Lead acid batteries are less than 50% efficient at accepting a charge when near full capacity, which is where they need to spend most of their time to get a long service life out of them.
I haven't tested this yet, but there might be some small fuel savings to be had by not wasting energy trying to charge a Pb battery to full constantly. Lithium based batteries have much higher charge efficiencies at near full capacity.
To be sure, the fuel savings would be small, because the amount of energy contained by a typical automotive battery is small in comparison to the fuel tank.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ecky
I'd love to use lithium but I'm concerned about damaging them during Vermont's winters.
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There is a 4.2 Ah LiFePO4 pack available from HobbyKing for under $50. You could test with that to see how it fares. Would be valuable info to the community too. Test capacity before installation, and then after a VT winter. Since the Prius battery lives in the cabin, I suspect it would be fine, especially since it will hardly discharge, and therefore hardly need a charge.