Battery Life-Expectancy vs Cost of Replacement

[RevDon]

I'd like to draw upon the collective minds of the battery experts to come up with a graph of initial cost/replacement/lifespan of available battery tech to be able to present a potential EV customer just what they could expect to spend using presently available products. It could serve as a benchmark to measure emerging technology against, and give us a base for the current market. It should be limited to LiFePo/NiMh/SLA (unless something else appears)

I know it would help a noob like me :wink:
Don

 

[pwbset]

It should be limited to LiFePo/NiMh/SLA (unless something else appears)

I would put in a vote for LiMn spinel lithium manganese as I think it's a real contender also and should give LiFePo4 a run for it's money in the economy class of battery pretty soon. There are quite a few LiMn options through tool packs. Call me a fan-boy if you must, but I'm diggin' my LiMn. 8)

 

[safe]

There are also design issues that should be considered.

Most batteries tend to lose capacity over time. This means that while at first the battery can deliver the intended current the ability to deliver fades as the capacity goes into decline. Making the initial design so that the battery has double the needed current limit available means that you are in effect doubling the lifespan of the usable battery. This is an even more pronounced issue with SLA verses others that have higher initial "C" rates.

The high rate SubC NiCads that I just bought at 10C rating are being used at levels of only 4C on the bike and that means that even though the cells might start to deteriorate over time and usage the bike will still perform like brand new the whole way. (they should anyway)

So you "might" set as a criteria the long term pricing issue relative to design... but you could "cheat" and allow the lower "C" rated (cheaper) stuff to require more battery while the more expensive high "C" rated stuff might need less.