In India, lead acid batteries are still around in a big way. Every electric scooter in India uses lead-acid technology. Why? Because it's well understood and most of all it's cheaper than lithium.
Apart from a couple of companies producing the batteries, they are all imported from China.
On our website, evfuture.com we get endless complaints about the life of ev batteries. Most manufacturers give a 6 month warranty but batteries are failing even before that time.
One of the main reasons for battery failure is compelte discharges. Dealers and even some manufacturers are not aware that by reducing the depth of discharge on your vehicle, you can dramatically improve the life of your battery pack. In a typical battery chart, manufacturers claim 200 cycles at 100% depth of discharge (DOD) but 500 cycles at 50% DOD, and 800 cycles at 20% DOD.
The problem is that none of the electric vehicles on the market today incorporate good energy meters to tell you your remaining capacity. EVFuture has developed such an energy meter and we are currently testing it in and fitting it on our electric vehicles. More about that in a later blog post.
If you are an ev owner and are unable to measure your remaining capacity, the easiest way is take a fully charged bike, drive your daily route until the battery runs out, and then calculate the kilometers you can do to discharge the batteries to half. That way you are sure to see a dramatic improvement in battery life (and cost saving!)
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Yes I agree that batteries are a perennial complaint. I wasn't aware that deep discharge can reduce the battery life. I look forward to knowing more about the new energy meter.
ReplyDeleteR.Ramakrishnan, Sankrithi BSA, BSA Motors Dealer for Coimbatore.
By using reduced DOD how the battery life is going to improve? I had bought an EV On 1st Jan.09.After doing 8342Kms. the EV came to a grinding halt. I was assured of 3years of battery service. i.e. 40x30x36=43200 Kms.But the batteries got swollen and latter the dealer and the mechanic told me that the battery is to be charged only after 95% discharge of the battery since the instruction have not been followed the result is swollen battery. And since last six months the vehicle is stationery due to non availability of battery and related spares.
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