First Battery Pack (CALB – LiFePO4)
The first battery pack was based on 32 LiFePO4 cells. I drove around 10’000km with the pack and it is still working fine. However the range was with 70km quite limited. Further I had to balance the cells from time to time manually. I implemented top-balancer-circuits on every cell but this did not prevent that one or the other cell was drifting away and had to be charged/discharged separately.
The advantages for lithium iron phosphate cells are:
- Robust
- Save (no thermal runaway)
- Relatively low cost
- Easy to handle
The drawbacks:
- low energy density compared to lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide cells (Tesla cells -> NMC)
