Electric Car Batteries: Lead or Lithium?

Which electric car batteries do you need for your conversion or NEV? Let's wade through the information and misinformation about electric car batteries for a minute, and you can decide for yourself what batteries you want. There are good arguments on all sides.
I keep hearing really smart-sounding guys on the discussion lists and forums say that you'll never have a really good electric car until lithium batteries become available. The major automakers keep saying that they'd offer electric cars if they could get a better battery. They make it sound like lead batteries are only good for grandma's golf cart.

In "Build Your Own Electric Vehicle",Seth Leitman says lead-acid batterieswork just fine for an electric car."Contrary to those who say you'll need a different type of battery before EVs are suitable at all," he writes, "today's conventional lead-acid batteries of the deep-discharge variety are perfectly adequate for your EV conversion." (p.177)

What? Lead batteries are the best electric car batteries for the money? Let's find out.

What's good about lead(acid) EV batteries?

• They're cheap(ish).
  A 120v system will need 20 6v batteries, and they'll cost you 100-150 USD each; that's 2K-3K. If you splurge and get the best AGM battery technology money can buy, it still isn't going to cost you more than 5K for a lead-acid battery pack. If you treat them right, they'll last several years. Lithium? You'd better have an extra 16-20K to spend on your conversion.
• They're available everywhere.
  You can get your lead acid batteries locally from a golf cart battery dealer, which saves you the shipping costs. Batteries are heavy and contain metals that are usually toxic, one way or another, and that translates into expensive shipping.
• They're peppy.
  You can get on the freeway, you can race, you can get liftoff with lead acid electric car batteries; ) There's no reason that lead is any less of a car-propellant than lithium. The only thing that lithium offers, with all its expense, is that it weighs less. (Okay, okay, and lithium has more cycle lives. Theoretically.)
• They're safe.
  Setting aside the issue of high-voltage safety practices for a minute, lead acid batteries are relatively safe no matter what you do to them. They can leak sulfuric acid in a crash, they can vent flammable gases when they are charged, but they are generally considered to be pretty safe batteries.
  Lithium has a reputation for being a little more excitable; maybe you've seen the laptop batteries bursting into flames on the barbecue videos? ...so it's important to keep a careful eye on them to make sure they're not shorting or overcharging. LiFePO4, or lithium iron phosphate, are considered to be safe electric car batteries.

What's NOT so good about lead electric car batteries?


• They're heavy.
  That's it, really. All the other things you've heard pretty much boil down to this. When you hear about lead's lower energy density than other battery chemistries like lithium, it's easy for our brain to form a picture of a SLUG that can barely get away from a stoplight at 2 mph before it needs a charge again, but that's not reality. The energy density issue only means that an adequate number of batteries will weigh more.What this means in practice is that you'll need to choose between extra batteries or the ability to carry more passengers. If my observations of freeway traffic are any indication, you didn't really want the passengers anyway.
  
• Fewer cycle lives.
  They don't have the same number of theoretical cycle lives as other battery chemistries. I say theoretical because cycle lives depend on your application, and...dirty little secret...no matter what kind of battery you've got, "battricide" happens quite a bit (that means human error - charging? Temperature? Too deep discharge, too often? - causing premature battery death; ).

And what do our NEDRA electric drag racers say about electric car batteries?

Their cars say "lead". Mike Willmon, current president of NEDRA, put deep-cycle lead acid (Hawker 12v) batteries in his "El Pinto Loco". John Wayland, owner of the "White Zombie", also uses Hawker 12v batteries. Rod Wilde uses Exide 12v in his "Gone Postal" racing van. http://www.electric-cars-are-for-girls.com/imgs/logo.jpg

Who cares who KILLED electric cars...
where can I GET one??

They're SOO cute, the little zippy electric cars you see in the news all the time. But where ARE they?
If you're like me...
You've been watching the air turn browner and browner every year.It breaks your heart that your asthmatic ten-year-old is stuck in the house all summer because of the air quality.
You know it's mostly because of car exhaust, but there's no other way to get to work, school, errands, and daycare...
...so you feel GUILTY as you fill the gas tank (again).
And lay down fifty bucks. Fifty bucks!!?? Are you kidding? Coulda gotten my hair done AND left a fat tip for that price...oh, well. And as you leave the gas station, you wonder how much it's going to cost you NEXT time, and know that whatever it is, you've got no other choice but to pay it.

In other words...

.. you're PINNED to the PUMP.


If you've ever felt PINNED to the PUMP because there were no other (sensible) choices out there...
...or are there?

C'mon in. Time to take another look at electric cars. They're more alive than ever!

Electrical cars are for girls

What kinds of electric car motors are the most popular? There are a lot of electric motors out there, but just a few make up the majority of the motors being used in electric cars. When people choose a motor for their car, they're balancing factors like cost, availability, and the "do it yourself factor" - the confidence that they can get all these expensive gizmos installed and not just wind up with a project scattered all over the garage...a well-known cause of marital discord!

Electric Motors

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.

Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force. The reverse process, producing electrical energy from mechanical energy, is done by generators such as an alternator or a dynamo; some electric motors can also be used as generators, for example, a traction motor on a vehicle may perfom both tasks. . Electric motors and generators are commonly referred to as electric machines.

Electric motors are found in applications as diverse as industrial fans, blowers and pumps, machine tools, household appliances, power tools, and disk drives. They may be powered by direct current (e.g., a battery powered portable device or motor vehicle), or by alternating current from a central electrical distribution grid or inverter. The smallest motors may be found in electric wristwatches. Medium-size motors of highly standardized dimensions and characteristics provide convenient mechanical power for industrial uses. The very largest electric motors are used for propulsion of ships, pipeline compressors, and water pumps with ratings in the millions of watts. Electric motors may be classified by the source of electric power, by their internal construction, by their application, or by the type of motion they give.

The physical principle of production of mechanical force by the interactions of an electric current and a magnetic field was known as early as 1821. Electric motors of increasing efficiency were constructed throughout the 19th century, but commercial exploitation of electric motors on a large scale required efficient electrical generators and electrical distribution networks.

Some devices convert electricity into motion but do not generate usable mechanical power as a primary objective and so are not generally referred to as electric motors. For example, magnetic solenoids and loudspeakers are usually described as actuators and transducers, respectively, instead of motors. Some electric motors are used to produce torque or force.

List of car brands

             This list of automobile makers tries to show every car/automobile marque/brand ever used; some are manufacturing companies in their own right, and others are subsidiary companies or products of badge engineering. The list is sorted by continent and then country, but note that globalisation makes some of these distinctions of historical relevance only.
            Main article: list of countries by automobile production