Idea: Dual Purpose for Lithium Motorcycle Battery

[Jim Gell]

The linked article is about a new Sondors 80 mph, 80 mile range motorcycle. It has a removable 4 kWh battery that is easy to slide out of the bike to be charged inside.  Two of those would be almost the capacity of the lithium battery we have in our RV now, which I find to be pretty robust.  That said, I could never have enough solar or battery, especially when I hear of folks running AC's while boondocked. 

Would it be practical for a motorcycle battery (or two) to be also used as auxiliary storage in an RV?  There would be times that one might use the battery for riding and other times that the priority would be extra battery capacity to run the RV.   A key factor as to how practical this is may be the voltage of the battery, which I don't know. 

I probably would not want this myself.  But I am curious and I post this for other's who might be more inclined to spend the $5,000 cost of a bike, $10,000 for two, or whatever one bike and two batteries would be, if they could use the same battery to power their RV needs too.   

https://electrek.co/2021/03/12/first-look-at-the-low-cost-sondors-metacycle-electric-motorcycles-removable-battery/?fbclid=IwAR3AJerWBAlfU6WYMfl8d_lWXTXGHBXwb8KJwUd51DViQ5iadKmSrlmewKc

[Jaydrvr]

Considering the plummeting prices of lithium, I would personally prefer to have a dedicated house bank, rather than depending on swapping out 54# batteries on a regular basis. You can "build" a 280 ah battery for about $500 quite easily. I think personal budgets would impact ones choice on this quite a bit. 

[lappir]

Jim, 

I had those same thoughts about using a Nissan electric car as a battery backup for my trailer. I'd keep it plugged in most of the time anyway, so if the power went out why not use the battery capacity of the car to run the trailer. Apparently that voids the car warranty or so I heard. 

GM is doing all the advertisement for the "Skateboard" platform for many vehicles. I am hoping they do very well and are able to tailor the vehicle to the consumer with the ability to use the battery for other things too. In Texas they had Ford F150's powering some homes during the latest Polar Vortex or so they said. 

Things are changing very fast for some and not fast enough for others. 

I thought I had an electric motorcycle bought last summer. It was sitting on the sales floor with a price I could afford and they even offered to trade my gas powered bike even up. Problem was the bike didn't have a battery in it and they didn't have one for it. My question is how it could be on the showroom floor in a non running capacity. Glad I had not signed the dotted line and turned over my key. When they said I couldn't do a test ride I said they couldn't either and just rode away. 

 

Rod

[jcussen]

Believe most e bikes and e motorcycles  will have a 48+ volt battery pack. Not so easy to mate to your 12 volt coach, unless you have dedicated inverters, dc chargers etc to handle that higher voltage.

[oldjohnt]

Battery chemistry has been changing relatively rapidly in the past years and while LiFePo4 is currently the hot trend, even more technology and chemistry is in the future......Im just NOT a fan of swapping out and exchanging RV energy storage, especially if voltages and charging parameters are different (say RV is 12 volt but a battery is 48 necessitating DC to DC conversion) but hey if it works for you go for it. An RV battery may be say 100 Amp Hours at 12 Volts, so what are the smaller ones you're talking about ??? A battery is merely an electrochemical energy storage device regardless if used to power an e bike or an RV  

John T  NOT any Solar expert see what they have to say

[noteven]

I probably wouldn’t be inclined to use up an electric vehicle battery’s life cycles powering another load on a regular basis.

[GlennWest]

18 hours ago, jcussen said:

Believe most e bikes and e motorcycles  will have a 48+ volt battery pack. Not so easy to mate to your 12 volt coach, unless you have dedicated inverters, dc chargers etc to handle that higher voltage.

Actually I will. Have the batteries and dc/dc converter now. All I need to do is add inverter. Work coming around so that should not be long away now. I don't have any evs but believe most of us will in near future. Interesting.

[jcussen]

2 hours ago, GlennWest said:

Actually I will. Have the batteries and dc/dc converter now. All I need to do is add inverter. Work coming around so that should not be long away now. I don't have any evs but believe most of us will in near future. Interesting.

I  was replying to the OP's original post, and he may or may not have any 48+ voltage equipment already. Do not know voltage of the Sondors motorcycle, but the Zero electric motorcycle battery runs at 100 volts. He will have to have to change whatever those batteries put out, to utilize them.

 

[GlennWest]

22 hours ago, jcussen said:

Believe most e bikes and e motorcycles  will have a 48+ volt battery pack. Not so easy to mate to your 12 volt coach, unless you have dedicated inverters, dc chargers etc to handle that higher voltage.

Actually understand. Just the topic I find interesting. Be neat to power in emergency our homes with our EV. 

[Jim Gell]

Let me repeat what I said in my original post..."I probably would not want this myself."  

