Just like the battery in your mobile phone or laptop, lead-acid car batteries have a limited life span and will eventually lose their ability to hold sufficient charge to start your car. On average you can expect a lead-acid battery to last approx 4 years, but this time-frame will vary depending on a number of variables – such as hot or cold climates, journey lengths and the performance of your car’s electrical charging system.

Regardless of what conditions your car is subjected to, here are some tips you can consider to help get the very best out of your battery and of course if you ever need Roadside Assistance to get your out of your Battery breakdown.  Roadside Response is available to anyone, anytime!

Tip 1 | Avoid frequent short trips

Your car’s battery is given a workout every time you start your car but is then recharged by the engine during the journey. So if you are only driving a short distance it will be impossible for the battery to regain the amount of power lost – and if you repeat the process daily the battery voltage will reduce steadily until it can no longer start the car.

Maintain your car’s battery power by driving it frequently and for longer periods of time – and if you don’t use your car very often, consider investing in a battery charger to help maintain the correct voltage.

Tip 2 | Keep your battery securely fastened

Vibration caused whilst driving can reduce the life of your car battery, so it is vital that you always use an approved battery clamp to ensure it is properly held down at all times. If not securely fastened, excessive vibration could damage your battery’s internal components – creating short circuits and reducing battery life.

But don’t make the mistake of over-tightening the battery clamp nuts either – this can damage the battery! Instead, simply tighten the nuts until you feel resistance, and then continue for only an additional half turn.

Tip 3 | Minimise power use when the engine is switched off

Car batteries are happiest when they are kept close to maximum charge – so keeping your headlights, radio or interior lights on while the engine isn’t running should be avoided. Before exiting the vehicle, always ensure that all accessories are turned off and double-check that the lights are off as you walk away, including the interior lights.

Tip 4 | Check the condition and voltage of your battery

A lead-acid battery’s life will shorten dramatically the longer it is left partially or fully discharged, so checking the voltage with a voltmeter once a month is a great way to keep an eye on your battery’s health. A healthy, fully charged lead-acid battery should have a voltage of around 12.7 volts or above.  Should the voltage drop below 12.5 volts, we’d recommend recharging the battery as soon as possible. It is also important to remember that a lead-acid car battery is considered to be half charged at 12.4 volts, and completely flat/dead at 12.0 volts – so don’t get complacent.

Ensure the top of your battery is clean, dry, and free of dirt and grime. The battery terminals will also corrode over time, and keeping them clean from buildup is a great way to extend the life of your car battery. Scrub the terminals with an old toothbrush dipped in a baking soda and water mixture. Then, using a spray bottle with cold water, rinse the mixture off and follow up with a thorough drying with a clean cloth.

Despite these tips being great ways to love your battery, there will come a time when you need to replace it – it has simply come to the end of its life.  Modern car batteries don’t give any signals they are on there way out anymore, they just fail!  Roadside Response attends to hundreds of roadside assistance call out which are related to dead or flat batteries – it’s our number 1 breakdown reason.  That’s why we take the hassle out of a car battery, truck battery or bike battey replacement by ensuring our Roadside Assistance and Battery Replacement service providers carry a wide range of batteries onboard ready for professional roadside replacement.  We even provide extended warranties on all batteries installed by our Battery Response network of ‘we come to you’ battery fitment experts for that added peace of mind.

We want you back on the road quickly because life keeps on moving and so should you and now you can with our no membership Battery Response service available to every Aussie motorist!

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Our On Demand Service continues to grow as we see more and more people moving away from traditional membership programs, in favour of pay to use programs like ours.  Most Emergency Roadside Assistance incidents can be rectified for as little as the cost of a tank of fuel, so why continue to pay out year after year on membership fees?

Replacement Batteries delivered and fitted at your home, office or at the Roadside.  Breakdown’s caused by Flat Tyre’s, Running out of Fuel, Locking Keys inside your vehicle or mechanical issues are all managed here at our Sydney office.  Where pleased to be one of Australia’s leading Roadside Assistance & Battery Replacement providers to the retail and B2B sector.

