[ausev] Smart battery chargers worth the cost?????

[Mike Librik]

 From previous experience with electric bicycle systems, I've come to 
see the battery charger as the most unreliable part of the system.  If 
anything is just going to crap out for no identifiable reason, it is the 
charger.  Some investment in quality is certainly worth it.

That doesn't necessarily argue in favor of a "smart" charger, just a 
quality one, but I suspect that nowadays the people who make quality 
chargers are likely building them with variable charging rate features, 
just because these features are an evident benefit and the company is 
charging a bunch for the charger anyway.  (Much the same way that 
handbuilt bicycle frames don't come with cheap parts; since it is 
already expensive, why compromise its salability with some bit of 
perceived cheapness.)

Anyway, all the other parts of the EV system are operated only under a 
person's direct supervision, while the charger is turned on and then 
left on its own in the garage.  It had better be some smart if left to 
babysit that expensive heap of batteries.  As someone else pointed out, 
the batteries are more risk from the charger than from one's own lead foot.

-- 
Mike Librik, LCI #929
League of Bicycling Voters
Austin, TX
(512) 567-4493

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