Sep 04, 2026

Why EMP Battery Rebuilds Take Time — And How We’re Expanding Our Technician Team

We’re Growing — But We Won’t Sacrifice Safety to Grow Faster

E-Bike Market Place is growing.

More riders, bike shops, manufacturers, and businesses are sending batteries to EMP for diagnostics, repairs, rebuilds, upgrades, and custom battery work than ever before.

That growth is exciting, but it has also created a challenge that we want to be completely transparent about:

We need more qualified battery technicians.

We are actively expanding our battery department and hiring additional technicians so we can increase production capacity and reduce our rebuild queue.

However, lithium battery rebuilding is not an assembly-line job where we can simply hire someone today and have them rebuilding every type of battery tomorrow.

A large percentage of the batteries that arrive at EMP require an experienced Battery Technician Level 2 or higher.

That distinction is extremely important.

Our goal is not simply to hire more people.

Our goal is to hire and develop the right people while maintaining the safety and quality standards our customers expect from EMP.

Why Can't EMP Just Hire More Battery Builders?

This is one of the most reasonable questions a customer can ask when there is a long rebuild queue.

If there are a lot of batteries waiting, why not simply hire five or ten more people and start building?

The answer comes down to the type of work EMP performs.

There is a major difference between assembling the same battery repeatedly and rebuilding dozens or hundreds of different battery designs from different manufacturers.

A company producing one model of battery may build the same:

Cell configuration
BMS
Wiring harness
Connector
Case
Cell holder
Nickel layout
Charge circuit
Discharge circuit

hundreds or thousands of times.

Once the process is documented, a technician can be trained to repeat that process very efficiently.

EMP operates differently.

One battery arriving at our facility may be a Pedego battery.

The next could be a Faraday tube battery.

The next might come from a discontinued European e-bike.

The next could be a 72V custom scooter battery.

The next could be an older battery whose manufacturer no longer exists.

And the battery after that may use an unusual BMS, communication circuit, proprietary connector, temperature sensor, ignition circuit, or internal layout we have never encountered before.

That means our technicians often have to understand the battery before they can rebuild it.

That is where experienced Level 2 technicians become critical.

Understanding EMP's Battery Technician Levels

As we expand our team, EMP is developing a technician structure that helps us assign work based on experience, training, and complexity.

Battery Technician Level 0 — Technician Trainee

A Level 0 technician is learning the fundamentals of professional lithium battery service.

This may include training in areas such as:

Battery safety
Cell identification
Voltage measurements
Basic pack inspection
Insulation techniques
Fish paper installation
Heat-shrink installation
Wire preparation
Connector preparation
Cell testing
Pack documentation
Basic battery assembly procedures

Level 0 technicians are an important part of our future workforce, but they are still learning.

They work under supervision and are not expected to independently reverse-engineer an unfamiliar customer battery.

Battery Technician Level 1 — Entry-Level Battery Technician

A Level 1 technician has more hands-on experience and can perform significantly more battery work.

These technicians can be extremely productive when working with a known and documented battery design.

For example, if EMP has already rebuilt the same battery many times and has documented:

Series and parallel configuration
Cell type
BMS wiring
Connector wiring
Temperature sensors
Pack dimensions
Insulation layout
Nickel configuration
Assembly procedure

a Level 1 technician can follow that established process.

We sometimes refer to these internally as more "cookie-cutter" builds.

That does not mean the work is easy or unimportant.

It means the engineering questions have already been answered.

The technician is following a proven build process rather than developing the process from scratch.

Battery Technician Level 2 — Where Advanced Rebuilding Begins

This is the technician level that is especially important to EMP right now.

A Level 2 technician needs to be capable of looking at an unfamiliar battery and determining how it works and how it can safely be rebuilt.

This is much different from simply replacing cells.

The technician may need to determine:

Original series configuration
Original parallel configuration
Cell chemistry
Maximum charge voltage
BMS configuration
Charge-path wiring
Discharge-path wiring
Balance-wire sequence
Temperature-sensor arrangement
Fuse configuration
Switch or ignition wiring
Connector polarity
Current requirements
Available internal space
Cell orientation
Nickel or copper current paths
Communication wiring
Whether original electronics can be reused
Whether the BMS needs repair or replacement
Whether a capacity upgrade is physically possible
Whether changing the BMS could affect original bike functionality

In some cases, there may be no service manual.

There may be no wiring diagram.

The manufacturer may no longer support the product.

Replacement batteries may have been discontinued years ago.

Sometimes there isn't another rebuilt battery sitting next to the technician that they can copy.

The original battery itself becomes the blueprint.

That is reverse engineering.

