This kind of tech has been around for about a year...
http://semiaccurate.com/2014/06/30/pretec-takes-step-flash-c...
Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
181–190 of 264 posts
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I leave my lights on and kill my battery once every few months, so this is easily worth it for me, but I'm probably an outlier[0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivit...
Why not add the smarts to a lead/acid battery? Probably only a few bucks worth of electronics.
Or as a separate component you could drop in and then use whatever battery you want.
I'd pay almost as much for that.
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#183JOOC, what is the CCA rating? I don't recall seeing it in the comments.
There aren't many of us who run winches, but thems of us that do want quite a few (650 CCA is not uncommon, and some winch manufacturers recommend deep cycle batteries like the Yellowtop Optima).
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I bought my Civic Type-R it didn't even have an option for air conditioning due to the weight it added. For some types of car every pound (though they are called grams in the real world) counts. I suspect this will be popular in the lightweight performance car world.
For sure losing 30+lbs is a big deal in the high-performance automotive world, and Ohm's price premium is nothing compared to, say, replacing structural elements with carbon fiber etc. But I don't think your average mass-market consumer is going to care much about 30lbs, or notice a difference in performance or handling if they did.
I'm not sure why my comment got so downvoted, that's kind of weird as I was just stating facts.
Absolutely the average buyer of a Camry is not going to care about this. But that wasn't at all my point. Some cars (more often in Europe/Japan where driving is more fun because they have corners), take weight seriously. I think car manufacturers might take this option seriously in their sport divisions.
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#185Car user here. I didn't know I had this problem.
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know how much you can talk about the tech, but I'm interested in how it fits with existing batteries & applications. Is it possibly an add-on to lead acid? A better jump starter? What about industrial like large motor plants where you need a jolt to get a lot of weight moving?
Actually, our very first prototype was a thing that sat on top your existing car battery. After talking to some people, it seemed like they preferred it integrated into the battery itself. It makes the price easier too, since you're not spending money on a battery AND a thing you put on top of it, just a better battery. Industrial motors aren't something I've looked into a lot yet, but it could be interesting. I was…
FWIW, I'd be interested in the thing that sat on top. Seems like that wouldn't wear out and would be cheaper than the combination.
I have an older car with occasional electrical gremlins. My battery is fine, but an ounce of prevention...
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#187Car user here. I didn't know I had this problem.
You don't.
Also car user.
The battery in my Fiat is the one that was in it when I got it in 2006.
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#188JOOC, what is the CCA rating? I don't recall seeing it in the comments. There aren't many of us who run winches, but thems of us that do want quite a few (650 CCA is not uncommon, and some winch manufacturers recommend deep cycle batteries like the Yellowtop Optima).
Their site says '550+'. From the sound of it, this battery would not be suited to running a winch for more than a quick pull.
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#189One challenge in going after the enthusiast market is going to be, the enthusiast market already has options. Back when I drove a fast sporty little car, I got one of these: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002ILK6I $100, 4 pounds. Proven technology. I can buy it today. Half the cost, 60% more capacity, and 2/3 the weight of this "Ohm". Smaller too, from the looks of the "Ohm". I'm not trying to rag on you guys, bu…
There are other lightweight batteries out there, but they generally aren't suitable for daily use for one reason or another. The usual sacrifices are either lifetime or performance over temperature. The battery you linked is only warrantied for 2 years and likely wouldn't work south of freezing - not quite what you'd expect for the price tag. We think we can already beat them on value prop, but with a little bit more…
It does list itself as "extreme temperature tolerant" and suitable for snowmobiles. And to be honest, a 2 year warranty from a long-established company is worth more to me than a 7-year warranty from a company founded this year that could be gone next year, no offense.
Just trying to share some of the challenges you face.
Re: Ohm (YC S15) is a smarter, lighter car battery that works with your existing car
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
> that still leaves 24 million pounds of lead each year from car batteries that don't get recycled Is that actually a lot? Similar statements are made with respect to nuclear waste, but frankly, I've regarded these statements in units of mass as deliberately misleading due to nuclear waste (or lead in this case) to be uniquely dense relative to what we are accustomed to dealing with on a daily basis. Siri, via Wolfra…
All of the mined gold in the world is a cube about 70 ft on a side. Big cubes are hard to intuitively reason about.
Lead is also pretty bad for people. From some research on Wikipedia and with GNU units, an adult can get clinically significant lead poisoning by absorbing about half a milligram of lead into their bloodstream. (You would have to eat, breathe, or touch more than that in order to get it into the blood.)
If you took all of that non-recycled car battery lead waste and distributed it evenly across the whole U.S. population, you would have 6 orders of magnitude more than the absorbed dose required to give everyone in the country clinical lead poisoning.
(Obviously most of that waste has no likelihood of being absorbed into someone's body, so this calculation isn't necessarily that meaningful.)