Like Glenn, I find it interesting and I posted the link because I thought it might be of interest to others.  

I am not saying that it is practical and I am not trying to encourage anyone to buy an electric motorcycle and use the battery to power their RV.  I put it out as food for thought only. 

I am not a solar or electronics expert by any means.  It does seem that I have heard of someone with plans to use a 48 volt lithium battery in an RV.  I think the biggest advantage was smaller cable sizes.  If I were installing my solar system, inverter, and lithium battery again, I would want to at least consider alternatives to using 12 volts. 

I installed my 12 V system in 2015 and felt my 700 amp lithium battery was expensive at that time at $5,300.  I have not kept up with the cost of lithium batteries since then. (Someone can chime in with how much 700 amps would cost now.)  I was thinking that whatever the battery costs, it might make having an electric motorcycle more practical in terms of cost, weight, and space consumption, if the battery could be also used as an auxiliary/emergency power supply for the RV.  Maybe that is not the case for anyone. 

[GlennWest]

Mine is 48v Jim.

[Jaydrvr]

53 minutes ago, Jim Gell said:

Let me repeat what I said in my original post..."I probably would not want this myself."  

Like Glenn, I find it interesting and I posted the link because I thought it might be of interest to others.  

I am not saying that it is practical and I am not trying to encourage anyone to buy an electric motorcycle and use the battery to power their RV.  I put it out as food for thought only. 

I am not a solar or electronics expert by any means.  It does seem that I have heard of someone with plans to use a 48 volt lithium battery in an RV.  I think the biggest advantage was smaller cable sizes.  If I were installing my solar system, inverter, and lithium battery again, I would want to at least consider alternatives to using 12 volts. 

I installed my 12 V system in 2015 and felt my 700 amp lithium battery was expensive at that time at $5,300.  I have not kept up with the cost of lithium batteries since then. (Someone can chime in with how much 700 amps would cost now.)  I was thinking that whatever the battery costs, it might make having an electric motorcycle more practical in terms of cost, weight, and space consumption, if the battery could be also used as an auxiliary/emergency power supply for the RV.  Maybe that is not the case for anyone. 

Seven times the 100 a/h Battleborn which is something of an industry standard is about $7000. Three "roll your own" Eve/Lishen 280 a/h cell sets are roughly $1500 for about 840 a/h. Jay

Edited March 16, 2021 by Jaydrvr
Clarification

[Al F]

On 3/15/2021 at 8:19 PM, Jaydrvr said:

Seven times the 100 a/h Battleborn which is something of an industry standard is about $7000. Three "roll your own" Eve/Lishen 280 a/h cell sets are roughly $1500 for about 840 a/h. Jay

Sounds like a pretty good package:

--  Four 280AH cells at $86 each is $344 for a 280AH 12V battery

--  A Dely Battery Monitor Systems at $166 each.

--  Total for each battery $510

--  A set of 3 batteries $1530 for a total of 840 Amp Hours.  

Plus shipping of $350 for a set of 12 cells to make up the 3 batteries.  

Still less than $1900 for 840AH of battery isn't bad at all. 

Batteries:  https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/3-2V-280Ah-Batteries-Cell-prismatic_62556226025.html

BMS:  https://www.amazon.com/DALY-LiFePO4-Battery-Protection-Balance/dp/B08KD66M54/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1L2B2UM6RH61Z&dchild=1&keywords=daly+bms+4s+12v+250a+lifepo4&qid=1616066250&sprefix=dely+bms%2Caps%2C365&sr=8-3 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Al F

[Jaydrvr]

"isn't bad at all."  

That's funny!! The current state of lithium has progressed to the point where I'm not quite sure why one would even consider lead acid anymore, especially as my back muscles get older and weaker. Jay

[Al F]

2 hours ago, Jaydrvr said:

"isn't bad at all."  

That's funny!! The current state of lithium has progressed to the point where I'm not quite sure why one would even consider lead acid anymore, especially as my back muscles get older and weaker. Jay

 

Yep.  8 AGM golf cart batteries at around $175 each is $1400 with a weight of about 560 pounds and you only have about 50%-60% of the capacity of lithium.  

But OH NO, the lithium will blow up on you, you can't use them in cold weather, etc. 😬

[noteven]

Heated lithium batteries are available. 

When you supply charge current to them they warm themselves up to a safe temperature to take a charge. 

[jcussen]

During the Texas freeze, temps got down to 8 F and the battleborn's still provided power to my furnace and 12 volt loads, however, they would not take a charge till about 30 F.

[durangodon]

49 minutes ago, jcussen said:

During the Texas freeze, temps got down to 8 F and the battleborn's still provided power to my furnace and 12 volt loads, however, they would not take a charge till about 30 F.

