The salesperson convinces you to purchase lithium battery for your next replacement as a startup battery. It is more expensive and yet it lasts longer. You are convinced by the selling points and wanted to pay twice or even thrice the amount of conventional lead acid battery without the knowledge of what is lithium battery meant to you.

If you learn more about it below, you may probably reject the salesperson offer.

What is lithium battery for automotive?

It’s called LifePO4 battery. In short, it has battery management system (BMS) in the battery to help in monitoring and maintenance.

Sounds great isn’t it? You probably only heard of the pros of lithium battery. Which salesperson will tell you about problems it will face? Here it is…..

Think of lithium battery as your mobile lithium battery

The usage and structure might be different, but this is the easiest way to compare and allow a person to understand similar logic behind.

1. Lithium battery cannot face heat

i. Have you ever seen a mobile and laptop lithium battery got bloated?

Normal lithium battery succumbs to heat. Even if LifePO4 has a BMS, it cannot be prevented that it is scared of heat that will destroy the structure inside. Thanks to BMS it probably won’t get bloated but its internal circuit will get disconnected automatically for safety purposes.

Even lithium battery in EV needs to have coolant system to cool down the battery while driving.

ii. Your mobile battery is heated up upon charging

Will you charge your phone whole day even if you are using it? Have you ever felt the heat keeps rising when you use your phone while charging?

Your vehicles constantly faces heat especially Japanese made vehicle e.g. Toyota Estima, Honda Stepwgn where battery is located besides the engine. (The engine is hot right? ) Even if the battery is located inside the cabin or rear like BMW 523i, Toyota Prius C hybrid, there is constant charging from the alternator. Charging causes heat, which is the same as your mobile phone. And heat results in possible bloating.

2. Lithium battery will self-discharge

You leave your phone switch off for more than a week, and your battery level possibly drop from 100% to 90 – 95%, or worse, 85% depending on the battery conditions.

The same goes to LifePO4, it will self-discharge (probably at a lower rate). You install it for your seldom-use vehicle and it turns out the battery level is still dropping. Afterall, your vehicle ECU still drains your battery for power. Even if you keep it at your home and only use it when it is needed, it is still self-discharging.

3. Maintenance is still needed for lithium battery

Because of point 2, you still need to maintain the level of lithium battery to keep it healthy. This is the same as lead acid battery which also requires the same maintenance.

4. Lithium battery is not resistant to cold

Ever found your phone battery level drops faster when it is in winter season? Even in Hong Kong or Taiwan where temperature can drop to 0 degree C (and lower in mountain areas), lithium battery might not handle your vehicle start up as expected.

Conclusion

Lithium battery is probably best recommended choice if you have a vehicle that normally is stationary, and you know how to maintain the battery.

Provided a safety precaution, it might be a good option for electric vehicle. But vehicles come with lead acid battery as original equipped normally do not include lithium as register in the ECU.

On top of that, lithium battery is usually thrice more expensive than conventional battery (especially in HK).

Why choose a more expensive lithium battery that you still need to maintain over a lead acid battery that is cheaper and able to last longer than 3 years and more with maintenance. Check out the tested and ranked battery brands for lead acid battery

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