Lithium Battery question

TOOLOW91 said:

I’ve never actually seen one in a street car . Everyone I have seen which was a go lithium was in a race car that got charged between every pass

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But you have more than likely seen a street car with one. BMW runs an AGM battery in the trunk or cargo area of their more recent vehicles, with a lithium battery in the cowl area.

stussy2870 said:

Hey guys,

Maybe this is a dumb question, but i cant seem to find the answer for it - I'm an RC Hobby enthusiast.. I know my way around charging Lithium packs - what i don't understand or cant seem to find information on is how you add a Lithium battery to our cars and then charge it? Does the battery have built in technology (circuitry) to do that??

Im obviously confused.. Any help is appreciated.

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My advice when it comes to trying to adapt a lithium battery to an older car is this:

Don't.

Lithium-ion batteries require controlled and monitored charging at the level of precision that a simple alternator with a voltage regulator could never provide. In BMW's case, they have LG make the Lithium-Ion batteries for them with the circuitry to control the charging, crash safety, and monitor the battery temperature and charge status built into it. Making a battery that has all of that technology in it is expensive. We're talking over $1000 for the battery in these cars.

There are aftermarket lithium-ion batteries for cars out there, but like the BMW/LG battery, they're not cheap:


Sure it'll weigh less, and charge faster should you deep cycle it, but I can think of a lot of better ways to spend $500 on a battery, and you'd have to get a charger designed for it if it went flat.