lithium shipment, I want to know who is clearing customs and under what entry.
State what the price covers: bare cell, cell with tabs or nickel strip, cell plus BMS and harness, or fully tested pack. This one ambiguity is worth more than most negotiation rounds. Then write the packaging spec — inner box, cushioning, the UN-certified outer packaging where it applies, pallet construction and heat-treatment marking if wood is used. Ask for the packaging as a line item so it stops being invisible overhead.
On dangerous goods: state that you expect the shipment classified correctly for its configuration, ask for the safety data sheet, ask who signs the shipper's declaration, and ask how state of charge is managed for air freight. The answers separate the suppliers who ship batteries from the ones who ship boxes.
4. Certifications — the document, not the claim
UN 38.3 is the one people get wrong. A certificate of compliance is not the deliverable. The deliverable is the test summary, with the cell identified, the lab named, the date, and the results of each of the eight tests. If a supplier sends a certificate with no summary, that is not a documentation gap, it is a signal about how the rest of the relationship will go.
Beyond that, list the standards that actually apply to your program: cell-level safety for your application, pack-level safety, and the end-product standard your device will be evaluated against. Add the material declarations — RoHS and REACH — as reports, not logos. And be honest with yourself about the trader problem: a trading company can usually produce a certificate, but often cannot produce lot-level test data or a factory address. Ask for both.
I put certifications behind a gate, not a score. No summary, no score. A bid that fails a gate is not ranked lower; it is out, and the supplier is told why.
5. Test data and quality evidence
Ask for the last three lots of production data: capacity distribution, open-circuit voltage, internal resistance, self-discharge. Ask what sampling plan sits behind those numbers, what the outgoing inspection spec is, and what AQL you should expect on incoming.
Field return rate is worth asking for even though the number is usually soft. The way a supplier answers tells you whether they track returns by cell lot or just count warranty claims. Same with change control: put a written notification window in the RFQ for any change to the cell, the BMS firmware, or the cell manufacturer, with your approval required before shipment. Suppliers who push back hard on that clause are telling you something you would rather learn now.
6. The cost breakdown that ends the re-quote cycle
This is the section that does the most work and gets written the least. I want the price decomposed into cell, BMS, assembly and labor, test, packaging, freight, and tooling or NRE, quoted as separate lines at each volume band, in one currency, against one price basis.
Not every supplier will show margin openly. Fine — ask for it as a residual line and accept that it may be embedded. What matters is that you can see the shape: if assembly labor is a small slice of the total, doubling volume will barely move the price, and you should stop arguing about it. If assembly is a quarter of the price, that is where the conversation is.
I also ask what the price is anchored to — whether any input is indexed, and on what basis. A supplier who says nothing is indexed has told me something useful about how the next renewal will go.
Once this section comes back filled in, you have a model in your own sheet. Move the volume cell, watch the price move, and you know whether you need to talk to the supplier at all. That is the point of the whole exercise: not a live quote, a structure you own.
7. The response form — lead times and the matrix you already built
Sample lead time and production lead time belong in the RFQ, but the phrasing decides whether you get a planning answer or a spot answer. I write it explicitly: this is a program forecast, no purchase order is placed at this stage, quote your standard lead time for the stated volume band. Suppliers who read that quote from the planning desk instead of checking today's availability.
Ask whether the sample comes off the production line or out of the lab. Lab samples qualify a design. Production samples qualify a factory. They are not interchangeable, and the timeline difference is often measured in months.
Then the format itself. One workbook, one tab per section, no brochures. A named technical contact and a question cutoff date, with every question and answer circulated to all bidders so nobody gets a private advantage.
The evaluation matrix is built before the RFQ goes out, not after the bids come in. Gates first — certifications, dangerous goods capability, factory audit result. Then weighted scoring across capability, quality, and cost, with the weights locked and written down. I keep cost at roughly forty percent, which is enough for price to matter and not enough for the cheapest bid to win by default.
The matrix is not a tiebreaker applied at the end. It is the reason the RFQ has the shape it has. If a criterion is not in the RFQ, you cannot score it without inventing evidence, and inventing evidence is how programs get awarded to the wrong factory.
What this actually protects against
A thin RFQ does not usually produce a bad price. It produces a second RFQ, and then a third, each one a month of engineering time and a month of schedule. The template exists so that the first round is the only round.
It has costs, and I will name them. A detailed RFQ narrows the bidder pool — some genuinely capable small factories will struggle to fill a full cost breakdown, and you have to decide case by case whether you are buying a commodity or a capability. And the commercial terms you attach still need to go to counsel; an RFQ is a request for information, not a contract, and it should say so on the cover page.
