While lead-acid batteries may not be suitable for long-range electric vehicles, they can still be effective in electric vehicles that are primarily used for short-distance travel or in specific app.
Some do-it-yourself conversion kits for electric vehicles also use lead acid batteries. Lead acid batteries are comparatively heavy—and dangerous because they contain lead, which is toxic, and sulfuric acid, which is a hazardous material.
In the future there may be a class of battery electric automobile, such as the neighborhood EV, for which the limited range and relatively short cycle life are sufficiently offset by the low first cost of a lead–acid design, but for all vehicles with a range between charges of over 100 miles or 160 km, lithium-ion batteries will be needed. 5.6.
Lead acid batteries are commonly used to provide startup or backup power in gasoline- and diesel-powered vehicles. In addition, lead acid batteries have often been used in many special-purpose vehicles, including fork-lifts, low-speed utility vehicles and golf carts.
Lithium ions provide higher energy and power densities and better energy efficiency than earlier battery systems. This makes them the battery of choice for many plug-in vehicles planned by major automakers. Taking advantage of this, the Tesla company uses thousands of lithium-cobalt-oxide cylindrical batteries in its battery electric sports car.
Lead-acid batteries are widely used as the starting, lighting, and ignition (SLI) batteries for ICE vehicles (Hu et al., 2017). Garche et al. (Garche et al., 2015) adopted a lead-acid battery in a mild hybrid powertrain system (usually no more than 48V) after improving its dynamic charging and discharging performances in 2015.
Why are lead-acid batteries better than Li batteries?
On contrary, lead is a carcinogenic material that is harmful to the environment. Even lead-acid batteries contain other chemicals such as sulphuric acid that are poisonous. But the recycling rate for lead-acid batteries is higher than Li batteries. Also, lead-acid batteries are cheaper because of their wide availability.