http://www.technomadia.com/lithium/
Here is good blog about a couple who have been using Li for a couple years now. Yes it is more expensive. About $6 Ah. Compare that to a 6V Lifeline AGM 440 Ah. You need 4 to get 440 Ah, remember they can only run down to about 50%. Li you can use more of the Ah that you have. It will weigh 120 KG, will take up about 25"x14"x16" and cost about $2500. There are of course cheaper batteries. But just as an example. Lead is definitely the most economical. I totally agree with that. I used it in my Alaskan/flatbed. But again you are buying Ah you don't use and the weight and size. Charging is the same. Plus you need to vent and spilling is a possibility.
Now current lithium iron phosphate 500Ah $3000, 75 Kgs, 21"x14"x11". Now there are a lot other things to discuss as well. But generally speaking Li batteries have been lasting greater than 10 years in cars, with the older technology. As far as exploding, there have been Honda Insight running around for almost 20 years (1996). Haven't heard of many of them with issues. Still has a huge following with the hypermiler crowd. Then there is the ease of charging Li. No need to force that last 5% into the battery, that requires a huge amount of energy, i.e. panels. The off grid home guys know how this works very well. Were are basically trying to build a small off grid home. They run 2 sometimes 3x the amount of panels as batteries (watts to amps).
Yes the Tesla super factory. Well see if that helps out cost with the competition. Its in conjunction Panasonic who is already the biggest, or one of the biggest Li battery producers. So they may just become a bigger and not cheaper. Remains to be seen how and if it helps.
Thats my rant about lithium, are they the greatest thing since sliced bread, probably not. But they are the best we have currently.
Now back to the thread...