Quote:
Originally Posted by JimJohnson
I see this discussion a lot and yesterday did a practical exercise. We took off from our home in Chitty Chatty, drove to Walgreens in Colony Plaza, then drove around our old neighborhood of Duval. Then we proceeded to the Brownwood Square, over the 44 Bridge to Megasen Road, on to Bradford and finally swung East to home in Chitty Chatty. Approx 22 miles and the cart/batteries are 3 years old. The Gauge dropped below half, so my guess would be about 15 miles remains on the batteries. We drive this cart at least once a day, every day, so no replacement is in site for now. For us, we will never buy another gas cart due to the jerkiness, smell and worst of all the noise.
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Endless gossip from some who know and many who do not. Remaining range on a battery based on gauge. First of all it depends on the battery type and what the gauge is measuring as well as the cut off.
Lead acid batteries, the voltage falls off gradually as the battery discharges. The gauge often measures the voltage. You will notice lights dim and speed decreases as the batteries run down in charge.
Lithium Ion batteries have a fairly flat voltage until the end of the useful charge at the end the voltage suddenly drops off.
You should not run either completely down. The reason is what we call the battery is actually several batteries, several cells, wired together to get the 36 or 48 volts or whatever. If, it is 48 volts lead acid, each cell is 2 volts so it is 24 cells. That can be 4 12 volt batteries, 6 8volt or 8 6volt batteries. The voltage is the same. The difference is the quantity of stored electricity. 8 6volt batteries will likely have more ampere hours, a bigger tank of gas if, that makes sense to the way people think.
No matter what all the cells will not perfectly match. When, you run the assembly down too far it damages or destroys the weakest cells. Permanently damaging the assembly.
The endless gas vs electric debate. You should not run a gas cart or your car completely out of gas either. But, in gas if you are running out of gas, you can likely find gas and fill the tank. Electric that is not an option. A short top up charge does not charge all the cells equally.
My background, I used to sell high powered rechargeable photo flashes.