Mrg02D

GregWormald

Now you know why Formula 1 drivers are small!

lovetoturn

Matt's comment is so true about the weight. Fortunately I don't have to lose it, but my patients can spend plenty on office visits, diet pills, etc in an attempt to do so. Unfortunately, few are ever that successful at losing 30-40 lbs, and even fewer can can lose it and keep it off.

If you remove the air pump and the two plastic modules in the frunk that hold the tow bar the tire inflator, you can lose another 7 pounds for FREE.

various cheeses

The 981 supposedly requires some sort of new battery initialization at the dealer. Will this battery require anything like that?

digitalrurouni

I would be curious to learn more about this as well. Is the product a drop in replacement for the current battery?

Antigravity

HI all, I can answer those questions....
So I might have mentioned we bought a GT3 RS a few weeks ago... With that purchase of the RS I told the sales person I would need to have occasional contact directly with the Techs who work on the Cars since as a Lithium Battery Manufacturer I needed information on the Porsches electrical system so we could understand it, and its relation to the battery and charging. I had told them I had tried to contact them before and tried tocontact PNA and they would not return my calls or my emails. Well, turns out actually buying an RS helped dramatically because now I can talk to the tech whenever and they have been great and informative. So these are the actual FACTS as relayed to me...

So here is what I learned about putting a Lithium Battery in the Car. If you change out the battery in your more modern Porsche you have to also make changes in the PIWIS system (Porsche Integrated Workshop Information System ) so that the Car will understand a different type of battery is in the Car now. You can actually choose what type of battery Lead or Lithium and the Amp Hour of that battery, This will allow the car to understand it has a different battery with a lower Amp Hour and change some settings for how the charge is delivered to the battery but probably more importantly take into consideration the lower Amp Hours of the Lithium battery and try to reduce the draw on the battery earlier since the Porsches have an onboard battery management system that intentionally lowers the draws of the Cars electronics on the batteries substantially compared to earlier cars. I can say it works, we are testing for this and when the car finally settles into a sleep mode it really does reduce the draw dramatically. We have a person in Texas with our much smaller battery an ATX30 (18Ah) not the RS-30 (30Ah) and he has almost a month into the battery just sitting in the Cayman and the battery is still at its normal operating voltage of 13.2v. Also the PIWIS change is about a 15-20 minute process so don't let them tell you its more or charge you too much. Last I HAVE NOT done the PIWIS change in the RS because I want to leave it the way it is to see if we get any faults down the road.... then if faults occur I will have them change it, but for research I won't change it for a little while.

As far as what we are doing... we have finished our design of our battery tray and go into production on the first run by Wed/Thurs and I expect to have some initial parts within 10-15 days.... We have developed a bottom plate for the battery that is the exact size as the Porsche standard 70Ah Banner battery found in most all the Porsches except the Cayenne SUV and some others... Our plate will just screw onto the bottom of our RS-30, then it becomes a direct swap...you just remove the old battery put in the RS-30 and tighten that cleat at the button of the Battery tray. Easier than changing out a lead/acid battery because it weighs 11.5 pounds compare to the 45 pounds and the original battery... below are some pictures of the tray. It will be made of a billet piece of aluminum. If you notice on the second pictures there is a top bar also... in daily driver use that won't really be necessary since the bottom plate actually screws ( see 6 holes in tray) onto the RS-30 from below... but we made it because some race series rules require a metal hold down going over the TOP of the battery, or if you track you would want to have a hold-down like this.

Viper pilot

I would like to add a few item from my experience with LiPoe batteries in a different but similar application. I installed a LiPoe battery several years ago in my Yamaha FJR 1300 motorcycle. I did that primarily for the weight savings because the battery is mounted in a fairly high location and I was trying to minimize the 'top heavy' feeling of that bike. Anyway, I have been very pleased with the performance of the battery however one should be aware of the battery performance is degraded considerably in cold weather (temps below say 40 degrees F. In those conditions the battery will eventually start the motor but has to be really coaxed into 'waking up' before delivering advertised performance. Also, The LiPoe battery mfgr. strongly recommends using a special LiPoe battery charger/maintainer that actually charges/balances each individual cell. Again, I've been very pleased with the battery as used in my motorcycle but probably wouldn't bother installing one in my 2014 Cayman S unless I really wanted the weight savings that bad.

One other thought, the rep for the AntiGravity Batts talks about their 'Restart' feature. While that sounds interesting, in my Cayman S, if the battery is discharged to the point it will not start the car, I probably woun't be able to get into the Frunk to access the Restart button very easily to use that feature anyway.

Just my 2-cents worth on the subject!

Antigravity

Hey Viper,
I'm glad you brought up your experience... it relative to the conversation, and you bring up some good points. You motorcycle experience is from a much smaller battery with no real overhead or extra Amp hours to be able to work well in cold weather. In many motorcycles applications you have to be aware of a high parasitic draw but on a smaller battery that doesn't have a lot of Amp Hours to begin with. Plus many of the Lithium motorcycles Battery companies were not, and still do not give you enough real Amp hours in the battery. You stated that your other battery brand said you have to use a special charger to "Balance" the Cells... so that must be a Shorai or Ballistic brand battery? All Antigravity Batteries have always had "onboard Balancing" with no special charger needed to Balance the cells, so being the brand you bought was not technologically advanced it's not representative of the entire Lithium-Ion experience for all customers. I do understand you are just relating your experience...and that is good for all to understand as well.

