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Rickard Electric Special Edition – Owner’s Manual
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CHARGING
Most new electric car owners are somewhat focused on two questions:
How far can I go on a single charge?
How long does it take to recharge the car?
These questions are of course valid, and somewhat interrelated.
In actually using the car, you will quickly learn neither is really very important
to most drivers.
The quick answer is 80 miles, and 7 hours. Both are actually extremely
variable. The 80 miles is quite variable depending on how you drive the car.
We have driven the car in testing quite over 100 miles in urban stop and go
while still within the 162 Ah limit. Similarly, driving 90 miles per hour on the
freeway will not only deplete the pack within 60 miles, but can result in a
felony speeding ticket.
The amount of charge time depends on how far you have driven the car. In
actual practice, American drivers AVERAGE 39.4 miles per day and the
MEDIAN daily drive is 26 miles , meaning half the licensed drivers average 26
miles per day or less.
The LiFePo4 cells are truly remarkable devices and account for much of the
expense of your new electric car. They exhibit very few of the churlish
characteristics of lead acid, nickel cadmium, or nickel metal hydride cells. For
example, there is NO advantage to fully discharging these cells - ever. There is
no memory, and there is no need really to ever fully charge them. They do not
sulfate, they need not be “balanced”, they do not take water, and they really
behave quite remarkably well in both hot and cold temperatures. You may note
about a 10-15% decrease in range in temperatures below freezing.
They do NOT like to be overcharged.
And they do NOT like to be over-discharged. By limiting your driving to 80
miles on a charge, these cells should last for 2000 charging cycles. By way of
comparison, lead acid cells of the very best industrial design are typically good
for 350 cycles (from fully charged, to fully discharged, to fully recharged).
If you limit your driving to 70 miles between charges, you can FURTHER
extend the life of these cells by 50% to 3000 cycles.
What this means in actual practice is that you can charge when and where you
like, as often as you like, without regards to cell chemistry quirks. And a lesser
cycle doesn’t really count as a full cycle.