Our Fleet Response program specially designed to provide B2B fleet managers with a cost effective alternative to ‘per vehicle’ membership assistance.  Just like our Retail offering, we provide On Demand Roadside Assistance toSME’s and large national fleets of vehicle on a pay as you use basis.

All of these great programs are expertly managed by our new 24/7 Response Centre in Revesby.

James Nicholls-Easley | General Manager

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More than eighty thousand tonnes of lead-acid batteries are finished with each year. As hazardous waste, it is important these do not go to landfill.  Lead-acid batteries can be re-conditioned or recycled into new products. Recycling of these batteries uses less energy than refining primary ore and removes lead from the environment.

Were serious about making sure spent and used Lead Acid Batteries are properly recycled so every time you buy a battery from Roadside Response you can be sure your old battery is being safely recycled.

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A recent survey of our Roadside Battery Response service proved that Roadside Response delivers and installs replacement car batteries in under 50 minutes, 90% of the time!

So when your stranded with a dead battery or need roadside assistance, Roadside Response is the company you want to respond to your roadside needs.  Delivered to you door, anytime, day or night, our Battery Response service is leading the way in service and price.

Covering all areas of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, were here to help, anyone, anywhere, anytime.  No membership or roadside joining fees apply.  Simply call us with your vehicles make and model and we will do the rest.

When you need a Response….call Roadside Response!  Batteries in under 50 minutes…

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While warmer temperatures help to increase battery capacity, making it easier to turn over the engine, they also cause an increase in the rate at which the battery deteriorates. When the temperature is warmer, the current conducting grids corrode faster, which can reduce the life of your battery.

High temperatures, especially when combined with parasitic loads, will shorten the life of the battery. A common scenario is that a battery will fail during the first cold weather of the year, and it’s tempting to blame the cold weather, when in fact, it was the high temperatures of summer which deteriorated the battery to the point that it can’t start the first time it has to work a little harder in winter.

Knowing that the summer heat already speeds up the rate at which the battery deteriorates, and that the rate of deterioration is further accelerated by parasitic loads, it is clear that managing temperature and parasitic loads can increase the reliability of the battery.

To prevent excessive discharge and keep batteries from deteriorating in the summer, follow these tips:

1. Use a premium fit for purpose battery. Battery failures can be a major source of downtime. Using a high-quality battery is a way to keep a truck running. High quality maintenance free batteries require less maintenance and tend to survive high temperatures and parasitic loads better than traditional technologies.
2. Keep the battery cool. Battery life can be extended by parking in shaded or covered areas like a garage. If the battery is in storage, be sure to follow the battery manufacturer’s recommended specifications for storage temperature.
3. Turn off the electronics. Electronics, the main source of parasitic loads, play a significant role in draining the battery of its charge. Be sure to shut down all electronics before exiting the vehicle, especially if the engine will remain inactive for long periods. An inactive engine has more time to discharge an otherwise healthy battery.
4. Keep moving. As mentioned above, parasitic loads will drain the battery if the engine remains inactive long enough, so if possible, keep the vehicle on the road.
5. Stay charged. Proper charging of the battery is the single most important action in ensuring that the battery will last for its intended life. If needed, use a battery charger, which operates to the battery manufacturer’s charging recommendations to restore the battery to a fully charged state.

Proper maintenance of the battery, both while in use and in storage, will extend its service life. If there are signs that the battery is starting to fail, then contact Roadside Response and get your battery in shape for summer!

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The positive electrode (cathode) forms a similar layer of film that is known as electrolyte oxidation. Dr. Dahn’s research has make it clear that any voltage that is more than 4.10V/cell causes this to occur. This process gets worse the longer the battery stays in these conditions. While experts have known that this happens for some time, Dr. Dahn’s system of measuring CE is more scientific and give us a better understanding of the process.

