When building or converting a gas powered vehicle (Car or Truck) into a battery or electrically powered vehicle three primary things must be considered if you are to have an electric vehicle that will give you performance comparable to that of an gas powered vehicle.

1) The vehicles weight must be within the limits of the power source you are using.

2) The Drive Motor must be powerful enough to move the vehicle at acceptable road speeds both on city streets and on the highway.

3) The batteries or your power source must be of the right type, or you will not obtain the desired performance or maximum operational life from your batteries.

In this short article we will be looking at that type of battery that needs to be used for an electric vehicle and how the extra up front cost of the battery can save you a great deal of many and work down the road.

As everyone knows a gas powered or diesel powered vehicle needs a battery to start the vehicle, with out it the vehicle just won't start. Though a car/truck battery needs to put out a great amount of current to start the engine of the vehicle, the high current flow is essentially of short duration and as result is not a constant drain on the battery in addition the vehicles alternator will begin recharging the battery immediately after the engine starts.

On the other hand a battery that must power an electric vehicle must put out a sustained high level current for the duration of the vehicles travel destination if you plan on getting to your destination and there is no recharging of the vehicles battery until the vehicle is turned off and recharged with a charger.

Also because of the way a car/truck battery is designed (Short Term - High Current Output) the materials within the battery would begin to break down fairly rapidly and in a few months the battery would be useless. For this reason specially designed batteries called deep cycle batteries have been designed.

Deep Cycle batteries are batteries that have a much thicker plate structure within the battery. Unlike regular car batteries whose lead plates structure is made up of many thin like lead sponge plates. This difference in the design ensures that the battery can output the sustained current needed by the DC Motor (the output current of deep cycle batteries is lower than a standard car battery), which is what's needed for an electric vehicle.

There are several different types of Deep Cycle batteries that are available and each has its useful purpose based on the type of loads it is designed to handle.

These Deep Cycle battery types are:

1)Flooded

2)Gel

3)AGM

Here is a brief explanation of each battery type:

First what main features separates a car battery from a deep cycle battery - it is the thickness of the plates that makes up the battery. A regular car battery has a plate thickness of 0.04", while that of a Deep Cycle battery can have a thickness exceeding 0.25". That's almost 7 times as thick!

If a regular car battery were to be used battery failure would ensue fairly rapidly due to an effect called Positive Grid Corrosion. As current is transfered the positive plate of the battery is eaten away over time and the thinner this plate is the faster it will disolve. If you have ever taken apart an old non-working car battery (not recommended - lead is poisonous), you will find sediment at the bottom of the battery. This sediment is what's left over from the positive plate.

Flooded Deep Cycle batteries are similar to regular car batteries except for the thickness of lead plates which make up the battery. Flooded batteries have most of the same short comings of standard car batteries - such as electrolyte dissipation and hydrogen/oxygen gas venting.

Gel or Gelled Electrolyte Deep Cycle batteries contain an Acid/Silica mix which forms a gelatinous matrix. This type of battery works well in high temperature environments and can be partially recharged without causing major battery damage and are spill proof even if the battery is broken. Another benefit of the Gel Deep Cycle battery is that they are hermetically sealed and do not vent gas under normal use. On the other hand this type of battery is intolerant of high voltages, must be charged at slower rate to prevent excess gas from damaging the battery cells and can not be fast charged with a standard automotive charger.

AGM or Absorbed Glass Mat batteries are comprised of a Boron-Silicate Glass Mat that is placed between the lead plates. This arrangement makes the electrolyte of the battery spill proof even if the battery case is broken. The batteries also exhibits many of the advantages of the Gel Deep Cycle battery along with the ability to withstand high voltage charging, high resistance to freezing damage, oxygen & hydrogen are recombined inside the battery through a gas phase transfer process which reduces water loss to under 1% typically. AGM batteries also exhibit extremely low internal resistance, practically no heating during under heavy loads or when charging, and no charge/discharge current limits for most AGM batteries.

As you can be seen from above, the AGM batteries offer the ultimate in performance for an electric vehicle and Flooded batteries the poorest performance with Gel Electrolyte batteries offering performance closer to AGM batteries. If money is no object the AGM batteries would be the battery of choice, but these batteries can cost up to 3x the price of Flooded batteries of equal capacity.

All Deep Cycle batteries are rated in Amp-Hours or AH this is a measure of the output current per hour. So for instance a battery rated at 10-AH will supply 10A over 1HR or 1A over 10Hrs. The standard Amp-Hour rating used for a Deep Cycle batteries is the 20 Hour Rate. This rating is based on discharging a 12V battery down to 10.5V over a 20 Hour period and measuring the actual Amp-Hours the battery supplies.

This Deep Cycle battery rating will determine the size of the battery that will be required for the vehicles weight and the distance we choose to achieve for a given vehicles maximum speed.

Though all three types of batteries Flooded, Gelled Electrolyte and AGM can be used the latter two offer the best performance and longest battery life. There are many different types of batteries within each category, therefor it is essential to have the proper information on the type of electric vehicle conversion in choosing the best battery for the project.

You can download a Free Special Report on Electric Vehicle Conversions and find out what's needed in getting started with a gas to electric car conversion, from finding a vehicle to getting free batteries and motors.