Electric Vehicle batteries

[GRW]

What’s the life span of these batteries? We all know power tool batteries often fail - did read while ago that some car batteries good for 300 charge/discharge cycles, is that true? Is it is, how can you tell a dud battery from a decent used one?

I believe a lot of Lithium batteries (certainly e-mtb ones can) - you have an App or access via a controller menu - that gives you details like state-of-charge, & also the percentage of the original Wh/Ah capacity the battery still has (a mates 2018 Specialized Levo does this).
How accurate the data is, and what it means for remaining useful life, and usable power - I have no idea.

 

[knighty]

the thing is, if you lose a 10 or 20% of your car battery capacity that's a lot... time for new batteries

at home, you don't care how much space they take up or how much they weigh, so you can just have more batteries to compensate

most new battery tech the batteries don't lose charge / drain the way lead acid does, so you're not losing any power if they don't have full capacity, you just can't store as much

 

[James1979]

the thing is, if you lose a 10 or 20% of your car battery capacity that's a lot... time for new batteries

at home, you don't care how much space they take up or how much they weigh, so you can just have more batteries to compensate

most new battery tech the batteries don't lose charge / drain the way lead acid does, so you're not losing any power if they don't have full capacity, you just can't store as much

My friend has just got a good number of helicopter batteries. They’re 6v I think. Each is about the size of a car battery.

He’s put them into two “batteries” of 12v and has the facility to take 24v across both.

He got them because they were condemned for aero purposes but for his off grid place they’re fine.

He’s done exactly what you said in that there were 2 pallets of them and they run his mobile home fine. Charges them from a solar array which again was condemned for solar farm purposes but is perfect for his needs.

 

[J1nx]

Not that I know/understand the details... but aren't the newer Lithium batteries so-called "Smart" batteries?
Can't this "smartness" mean possible difficulties using smart batteries outside of their original purpose (& with a different charge source)?

E.g. My (2022) e-mtb has a Bosch 625wh battery. The same model bike for 2023 has a "smart system" 750wh battery (both nominal 36vdc).
The bigger battery will fit into the same compartment/frame tube space as my 625wh item.

However, I cannot fit one, because the "Smart" battery won't allow itself to be charged or discharged by anything other than the OEM 2023 charger and motor!

(This is my issue with the way things are going - does a battery really need to be restricted in this way?)

As a proprietary pack sure, but strip down a battery pack to the raw cells and they are all the same (in a given format and chemistry). You can buy stand alone BMS for almost all varieties and fit yourself.

Think of it like an engine, the ECU might be locked down but an engine is an engine, fit a stand alone ECU and run it in anything you like. In some cases it will run without an ECU altogether though!

 

[J1nx]

What’s the life span of these batteries? We all know power tool batteries often fail - did read while ago that some car batteries good for 300 charge/discharge cycles, is that true? Is it is, how can you tell a dud battery from a decent used one?

I’ve seen grid batteries this year from 2014 and running well over 80%. These cells are hammered hard and usually fully cycled twice a day. That’s only the limit I’ve seen so far and the fact 2013 was the first year the UK (Orkney) had grid batteries.

 

[knighty]

My friend has just got a good number of helicopter batteries. They’re 6v I think. Each is about the size of a car battery.


there were 2 pallets of them

he's a really lucky guy, I wish something like that would fall into my lap!

 

[James1979]

he's a really lucky guy, I wish something like that would fall into my lap!

Works on them.

He reckons he’s binned 20 times that number over the years.

Now he’s got an off grid place for weekends and such he saw the ‘value’ in them.

 

[Robotstar5]

Works on them.

He reckons he’s binned 20 times that number over the years.

Now he’s got an off grid place for weekends and such he saw the ‘value’ in them.

A friend of mine did similar when servicing the emergency services radio repeater stations, they had banks of back-up batteries that were replaced by date not condition, he sold a few for a few beer tokens, but most were skipped.

 

[jimbo84]

There's a company (can't remember where) that are swapping the batteries out of 1st gen leafs that are now giving reduced range for newer and sometimes larger capacity batteries and using the old ones for solar storage. If I remember rightly he was stockpiling a load of them to power his workshop.