Coulombic efficiency measures changes on both the negative electrode and the positive electrode. The results of using this formula can help to rank how long a battery might last. If we were able to produce a battery with a CE of 1,000,000 the battery would last forever according to Dr. Dahn’s calculations. A fantastic CE is .9999. This is a level that some Lithium cobalt Oxides reach. When looking at CE the best Lithium-ion batteries are LTO’s that use titanate as an anode. These batteris can deliver as many as 10,000 cycles; however the are very expensive and not very economical. The energy density is also low.

Temperature and change rate can have an impact on CE readings. Electrolyte oxidation can cause the batteries to discharge on their own. At low temperatures lithium-ion looses approximately 2% each month. At higher temperatures this number can be as much as 35% when the battery is fully charges.

Over the years Lithium-ion has improved and much of the credit goes to electrolyte additives. Manufacturers are adding several additives to each cell of the battery; however the formula used has been kept tops secret. These additives help to diminish resistance, prevent erosion and improve manufacturing speed. The can also decrease gassing and improve performance at extreme temperatures. Vinylene added to the cells improves the over all SEI on anodes, and restricts electrolyte oxidation on the cathode. It also enhances the Coulombic efficiency readings. Some manufacturers use other additives. Some worry that these will react with one another. Using Dr. Dahn’s CE system it allows us to assess these reactions much more quickly. Things that used to take us year to figures out, we can find a conclusion to in just a few short weeks.

When looking at the distinction between CE and the life of a battery Dr. Dahn”s team works with battery manufacturers. Most manufacturers keep their formulas secret, so the university if only able to make their own assumptions about what is being used in the cells.
These additives help to diminish resistance, prevent erosion and improve manufacturing speed.
The team at Dalhousle University has been able to identify five batteries of interest. Table 2 gives information on the Coulombic efficiency of samples with values ranging from .9960 to .9995. The third table shows the results when the batteries were cycled until all the energy was depleted. The results show that the batteries that were ranked highest by CE lasted outlasted those with the lowest CE.

Cycle testing helps to test the wear and tear of batteries. Measuring the coulombic efficiency is beneficial in developing new batteries that will last longer. It tells us which additives are best and which are making lithium-ion batteries die more quickly. The battery that came standard in the Nissan Leaf did well in lab tests, but the scientists may have overlooked the damage that is done when the battery is kept at a high temperature.

There are four suspected reasons that contribute to battery capacity loss.

• Mechanical degradation of electrodes
• Growth of SEI on the Anode
• Electrolyte oxidation formation on the cathode
• Lithium-plating on the surface.

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The positive electrode (cathode) forms a similar layer of film that is known as electrolyte oxidation. Dr. Dahn’s research has make it clear that any voltage that is more than 4.10V/cell causes this to occur. This process gets worse the longer the battery stays in these conditions. While experts have known that this happens for some time, Dr. Dahn’s system of measuring CE is more scientific and give us a better understanding of the process.
The energy density has always been the standard specification for which a battery is measured. After the recall in 2008 of Li-ion batteries, safety became more of a concern and batteries became safer for consumers. After the invention of electric vehicles, longer lasting batteries have been the main focus of experts. Since then experts have been working tirelessly to figure out what causes batteries to fail.

The average battery life of a laptop or mobile phone battery is two or three years, or approximately 500 cycles. The eight year warranty that is standard or electric vehicles seems to come up short, considering the cost of replacing the battery in an electric vehicle is just short of the price of a compact car. If experts can come up with a way to extend the life of a battery up to 20 years, it would make driving an electric vehicle much more economical.

Nissan is currently being sued by those who purchased the Nissan Leaf in California and Arizona. The owners are doing so because of the premature capacity loss of the battery. The hot climate in these states is taking the blame for the sudden loss of power and heat. The battery that came standard in these vehicles was not equipped with a system to keep the battery cells cool in warmer temperatures.

