Posting this thread to hopefully save fellow 981 GT4 and Spyder owners from headaches with trying to use an Antigravity lithium ion battery. To summarize my experience, they are not reliability compatible with our cars and I should have listened more closely to the issues posted by other members before buying one. I was reassured that I was getting a model with their latest BMS and there wouldn't be any problems. However I was getting constant OBD2, PCM, steering, and braking warnings and errors when using the Antigravity battery. I switched back to the original lead acid battery, all of those issues went away and the car operated flawlessly. I do not think it is right for Antigravity to claim they're compatible and to sell batteries for our cars when they cause so many problems.

Post sales support from Antigravity has not been great either. They were very responsive when selling me the battery but very slow to respond when I needed help. I've been patient but it can takes weeks and follow ups before I get a response. As of today my issue has gone on for two months and it has been two weeks since my last email. I give them credit for replacing my battery under warranty but that doesn't help because the battery isn't compatible with our cars to begin with. In the end I still have an expensive battery I cannot use or trust. I've given up on trying to make this work and I've found a non-981 owner to buy the battery but that doesn't cover what I paid for it and I'm out hundreds of dollars.

While I am a big fan of lowering weight, I do not think this is the way to go for our cars. The Antigravity battery isn't worth the frustration or waste of money.

 

I installed their restart battery on Subaru to test it out before buying it for my Porsche. After 2 years it left me stranded at a stoplight. Car completely shut off and wouldn’t restart. I was stuck in the left turn lane with no divider. I came to the realization that saving 30lbs isn’t worth dying for.

 

post pics of the Subaru

 

 

hahaha awful

 

I have a Liteblox battery fitted, two years on it is great and i have had to use the restart feature only once (mechnic left radio on overnight) and it worked well.

i dis try the old antigrav battery and I had an early 981 GT4 which didnt like it.

BUT the guys at antigrav were excellent in sorting and I have read many people v happy.

sorry you have not had the greatest experience.

 

I installed the 60 AH AntiGravity in my 2014 981 S and it's been absolutely flawless. NEVER had any problems with the battery or how the vehicle and all it's systems performed. Some how I think some of the complainers on here will also blame climate change on LI batteries (and AntiGravity in particular) just cause you really don't 'get it'. Long story short, I have had zero problems using that battery and the weight savings is a bonus!

 

+1

I recently installed a 60Ah AG battery in my 981 GT4, and haven't had any problem with it so far. I have also been running an AG battery in my SPB race car for the last three years and it has been flawless. It may just be luck-of-the-draw, but that isn't how anything normally goes for me....

 

Hey Jawnathin, I can see your frustration in your post, I am sorry to hear about your view point on our products and service. I made a point this morning to contact Chad, he is at a tradeshow in Sacremento through Sunday, so I will review more with him later.

When speaking with Chad he did say that you had stated you had used the Battery in your 781 for several months without any issues, and bought it in the middle of of 2021 and all had been fine, then it started having some flags. He said he offered to assist to find the problem, and then offerred to have you try another battery which we sent out to you. Chad also said you thanked him for the fast sending of the Warranty Battery and he thought all was fine with his level Customer Service to you and that he didn't know you were so angry. He also stated that we paid for shipping of the Warranty battery back to us and also paid to ship out the new battery to you so you were not out any expenses. Chad also stated he wrote that we would REFUND you if it didn't work for you. Yet above in your post you claimed you had sold the battery to another person so we are confused since we did offer to Refund you.

Anyway my point is not to get into any form of negative back and forth, but rather find resolution. I might be missing something here, but it appears Chad was trying to assist you and did follow the proper protocol by offering a full REFUND, and paying all shipping back and forth so you were not out any costs. That appears to be quite good Customer Service to me but I will review with Chad in more detail when he gets back. Again, sorry the battery just didn't work for you in the end. I am the President of the company and you can write to me directly, my email is scott@antigravitybatteries.com I will correct anything that is in my power to correct.

If this is just a statement by you to vent on us... I can accept that also and I will discuss with Chad how we might have dropped the ball for a Porsche Customer and how we can improve.