Now about your cold weather starting...this is a good point..Lithium batteries do develop a higher resistance in very cold weather creating a more slugging start, and that effect is more pronounced when the battery is smaller without sufficient amp hour capacity and power to overcome that effect. Such as in a smaller motorcycle battery. But when we are talking a battery like the RS-30 that has 30 amp hours of real lithium battery capacity. That gives you much more overhead in terms of the power available even in cold weather. Also consider the RS 30 is a "Sports Car" and "Hi-Performance" Vehicle battery, it is intended to be used in climates where you drive a Sports Car or a Race Car normally... even in 30° weather it would have no problem.... But I want to make clear we do not intend this battery for freezing climes where snow and ice are present. Its for moderate climates, and is not its best application to be used for operation in weather where you would not drive your Sports Car. Yes I know some of you drive in the snow... it can handle that... we went Snowboarding multiple times in Big Bear CA in well below 30 degree weather with an RS-30 in my Toyota Tacoma this year. No problem.. but that not where I intend the battery to be used regularly.

Now about the concern of not being able to open the Trunk in your Cayman to get to the Re-Start button on the battery. Well, you most likely have to get into the Trunk regardless if the battery is discharged while on the road correct? You have to recharge your Lead/Acid battery, or jump-Start it, and your Porsche Charger takes a very long time to get that battery with enough energy to Start the Car or even open the trunk.. so that isn't even an option when your on the road and not near electrical source. But we make a product called the MICRO-START that is a Hand Held power supply capable of Jump Starting or being used to Energizing the Cayman to pop the trunk easily... so now if you get the trunk open and have the RS-30 you just press a button and drive off... but if you have a dead lead/acid on the road, you would still have to wait for the outside assistance to jump start it anyway. At least with the RE-START you can get going. So while that may not mean alot for some, for me its a must have.

Last, we are currently working on a product that would allow you to energize the Porsches enough to pop the funk without having to energize the system by going to the Red buss bar on the fuse panel. We are developing a product that you put into the charger port to energize the system enough to pop the trunk latch and access the battery. NO need to wait for the charger to power up the battery, but more importantly you won't have to be near and eletrical source. We are working on it and testing this product now.

CaymanSinAR

Interesting. Please let us know once testing is complete.

Now that I think about it a bit more I might be more interested in the Micro-Start line. What is the most compact unit I could purchase that would both energize the battery enough to pop the frunk, then have the ability to charge the battery enough to start?

Viper pilot

Scott, you make some good points about the AntiGravity LiPoe battery that makes it some what different from the Shorai motorcycle battery I was referencing. And the point you made about cold weather operation is valid as well. However, for those folks that live in northern climates and that do indeed drive year around m the cold weather characteristics should be noted. Yes, the battery I use in my motorcycle is the Shorai LFX18A1. A much smaller battery then you are discussing for our Porsches however the motorcycle motor is also smaller and the electrical loads a lot less then modern auto have. I think the future is definitely with some form of Li battery and the technology is rapidly advancing so I'm glad to see AntiGravity is leading the way. I'm sure we will see Li batteries as OEM very soon. BTW, my F-16 Viper I fly in the Nat'l Guard uses Li batteries!!!

johnsopa

Scott, are your batteries Li-ion (lithium ion), LiPo (lithium polymer) or LiFePO4 (lithium ferrous phosphate)?

Just curious as we use a lot of LiFePO batteries at work.

andy7777

A few years ago in the weight-loss world of Lotus, a vendor introduced a lithium battery for the Elise/Exige world. It cost around $1K and saved 20 lbs. Users were happy as Lotus folks are prone to be with anything that saves more weight until the batteries crapped out after a year or so. One buyer engineer took one apart and discovered a design flaw (I don't remember what) that was not fixable. The formerly happy Lotus folks wanted a refund but the vendor was a bit hard to reach. We all went back to small Odysseys...

I'm not suggesting this vendor is going to sell anything but their best effort, but I'm a little cautious about this technology without a big name behind it, to be honest.

I do recall that a lithium battery was a $1700 option for the Cayman R in 2012. I don't know what Porsche charges for the replacement for that if I showed up at the dealer.

andy7777

The name of that battery was Chimera, BTW. I have no idea what ultimately happened with that system but it went upside down and out around 2015.

Antigravity

Hey Viper... yes the draw issue is important... but the Lithium Cell pack in the Shorai LFX18 was 7 Real Amp hours as we tested about 3 years ago... not sufficient for a Sport Touring bike like yours, and that was where the mistake and bad rap came from. Everyone was putting in small capacity packs inside the Cases... and they woulld over-discharge rapidly. But that is long ago and this is another world and generation to that stuff. Also, I will tell you we are very lucky with the newer Porsches...the Parasitic draw is exceptionally low after about 10-15 minutes of being turned off and with no key present it goes to a very low draw. Either way I agree the benefits of Lithium-Ion are not what some owners would desire.

My objective here is not to SWAY the owner to go lithium but to offer them an alternative that does have some real and substantial benefits over lead/acid, and yes there are some areas where lead acid is a better alternative such as price point and extreme cold weather performance.

Antigravity

It's LiFePO4... Viper was also calling it Lipo, but I understand not everyone knows the exact chemical makeup of certain Lithium Batteries. Lipo (Lithium Polymer) is also called Lithium Cobalt, we use that in our MICRO-STARTs but it is not the correct voltage for Vehicle applications to charge it back up, and is pretty volatile if over-charged. LiFePo4 is what is used by most all the companies for Vehicle Starter Batteries... There are different levels in quality, and also something called the C-Rate with relates to the Discharge characteristics of the battery, and would take me two paragraphs to write about so I won't. The most important items are the cell quality and the BMS.

Last for anyone who cares... Lithium-Ion is like an umbrella term for all rechargeable lithium based batteries... It does not designate the exact chemical make up of the battery... So you can have Lithium Ferrous, Lithium Cobalt, Lithium Manganese... they are all LITHIUM-ION... just an FYI.