Wow.  Did that make you think about running a small heating duct to the battery compartment?  Or, can you do something like that with lithium batteries?

[jcussen]

Just now, durangodon said:

Wow.  Did that make you think about running a small heating duct to the battery compartment?  Or, can you do something like that with lithium batteries?

You could, on my Foretravel. the batteries are in a insulated compartment and you would need prolonged sub zero temps to bring those batteries down below 32F.

On my Sprinter, the batteries just hang down below the entry steps in the open, so no real good way to insulate or heat them, they are the ones that would not take a charge until they warmed up. But normally don't drive it unless temps are moderate.

[GlennWest]

17 hours ago, jcussen said:

During the Texas freeze, temps got down to 8 F and the battleborn's still provided power to my furnace and 12 volt loads, however, they would not take a charge till about 30 F.

We did also. Nice and warm till bms came unplugged. My fault. Corrected now. But my batteries see heat with furnace running. Some with mini splits. 

[Jim Gell]

I sacrificed a couple small drawers and tip out laundry hamper and put our lithium battery in our bedroom where it normally stays warm in winter and cool in summer.  Used the maple drawer and hamper fronts to create a removable door. In place it looks just like it did before the battery was installed. 

[RV_]

On the Tesla Forums this gets discussed a lot lately. The bottom line is if you try to tap the power your warranty is void. Tesla Discussion on power from Tesla vehicles.

However, it seems that the next generation of EVs will provide a power output, and if enough to run a house furnace I'll go for that mod. But I am still planning on buying Powerwalls with or without solar. If we decide to move from here, I can take Powerwalls with me for the next place. Solar is not worth uninstalling and reinstalling to me. By the same token the power here is pretty reliable, more reliable than the power system in Texas without all those pesky regulations.

I like Sondor's electric bikes from several years ago. This electric motorcycle sounds great if they have an inverter that can power just the furnace and some lights and one TV. Our furnace, water heater and stove are Natural gas. Just a light furnace fan draw and we are all LED already. I am pulling some previously surface wires in the bare walled three of them no biggie and switching to standard in wall receptacles.garage to be able to insulate and expand my power outlets in the garage besides the 50 Amp charging outlet. Ford paved the way with their inverter truck bed power for tools that showed the general public how convenient that is to have.

I believe that even Tesla may do this and I hope offer an after-market install for it.

As to Lithium battery technology itself there is some good news there too from MIT again!

MIT Takes Deep Dive Into Dropping Lithium-Ion Battery Costs

Excerpt:

"A research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has taken a deep dive look into lithium-ion battery costs. Grab your wetsuit and gear — we’re about to join them. To start with, Twitter user @facts_tesla shared a thread detailing some of the key findings of that study. (Scroll past the blank spaces vvvvvv below.)

 

The study, “Re-examining rates of lithium-ion battery technology improvement and cost decline,” published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science, shared new findings identified by MIT postdoc Micah Ziegler and Associate Professor Jessika Trancik. They found that the real price of lithium-ion battery cells, relative to their energy capacity, has declined about 97% since their commercial introduction in 1991.

Think about that for a moment. Technology has drastically changed our world since then, but not many people take into consideration the impact of lithium-ion batteries that power today’s mobile devices, laptops, and electric vehicles.

The study estimated that the price per energy capacity declined 13% per year between 1992 and 2016. The study noted that when the cumulative market size doubled, the price per energy capacity decreased by 20% for all types of cells and 24% for cylindrical cells.

Image courtesy Tesla.

The report also noted “robust estimates of the rate of advancement of lithium-ion technologies versus various possible determinants.” It found that while the prices for both cylindrical cells and other types of cells declined with time in a similar manner, there was a higher learning rate observed for cylindrical cells."

Source: https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/27/mit-takes-deep-dive-into-dropping-lithium-ion-battery-costs/

So that good news opens all sorts of possibilities. As well it may make whole house battery systems like the Tesla Powerwall cheaper than my last water cooled NatGas 25kw genset alone cost, never mind the auto switch wall service boxes and wiring to the house main panel, and the electrician's expense. if it was under 2500 bucks I'd buy it as long as I had the basics covered: Fridge, furnace fan, gas range controls, water heater electrics and some lights and the router.  Our Surface 4/7//Go devices and phone all use batteries, so no computer with 150-1000 watt power supplies needed.

Things are changing fast because the big money these electric generation, battery, and vehicle improvements will generate, is only now being seen as real.

Edited April 4, 2021 by RV_

[lappir]

I'm waiting for the plug and play system that falls within my bank account parameters. I may have to wait a lifetime, but I have patients                                             right now to care for and therefore I can have patience to wait longer. It's when I stop working that I will want to have the capability of living fully off the grid in the manner in which I'm accustomed to. 

 

Rod