Last, I can only say we are in more than several thousands Porches, from GT2s to Boxsters, and rarely with issues. Yes we do have occasional warranties, or incompatibility, but it is actually exceptionally small number for the amount of batteries we sell. Our batteries absolutely work as we claim and we get emails every week of people telling us how the RE-START saved their butt. We are actually the Battery that Pagani has choosen to be in their Cars since 2020 and they have made a retrofit kit to install our batteries in the earlier Paganis. Companies like these are not choosing suppliers without making sure a product works great. Also, as you can see by our posting on Rennlist we have been absolutely open about the issues we had with 981/718s on Rennlist early on, and we worked with those stating they had an issue and found resolution by testing with them. We also explained on Rennlist openly what we were doing with our update and explained it was because the 981/718 had a different charging system that was spiking the voltage levels for charging above the normal levels of the 911 and other varients and exceeding the Protections Limits we had programmed into our Lithium Battery. Last, as several others have posted on Rennlist they are using the battery successfully in these 981/718 varients after our changes.

Again I aplogize that your particualar Car is having issues, and the level of frustration that might have caused you, but sometimes issues just happen and we can't pinpoint exactly why one car out of many will throw a flag. Its usualy just a higher voltage from certain 718s that gets closer to the 15.8v range and our protection will cut-in.

 

Thanks for choosing Antigravity. You should not have any problems at all... if you do for any reason we will make sure to take care of it.

As and FYI to anybody.... My email is in the signature and I'm where the buck stops. I dont know every detail of each Customers experiance with us, and we rarely get complaints, so while I expect staff to take care of any issues, sometimes its best to go to straight to the top, so feel free to reach out to me.

 

I am glad it has worked for you but the 981 GT4/Spyder with the 3.8s seem to be different than the other 981 2.7/3.4L models. That is why I posted this on the GT4/Spyder forum and not the regular 981 forum. Look at the experiences from the other thread, I wasn’t the only one that got these random electrical errors. I did my research before purchasing, I was concerned about those reported problems, and I was assured the updated BMS would be compatible with my car. I should have listened more closely to the others who also tried and moved on.

I am not a hater of Lithium Ion batteries, I see value in the technology and lowering weight. So much so that I paid a 5x premium for this battery compared to a traditional battery and spent two months working with AG trying to get it to work. This is a car battery, it has one job, and it should just work.

 

Yes, I bought your AG battery in the summer and I take responsibility for not testing it more extensively after installation. The battery was only 6 months old, had 3-4 drives, and less than 100 miles on the battery when the errors occurred. That is unacceptable even for a cheap Walmart grade battery, yet alone an expensive and premium branded battery. I made sure to maintain the battery as recommended when the car wasn't driven.

You are correct that I was offered a refund and I selected refund on the warranty form but I was sent a replacement battery instead. I asked Chad if AG found something wrong with my old battery or if there was something different with the new one which would stop the electrical errors from happening. In fear of damaging my electrical system (this member fried two lights) I did not trust your battery enough to try it again if nothing has changed. It has been 13 days and counting without a response. Prior to the replacement, it took over a month and two follow ups before I received a reply and the warranty form. I don't want to disparage Chad, he was professional and helpful, my feedback is to respond more quickly to your customers that need help. I should not have to wait weeks or send follow ups to get a response. That is unacceptable for a premium company and I shouldn't have to work this hard to use your product.

The takeaways I have for anyone reading is...

1. The problems you read about this battery are real. I am not the only one, others have posted the same. The batteries even with the updated BMS are not guaranteed to be compatible with our cars.
2. Take the gamble if you wish but if you do run into problems, you may be stuck with an expensive battery you can't use and you will need to be patient with getting help.
3. This is a car battery and it should just work. It isn't worth the frustration seeing your dashboard light up with errors, swapping the battery in and out trying to make it work, or sending emails and waiting for help. You can buy an off the shelf car battery at your local auto parts store for 1/4 the cost that works perfectly in our cars. The best kind of battery is the one you never have to think about.

 

Thanks for the input. My responses in GREEN

The problems you read about this battery are real. I am not the only one, others have posted the same.
You are correct we cannot "guarentee" compatibility with every Car. All we can guarentee is that we will refund a Customer if they are one of the persons who has any issue. We can truthfully say its very rare, but it can happen, and we will refund if it does.