What Does "Reverse Engineering a Battery" Mean?

When customers hear the words "battery rebuild," it may sound like we simply open the case, remove old cells, install new cells, and close it again.

For many batteries, it is much more complicated.

Before removing anything, an experienced technician may need to document the original battery carefully.

That can include identifying:

How many cell groups are present
How those groups are connected
Where each BMS balance wire terminates
How current travels through the battery
How the charging port is connected
How the discharge connector is wired
Whether the battery uses temperature sensors
Whether there are switches or ignition circuits
Whether the BMS communicates with the bicycle
Whether the original BMS must be retained
How much physical space is available
Which modern cells are appropriate for the application

Only after understanding those systems can we properly plan the rebuild.

This engineering work is one of the biggest differences between EMP and a facility producing thousands of identical battery packs.

Level 3 — Master Battery Technician

Above Level 2 is our advanced or master technician level.

These technicians handle some of the most difficult cases that enter our facility.

A Level 3 technician may become involved when there are:

Difficult BMS failures
Unusual proprietary electronics
High-voltage battery systems
High-current custom builds
Complicated board repairs
Unusual battery architectures
Previous repair attempts
Damaged wiring
Engineering questions
Battery designs requiring significant modification

These technicians can also help train less-experienced employees and develop documented procedures that eventually allow Level 0 and Level 1 technicians to work on more battery models.

This is an important part of how EMP plans to scale.

One Level 2 Technician Can Eventually Create Work for Several Level 1 Technicians

This is a major part of our long-term strategy.

Imagine that EMP receives an unfamiliar battery model.

The first battery may require a Level 2 technician to:

Inspect → Diagnose → Reverse Engineer → Document → Build → Test

Once we successfully rebuild that battery and establish a safe procedure, we now have something extremely valuable:

A documented battery build process.

When the second, third, tenth, or fiftieth version of that same battery arrives, much of the engineering work has already been completed.

Eventually, that battery can potentially move into a standardized rebuild process that trained Level 1 technicians can perform.

This allows our senior technicians to concentrate on the next difficult battery.

Over time, our internal rebuild library continues to grow.

That is how we believe EMP can scale properly.

Experience becomes documentation, and documentation becomes production capacity.

Why We Will Not Lower Our Hiring Standards Just to Clear the Queue

We understand that customers want their batteries back.

We want them completed too.

A larger team means:

Shorter queues
Faster diagnostics
Faster rebuilds
Better communication
More production capacity
More battery models supported

But there is one thing we will not do:

Put an inexperienced technician in charge of a battery they are not qualified to rebuild simply because we want to move an order faster.

Lithium batteries store a significant amount of energy.

A mistake involving insulation, polarity, BMS wiring, cell configuration, nickel placement, balance leads, or current capability can have serious consequences.

Our technicians therefore have to work within the level of battery service they are trained to perform.

A Level 0 technician should not be expected to perform Level 2 work.

A Level 1 technician should not be expected to reverse-engineer a complicated battery they have never seen.

That protects our customers, our technicians, and the equipment being serviced.

Why Hiring Battery Technicians Is Different From Hiring for a Normal Production Job

Experienced lithium battery rebuild technicians are not easy to find.

We are looking for people who can combine several different skills:

Electrical troubleshooting
Mechanical problem-solving
Lithium battery knowledge
BMS knowledge
Cell configuration knowledge
Soldering
Spot welding
Wiring
Diagnostic testing
Documentation
Attention to detail
Safety awareness

And for Level 2 positions, we are looking for something even more important:

The ability to solve a battery problem that does not already have instructions.

That takes experience.

It also takes judgment.

Finding those people takes longer than simply filling seats in a production department.

We Are Hiring and Training at the Same Time

Our expansion strategy will use both approaches.

We want to recruit experienced technicians who can qualify for advanced Level 2 positions while also developing Level 0 and Level 1 technicians internally.

That gives EMP two paths for growth.

Hire Experience

Bring experienced battery and electronics technicians into the company who can begin qualifying for advanced diagnostic and reverse-engineering work.

Build Experience

Train promising entry-level technicians using documented battery designs until they have the experience necessary to advance through our technician levels.

This takes longer than simply hiring general production employees, but we believe it creates a much stronger battery department over time.

Why Your Battery May Sit in the Queue Before Work Begins

We also want customers to understand an important distinction.

Being in the battery queue does not mean your battery has been forgotten.

A battery may already have been:

Received
Photographed
Identified
Initially inspected
Voltage checked
Entered into our system
Assigned a shelf location
Reviewed for parts or cell requirements

but still be waiting for the technician qualified to perform the next stage.

