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Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

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Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#81

Post by CamperBob2 »

heywire wrote: post #76
CamperBob2 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some thoughts: The price point is impressive if you can sell at only ~$50 more than a standard lead-acid battery. If pressed to find a flaw, I think the biggest is one you've already identified: There’s one: you can’t run your lights and/or stereo as long with your engine turned off. Ohm’s battery reserve comes in at 10 amp hours; most lead-acid car batteries come in at about 45 amp hours. If you can run your stereo…

>Nobody with a modern car or SUV is going to get three hours' runtime for their accessory equipment. Really? I've left the satellite radio playing for hours in my 2011 Hyundai Sonata at moderate volume with no hint of problem starting my car afterwards. It has the premium sound system (including subwoofer) and navigation.

There are always going to be anecdotes to the contrary, but the trend is pretty clearly in the opposite direction.

Usually what happens in my case is I forget to turn the headlights from 'Auto' to 'Off.' But even with the lights and fans off I don't tend to see more than 20-30 minutes of operation at most. The car's version of HAL 9000 tries to be conservative and shut things down as soon as the battery voltage goes below about 11.9.

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#82

Post by conjecTech »

nacs wrote: post #42
Cshelton wrote: post #5

So yesterday Audi/Porsche/VW announced a new v6 engine that will be used in variations across all their vehicles. Further down the line, they said that engine would include an electric drive component as well, incorporating a battery, effectively making all their cars "hybrids". This seems to be the trend, see racing tech (Formula 1, WEC, etc.). We will probably see this in all new consumer cars sometime soon. Once e…

> At your price point, performance/luxury cars seem to be your only market, I'm not sure even that will be a market they can cater to as newer performance/luxury cars have a massive amount of electronics and computers inside that put a heavy continuous drain on the battery (and continue to drain even when the car isn't running). Considering this new battery can't even hold the amount of power that a normal car batter…

We don't think this will be a major issue. One of the nice things about LiFePo4 batteries is that it has an enormous cycle life compare to lead-acid and can provide a really high level of power throughout its entire discharge range. The power of lead-acid degrades pretty quickly and you can have significant trouble cranking your car even if it still has half of its energy available. If the electronics were using high enough amounts of energy to be a concern for our design, it would also likely mean that the cars would have trouble starting with a lead-acid.

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#83

Post by spathi_fwiffo »

conjecTech wrote: post #60
mkarr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Hunter. Do you all plan to offer the battery in a minimal form factor (without the group 35 adapter)? I currently am running one of the Shorai LiFePo4 batteries in my track car. I really love the small size and weight, and would be willing to work around the smaller form factor.

Yes, it will be available in a smaller form factor. The core of the device will be a single modular design that will be inserted in the shell shown to give it the Group 35 size. Thanks for the kind words!

Would the output of the capacitors have to change for different applications, requiring different base models; for use in motorcycles, for example?

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#84

Post by omarforgotpwd »

sandworm101 wrote: post #27

(1) Those nasty things inside car batteries are easily recycled and in fact are recycled more often than not (like 95%+) (2) Car batteries do not last only 3-4 years as per the OP. Car batteries can last decades. There are many variables, but the car in my battery is far older than 4 years. (lol) (3) Replacing an easily-recyclable product with a less-recyclable one is no step forwards. (4) XX addressed by OP comment,…

You've got a car in your battery? Damn

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#85

Post by stephengillie »

benihana wrote: post #63
sandworm101 wrote: post #27

(1) Those nasty things inside car batteries are easily recycled and in fact are recycled more often than not (like 95%+) (2) Car batteries do not last only 3-4 years as per the OP. Car batteries can last decades. There are many variables, but the car in my battery is far older than 4 years. (lol) (3) Replacing an easily-recyclable product with a less-recyclable one is no step forwards. (4) XX addressed by OP comment,…

It's crazy how applicable the Presumption of Stupidity article that was posted a couple of days ago has been. Your comment is basically a re-hashing of that post. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10034883

We presume stupidity because that's the default state of a person. You have to load instructions and data into a neuroprocessor, just like any other computer system.

Case-in-point: Woolfe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10047721

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#86

Post by slxh »

krapht wrote: post #6

Lead acid is traditionally very forgiving with regards to temperature. How does the electrical performance of your battery vary with temperature, especially at extremely cold (-40C) and extremely hot (80C) conditions?

but I think that lead-acid batteries can become damaged if you bring the charge below a certain value... usually not a problem with cars but...

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#87

Post by nradov »

Eiriksmal wrote: post #44
sandworm101 wrote: post #27

(1) Those nasty things inside car batteries are easily recycled and in fact are recycled more often than not (like 95%+) (2) Car batteries do not last only 3-4 years as per the OP. Car batteries can last decades. There are many variables, but the car in my battery is far older than 4 years. (lol) (3) Replacing an easily-recyclable product with a less-recyclable one is no step forwards. (4) XX addressed by OP comment,…

While I agree with points 1 and 2, I have a beef with point 5. Car manufacturers do whatever they can to shave costs, all over the car, all the time. Batteries are needlessly heavy because they are manufactured with the cheapest-possible components using the cheapest-possible technologies. They do put in a best-guess size to keep the median consumer masses happy, whether they drive the car once a month in Death Valle…

That's not really true any more. Due to increasingly strict fuel economy rules, every car manufacturer now has cost models to trade off weight versus cost and reliability. So they will pay a little more for lighter parts.

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#89

Post by smoyer »

I'd love to have a lighter bank of batteries in my (small) sailing yacht but I need something that can be "deep-cycled". Getting rid of several hundred pounds of batteries would leave capacity for more stuff!

I could replace the engine's starter battery with this one for a bit of weight savings ... and it's protected from the "house" circuits" by a charging diode, so there's no risk of discharge.

Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car

#90

Post by jhallenworld »

It would be nice if the battery had multiple outputs: for example, connect the capacitor to just the starter motor and have a second output for everything else. This way all the lights in the car would not dim during starting (why should the electronics have to deal with brown-outs?). Diodes could be used for the charging current input.
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