A manganese-based Li-ion battery cam standard in the Nissan Leaf. It was chosen by Nissan because of it’s superior performance; however it is still not strong enough to provide power for the life of the vehicle. Testing showed that it was capable of a rapid charge , and a 20 minute discharge. Even under perfect conditions the battery is likely to loose about 10% after 500 cycles or one to two years of driving.

In most cases with a new product, we don’t notice the defects until after a few years. Professor Jeff Dahn of Dalhousie University is working together with his team of colleagues to develop coulombic efficiency also known as CE. This method helps to make the process more efficient. Using his method electrons are transferred in an electro chemical system.

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The leclanche’s battery which is also termed as the carbon-zinc is the least expensive battery and will always come with consumer devices when the batteries are included. They are general purpose batteries and are mainly used in applications having low power drain such as the flashlights, remote controls, wall clocks and children’s’ toys. The most common primary battery for consumers is the alkaline-manganese. It was invented in 1949 by Lewis Urry while he was working in the Eveready Battery Company Laboratory in Parma, Ohio. It delivers more energy while at higher load currents compared to carbon-zinc. Besides, it does not leak when it is depleted like for the case of the carbon-zinc. However, it is more expensive.

Primary batteries happen to be among the batteries with the highest densities. Even though the secondary batteries have improved, the regular household alkaline will provide 50 % more energy compared to lithium-ion. The primary battery which is the most energy-dense is the lithium battery which is made for the military combat and the film cameras. It usually holds more than three times the energy of the lithium ion. It comes in various blends which include lithium oxygen; lithium-sulfur dioxide, lithium-metal, lithium-thionyl chloride, lithium manganese dioxide and others.

The specific energy indicates the amount of energy that a battery can hold. However, this will not guarantee delivery. The primary batteries have higher internal resistance and this limits the discharge to light loads such as the flashlights, the portable entertainment devices, and remote controls. The digital cameras are borderline and the power drill on the alkaline is usually unthinkable.

The manufacturers of the primary battery will specify the specific energy while the ability to deliver power is not published. Most of the secondary batteries are rated at discharge current of about 1C while the capacity of the primary batteries will be measured by discharging them at a very low current of about 25mA or fraction of 1C. Moreover, the batteries are allowed to go down to very low voltage of 0.8 volts per cell. This provides impressive readings on the paper but the results will be poor under a demanding load.

The main reason for the sharp drop in the performance is due to the higher internal resistance in the primary battery. This causes a drop in voltage under the load. The high resistance increases further while the battery depletes on discharge. As the battery on the digital camera goes flat, the precious capacity is left behind. When alkaline is spent, it can power a kitchen clock for two years. Figure 2 shows largest discrepancy between “actual” and the “Rated” on alkaline. A long life alkaline will deliver better results.
It can be expensive to use primary batteries and its ability to recharge raises the cost of power by roughly thirty folds over the secondary batteries. The pricing will be more acute when the packs are being replaced after each mission regardless of the length of service. Discarding the partially used batteries is very common in critical missions and the fleet applications. It is safer and more convenient to issue the troops with fresh packs rather than estimate the remaining state of charge. According to one of the US army general, about half of the batteries that are discarded have 50% of the energy left.

Estimating the state of charge in the battery will help but the instruments to use are inaccurate and expensive. One of the common methods is measuring of the open circuit voltage and reading of the internal resistance by applying some load and recording the voltage drop. When there is a large voltage differential, it will relate to the rising resistance which is a hint to the end of its life. An accurate method is to count the out-flowing energy (coulomb counting) but this method requires expensive circuitry due to inherent inaccuracies and high cost, the fuel gauges are not always used on the primary batteries.

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Basically during discharge the anode experiences oxidation i.e. it loses electrons from material and the cathode gains these electrons and gets reduced. Lithium based batteries are available in many different varieties and though they all have the Li-ion principal in common their performance can vary greatly based on material chosen for the cathode. Some commonly used cathode materials in Lithium-based batteries are Lithium Manganese Oxide, Lithium-Iron Phosphate and Lithium Cobalt Oxide etc. In the original Li-ion battery marketed by Sony the anode was made of coke. Since the year 1997 most manufacturers have changed to graphite based anode because it offers a much flatter and stable discharge curve. Graphite is known to store Li-ion very well and hence offers long time stability. Due to these properties it is the most popular Anode material followed by soft and hard carbons. New age materials like carbon nano tubes still haven’t found extended commercial use.