Think of it similarly to a specialized repair facility.

Having more employees in the building does not necessarily mean every employee is qualified to perform every repair.

If a battery requires Level 2 work, it must eventually reach a technician capable of performing Level 2 work.

That is one of the primary bottlenecks we are working to solve through our current hiring expansion.

Every Battery Does Not Take the Same Amount of Time

This is another reason estimating exact completion dates can be difficult.

Two batteries that look almost identical from the outside can require completely different amounts of work internally.

One battery may need:

Open → Documented rebuild procedure → Replace cells → Test → Complete

Another may require:

Open → Diagnose BMS → Trace wiring → Map cell groups → Research electronics → Develop rebuild plan → Source components → Rebuild → Balance → Test → Troubleshoot → Retest

The second battery naturally requires significantly more technician time.

This is why EMP uses a queue while still allowing technicians to evaluate and manage different types of work appropriately.

Why We Don't Want to Become a Battery Assembly Line

There are already companies that manufacture batteries in large quantities.

That is not the primary purpose of EMP's rebuild department.

Our specialty has increasingly become helping customers with batteries that are:

Discontinued
Difficult to replace
Expensive to replace
Unique
Older
Proprietary
Custom
No longer supported by the manufacturer

In many cases, our customer sends the battery to us specifically because there is no easy replacement available.

That type of work requires technicians, not simply assemblers.

And that is exactly why Level 2 technicians are so important to the future of EMP.

Our Goal: Faster Service Without Becoming a Lower-Quality Service

We know our current lead times need improvement.

We hear our customers.

We read your emails.

We answer your calls.

And we understand how important these batteries are.

For many customers, an e-bike is not just recreational equipment. It may be transportation to work, school, appointments, or everyday activities.

That is why increasing our production capacity is one of our biggest priorities.

But our solution is not going to be:

"Build faster at any cost."

Our solution is:

Hire more qualified technicians.

Train more technicians.

Document more battery platforms.

Standardize successful rebuilds.

Improve our workflow.

Increase capacity without compromising safety.

Scaling EMP the Right Way

Every difficult battery we successfully rebuild teaches us something.

Every documented platform makes the next battery faster.

Every Level 0 technician who advances to Level 1 increases production capacity.

Every Level 1 technician who develops into Level 2 gives us another person capable of solving difficult battery problems.

And every experienced Level 2 technician we hire allows EMP to take on more of the complicated batteries our customers depend on us to save.

That is the company we are building.

It will not happen overnight.

But it is how we believe a professional battery rebuilding company should grow.

To Our Customers Waiting in the Queue: Thank You

We know waiting for a battery can be frustrating.

We especially appreciate customers who have trusted us with batteries that are rare, discontinued, difficult to replace, or extremely complicated.

Your battery is not sitting in our facility because we do not care about your order.

In many cases, it is waiting because we are protecting the process required to rebuild it correctly.

We are expanding.

We are hiring.

We are training.

We are improving our systems.

And most importantly, we are working to increase capacity without lowering the standards that made customers send these difficult batteries to EMP in the first place.

We would rather take the time to build a stronger technical team than solve a temporary backlog by putting inexperienced people on advanced lithium battery repairs.

Our customers deserve better than that.

Interested in Becoming an EMP Battery Technician?

As EMP continues to grow, we will be recruiting for multiple levels within our battery department, including:

Battery Technician Level 0 — Trainee
Battery Technician Level 1 — Entry-Level Technician
Battery Technician Level 2 — Advanced Battery Technician
Battery Technician Level 3 — Master / Senior Technician

We are especially interested in experienced technicians with backgrounds in lithium batteries, electronics, electrical diagnostics, battery management systems, battery pack construction, spot welding, soldering, and reverse engineering.

Watch our website for current employment opportunities and information about joining the EMP battery team.

We're Building More Than Batteries. We're Building the Team Behind Them.

The next stage of EMP is about scale.

But we believe scale only works when quality grows with it.

Our mission is to build a larger battery department capable of supporting more customers, more battery brands, more discontinued products, and increasingly complex battery systems.

That means finding the right people.

Training them correctly.

Giving them the right tools.

And never asking a technician to perform work beyond their demonstrated capabilities simply to make the queue move faster.

Thank you for your patience while we build the team necessary to serve you better.

Learn More About Our Rebuild Process

For additional information about fresh cell selection, BMS configuration, balancing, internal protection, testing, and other factors that affect rebuild lead times, visit our “Why EMP Battery Rebuilds Are Worth the Wait” page.

E-Bike Market Place — Professional Battery Rebuilding, Diagnostics & Custom Battery Solutions