Battery Tips - December 24, 2021
The increasing demand on the use of clean energy and the ever-reducing capacity of the liquid/gas fuel all over the globe has lead the auto-makers in the world to shift to the lithium-ion batteries. They are commonly referred to as Li-ion batteries. Use of Li-ion batteries in the vehicles promises reduction in pollution due to combustion gases and hence hope for better air quality.
When we talk about Li-ion batteries and the lead acid batteries a question the common man asks is what is the difference and how does it affect me as a user in terms of usability, longevity, maintenance, price and things like that. Let us address these issues once and for all right here.
Lithium batteries and the lead acid batteries are the two completely different types of energy storage equipment designed on different technologies with completely different components for similar purpose but in a different environment or settings. We will learn this in the rest of the article.
Lead acid battery as the name suggests works through the chemical reaction between lead and acid. All lead acid batteries use different types of lead alloys combined with Calcium, Antimony, Tin, Copper etc.
A lead-acid storage battery contains lead and sulphuric acid that reacts with each other. The plates made out of lead alloy are dipped in sulphuric acid solution. These plates and the acid solution react with each other and generate electricity which then is transferred through the terminals to power the equipment, the bike or the car.
A lithium-ion battery is one type of rechargeable power storage battery that primarily generates, stores and supplies electrical energy through the lose lithium ions.
Unlike the coin cells or the nickel cadmium batteries lithium-ion batteries store more power, and are used in variety of applications ranging from mobile phones, Computers and large equipment. Lithium-ion batteries are now being widely used to power the bikes and the cars as well.
The question, ‘which one between the lithium-ion and the lead-acid scooty battery?’ is more of a cliché like comparing apples with oranges.
There can never be an easy and direct answer to this question because technically they are not used for exactly similar applications. Yes, they are both used in cars and bikes but the vehicles that use lead-acid battery essentially run on a fuel engine and those using lithium-ion battery don’t use fuel engines and rather run on an electric motor which is completely dependent on the battery power.
Let us compare the electric scooter and the petrol bike for the sake of differentiation and let’s see if we can throw some light on this widely misunderstood concept concerning the scooty battery.
Lithium-ion battery is relatively new to the automotive sector than the traditional scooty battery made from lead-acid technology. We must note here that the scooty battery has a very limited task to do when it comes to petrol vehicles. They are used for ignition and supplying power for the electrical equipment such as the head light, horn, indicators etc.
Contrary to this, in an e-bike or the e-scooter the main power supply is from the battery. There is no fuel combustion engine and therefore no liquid/gas fuel. Every part that needs power is dependent on the scooty battery. Because of these reasons the battery in the electric bike generally comes with higher capacity supplying consistent power for a stipulated period of time.
E-bikes, because of their need to charge the battery through external power source, face a constant challenge to go for a longer distance for the lack of availability of charging stations. Because e-bike can go only a certain distance once fully charged. Countries all over the globe are now thing about ways to make the charging stations available on the highways and inside the cities to facilitate the easy re-charge for the growing number of electric bikes and cars. In a long run this is going to prove to be the wisest thing to do as the technology giants are looking at huge demand for the electric chargers for cars and bikes.
So, we can conclude, since the batteries made for electric scooter and that for petrol bike are completely different in their nature, function and the purpose they are not directly comparable.
