Guru
Joined: 15/07/2006
Location: AustraliaPosts: 676
| Posted: 09:12am 23 Aug 2011 |
The EV Hilux has now passed the 50,000km mark with the LFP Thundersky (now called Winston Batteries) battery pack. They were fitted with speedo reading 350153 and now is 400231. That is 50,078km.
Range check, did 91km using 19.5kWh, driving mostly at 100km/hr.
Some capacity drop from last range check, but a lot better than I thought it would be.These LFP batteries were fitted in August 2008. It is now August 2011. 3 years. My guestimation is something like 800 cycles at high currents & very deep discharges. Temperature is often around 40 to 50C, at the centre of the pack (cell 23). The edges of the pack are 5-10C lower. Today with range test the centre reached 60C and the edges are at 43-46C.
These batteries still do not have any automatic equalizing system on them. Balance every weekend, basically I just keep the pack at full voltage and switch on the 2 x single cell DC-DC converter chargers shown in previous post. Once a month I do a rough manual balance with some of the other cells. As said cell 23 is the one that most of the fuss is about, but as just proven, still has the capacity, so is still worth the effort to keep topping it up.
Really, these batteries have taken a flogging (& still going) compared to what lead acid would give. I am impressed to say the least. They will be in the Hilux for some time yet.
Trev @ drivebynature.com