When we converted to electric propulsion back in 2014, the price of a lithium battery pack was over $27,000! We opted for an AGM battery bank instead which cost us $1,800.
Years went buy and we went cruising, sailing about 5,000nm on those batteries before they died. The plan was to replace the batteries with lithium when the AGM batteries died as their price should come down by then.
In 2018, lithium batteries had come down in price a bit and now would cost us $16,000. Cheaper, but still way too expensive! We were in Europe at the time and the only batteries we could afford that would also fit in our battery box were Sealed Lead Acid batteries. Not the best choice for an electric motor but at $1,200 for 8 of them, the price was right and we decided that the next battery bank would be Lithium.
The time is now! Lithium batteries for our boat have now come down in price further and would cost somewhere between $8,000 and $11,200 depending on the brand.
this is cheaper than the original $27,000 from 2014, but sadly still beyond our budget. Thankfully, lithium batteries have been on the market for long enough that DIY people have had time to fool around with them and make nifty kits and systems.
We are building our own battery for a price of $4,800. To boot, this battery bank is going to hold more power than the other battery bank we had been planning on installing!
The cells are like giant D batteries which will connect together in series and parallel connections to make a large battery pack out of small components.
Stay tuned for detailed information on how to build your own LiFePO4 battery pack!
