The Basics Plain And Simple

If you are going to take any advice from this website, what you are about to read is the most important.

The biggest, most expensive and most common mistake a new electric vehicle owner makes is to abuse their battery pack. This sometimes happens within hours of when they receive their new electric vehicle. The new owner is so excited about driving electric (as you should be :-) that you drive the vehicle too far and experience what I now call a "Low Voltage Event". This simply means that you have driven the vehicle past it's safe range and drained the batteries too low thus damaging the batteries and significantly shortening their life. Believe me, I understand how this happens. I did it myself.

Driving a Xebra until the red battery light appears is much like driving a gas car with the over heat temperature light on, the oil light on and the gas gauge on empty. Continuing to drive a gas vehicle with no oil and overheating will damage the engine. Ask my wife. There's a Saturn in a junk yard somewhere that suffered an early death because of this very thing. Don't do to your electric vehicle what you would not do to your gas vehicle.

The Xebra has a maximum range of around 25 miles with the stock batteries. That does not mean that you drive the vehicle 25 miles every trip and then charge it. It means that at 25 miles or so the vehicle will stop moving.

I will now put this in the simplest terms. The batteries in a Xebra will have the longest life if it is used for trips of 15 miles or so per charge. This simple rule will get you by until you become more educated about how to take care of your batteries.

Charging the batteries

I am creating a special page about charging the batteries. There are many misconceptions about charging. It is such an important subject. Click here to go to Battery Charging page.

How to extend the life of your batteries

1) Follow the advice from the above paragraphs.

2) Purchase additional battery monitoring devices such as the Paktrakr shown here:

This device is very easy to install and costs about $150 . It gives you a read out of each individual battery voltage as you are driving. To avoid damage to your batteries, you should never let and single battery drop below 10.5 volts. With the Paktrakr you will be able to see how your batteries are behaving under load (which is this most and useful time to see the voltages of your batteries) and it will alert you when one battery is weaker than the others so you can get it replaced before it drags down other batteries with it. A one weak battery will damage the rest of your pack. It's like losing a horse in a team of horses but expecting the remaining ones to go just as fast as before.

3) Drive conservatively. Don't do jack rabbit starts. Coast when you can.

4) Pick the flattest route possible even if it takes out of the way a bit. High amp draws on steep hills will shorten the life of your batteries.

5) Keep in mind that when the temperature drops below 30 degrees, you will begin to lose range. If your vehicle stays outside, at zero degrees your range will be cut in half. If you are flooring it at stop signs and hitting every hill instead of picking flatter routes, your range will be very low and you will risk a low voltage event. You have to slow down and be more aware. You may not be able to make the same trips as you made in the summer. Take experimental trips on cold days when you have time. See how your range has changed. Don't wait until you are on your way to work or coming home from picking up your kids at school to find out that your range has dropped due to the cold weather. Think ahead. Life is more fun that way. You will want your batteries to be in good shape for the spring when gas prices go back up and your spouse quits giving you dirty looks for buying an electric  vehicle ;-)

6) Install a ammeter. The new metal sedans come with a ammeter built into the instrumentation but the Xebra Truck and the older model fiberglass sedans do not have ammeters.

Battery Maintenance

1) Check your battery posts every two months or so. Make sure the cables are snug. Do not over tighten them as you can break the post inside the battery.

A loose battery connection will generate a great deal of heat and can melt a battery of even cause a fire. This is not an "electric car thing" , it's a "loose battery connection thing". The same thing will happen with a gas car battery if it has a loose connection.

2) Check for cracks or burn marks around battery connections.

3) Do not open sealed lead acid batteries. You NEVER add water to them. There is no maintenance on a sealed lead acid battery other than making sure the connections are tight.