Just Lego blocks....sorta

Continuing from the last post I'm in the process of installing new batteries in the Vue. The new lithium batteries come in the form of a 3.2V cell. The cells are then bound together in groups of four to form a ~12V battery.

Here are pictures of four individual cells bound together using metal banding.

This is a picture of the blocks of cells in the battery box.

And here are the cells installed.

This picture show the charger mounted on the battery box. You can also see some of the holes in the box that help with dissipating any heat produced during the charging.

Next step will be starting to connect all of the batteries together.

Just a big shiny tray

Time to change the batteries on the electric Vue. I'll just go down to the Radio Shack, buy a pack of batteries, pop out the old ones, and pop in the new ones. Oh I wish it were that easy....

Let's go back a few years first to when I decided to do the conversion. At that point lead acid batteries were really the only choice for electric vehicle batteries. Lithium batteries sized for electric vehicles were just coming to market. And the other less common type of batteries were either too expensive or unavailable for the average person.

Fast forward several years. My original lead acid batteries have lost a great deal of capacity. This is expected as one of the shortcomings of lead acid batteries are their life. I got two years+, ~10k+ miles, and ~700 charging cycles from the lead acid pack. This is about average for lead acid. But now that I need to replace the batteries I'd like to do better.

Now that lithium batteries are made by several manufacturers and have come down in price I'm going to switch battery chemistry. Switching to lithium batteries has several advantages compared to lead acid batteries.

1. Weight. For a given amount of energy lithium is considerably lighter. My lead acid pack weighed about 1500lbs. My new lithium pack will weigh about 600lbs.

2. Range. Not only is the pack lighter. It will contain more usable energy. So where my max range for lead was ~40 miles my max range will be ~80-100miles.

3. Performance. Having almost 1000lbs less in weight should make the car accelerate uphill better and brake better.

4. Battery life. Lithium is rated for more cycles and mileage than lead acid.

Now for the disadvantage. $$$. No getting around this. Up front lithium is more expensive. Over the long run lithium will probably be cheaper because of the number of cycles and mileage for the pack.

So two weeks ago I made the plunge and ordered new batteries. I also took the car out of service in order to remove the old batteries and make the necessary upgrades in order to make the switch.

Because the new batteries take up considerably less space I no longer need to have batteries under the hood. So I eliminated the wiring for that portion of the battery pack.

Today I started working on a new battery box for the rear. The old box was made of plywood. The new box will be made of galvanized steel.

Below is the bottom portion of the box. It will be mounted where the old box was in the back.

The box is made out of 18gauge galvanized steel and thicker galvanized angle iron. The bottom is riveted to the angle iron. It will be bolted to the 1" square iron supporting it. More pictures to come as it progresses.