Take the gamble if you wish but if you do run into problems, you may be stuck with an expensive battery you can't use and you will need to be patient with getting help.
Again, I'm sorry about what has happened. But the fact is we offered you a rull refund 8 months after you bought the Battery and did pay all shipping for the Warranty replacement we sent you. If that does not show how we stand behind our Products then I don't know what else we could do. You would not have been "stuck" with our battery, nor would you have been out any costs. so I will pushback on your phrase that anyone is "taking a Gamble"

This is a car battery and it should just work. It isn't worth the frustration seeing your dashboard light up with errors, swapping the battery in and out trying to make it work, or sending emails and waiting for help. You can buy an off the shelf car battery at your local auto parts store for 1/4 the cost that works perfectly in our cars. The best kind of battery is the one you never have to think about.
I understand where that statement is coming from Jawnathan, that makes sense, and you shouldn't have to deal with frustration with it. So we are sorry about how it worked out for you. Now in regards to a Battery "just working", your original battery that you sent back to us is actually working fine in a Chevy Silvarado 1500 Pick-up Truck. This is not to dismiss the issue you had, but to show that our lithium battery does "just work" more than 99% of the time. But our Battery was undeniably not working with your specific Car. We accept that and tried to refund.

Last, to put in a word about modern Lithium Batteries. Obviously this is not a typical Lead/Acid Battery that has been around for 100 years. The modern Lithium Battery we are making at this time is a much more sophisticated battery than a Lead/Acid Battery because it is actually "intelligent" to a degree. Meaning it has functions that a Lead/Acid Battery will never be able to have, and these functions are extremely beneficial. They make for a better Battery overall that can provide a much longer lifespan, as well as a battery that protects itself from damage, a battery that won't leave the Customer stranded because it has a built-in Jump Start, a battery that won't allow itself to be over discharged and ruined like what happens to a lead acid battery if over-discharged. So it is a much more complex Battery with things like a Circuit Board inside it, but your battery was not actually defective and it worked fine in another vehicle. Keep in mind with a Lithium Battery we have to program in a set of instructions for the most safety and protections so it operates in a way that will allow the Customer to get those benefits. So if a Cars system is going outside a certain set of parameters our battery clips the higher voltages to prevent damage to the interior cell pack. A lead Acid batteries will not have this protection so it will allow itself to be over charged even if mildly... which can shorten its life. Now if you add to that, that the Porsche system is not a perfect system that always stays within is Charging profile and should NOT be exceeding over 15v when charging, then you would understand that sometimes certain individual Porsches may go above 15.4v when charging and trigger our Protections. Please note ALL battery manufacturer considered OVER-CHARGING above 15.4v and will void warranties. So if a Car is doing this our Battery, for its own safety it is going to go into its protection modes and clip voltage which creates a flag for a Porsche. So we are a conservative company and feel that Cars that go above this voltage range are not operating correctly so we will not risk the safety of the battery for the rare cars that don't operate within the industry standards. So there is sometimes a rare incompatibility. But also if a battery is having low voltage issues, then flags can also occur so that is when we try to speak with the Customer and see what is actually happening and can usually resolve it. So there are variables that can create flags, but it is not due to a defective battery neccesarily, it is just a potential for incompatibility, and due to the very low number of complaints we get about this in regards to the number of sales, and because the BMS update we did over a year ago we have rarely seen any compatibility issue recently. But I absolutely understand why you would feel a battery should "just work", it seem simple enough, but it is actually a more complex issue than it appears.

So I can understand you warning people in regards to your experiance, no problem. I just wanted to make sure the other supporting facts are also presented, and the fine line in programing a battery for the most safety and compatibility is understood.

 

Scott, your guarantee of a refund is generous but my experience did not match with that promise. While I appreciate you offering a refund, it is no good unless you follow through with it. Instead of a refund I was sent a battery that isn't compatible with my car and I never got a response to my email for help. So yes I was stuck with a battery that I cannot use.

With regards to the technical information, as a battery expert those details are important for you to know but as a customer we don't need to know any of that. We drive our cars for pleasure and should not need to concern ourselves with charging profiles, overcharging, discharging, voltage protections or any of that other jargon. All we care about is having a battery that works and there are dozens of less expensive off the shelf batteries that do the job without any of those issues.

 

Same