Advances in Anode technology are also being made and a new material being tried out is silicon based alloy. Silicon achieves about a 30 % gain in specific energy with reduced load currents and a reduced life cycle. Also there has been research done on using lithium titanate as anode material and it shows good load capacities and great low temperature performance though the specific energy levels are low.

Manufacturers can opt to mix and match anode and cathode materials to obtained desired cell attributes. But promoting one attribute can compromise the integrity of the other. Manufactures have to balance out these aspects to provide customers with the best products. Safety and longevity should not be compromised just to achieve low cost and high levels of specific energy. The competition to developan ideal battery is extremely intense in our present day. And hence there is a lot of research being done on optimizing all aspects of Lithium-based batteries.

Li-ion batteries generally provide high energy density and low self-discharge. The Li-ion battery doesn’t require a periodic discharge due to the absence of memory. The batteries themselves are extremely low maintenance. There are also certain limitations associated with Lithium based batteries. It requires a special circuit built into it to limit current and voltage. Even the Li-ion battery is subject to aging and holds no advantage over other chemistries in this regard. Also there may be certain transportation regulations imposed upon their shipping when done in large quantities.

All in all the Li-ion or Lithium-based battery is a marvel of engineering and offers an excellent source of concentrated energy. It is easily rechargeable and now is more or less a household item with its extensive use in mobile phones, tablets and other portable devices. The high levels of specific energy, slow discharge and high nominal voltage levels have promoted its usage in other industries such as the automobile sector. Advances are being made almost every month in Lithium-based battery technology which will slowly make their way to the customer in due course.

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Lithium is known as the lightest metal, has great electrochemical potential and is known to have the largest amount of specific energy per unit weight. Hence rechargeable batteries which use Lithium at the battery anode could in principal provide a great amount of energy. But over use these anodes could cause a short and the increase in temperature so caused could result in thermal runaway and make the whole apparatus highly volatile. Due the instability associated with using lithium in this form research was shifted to developing lithium ion batteries.

Though they have lower levels of specific energy as compared to lithium metal, they are much safer to operate with. Sony was a pioneer in this field and was the first to introduce a fully working rechargeable battery based on lithium ion technology. The actual specific-energy of Li-ion is about twice that of a NiCd based system and the higher nominal voltage of 3.60V is a major contributor to this. The nickel system has a measly 1.20V nominal cell voltage. Also further improvement can be made to the active constituents of the electrode to increase the energy density.

Lithium-based batteries provide good load characteristics and their flat discharge curve means that they offers proper utilization of energy in the desired range of 2.80 to 3.7 V per cell. The costs of manufacturing Li-ion based batteries have constantly dropped over the last twenty years and batteries with capacities of 3100 mAh and above are easily available at affordable rates. The reductions in costs, high levels of specific-energy and the absence of any toxic materials have resulted in Lithium based batteries becoming the standard energy source for portable devices. Initially its market had been limited to just the consumer industry but now it is becoming the power source of choice for heavy industries such as power-trains in vehicles etc.

By the year 2009 about 40 percent of the total revenue in batteries was Li-ion based. Lithium-based batteries are essentially low maintenance which cannot be said of all its competitors. The battery doesn’t have any memory and users do not have to employ the deliberate full discharge method to keep it in working condition. The Self discharge of these batteries is below half the levels of the nickel based ones. The nominal voltage of Li-ion battery which comes to 3.60V can easily power digital cameras and cell phones, thus avoiding complex multi-cell designs. The slight drawback of Lithium-based battery is the need for customized circuits for protection to be in place to prevent any abuse.

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