Anyone have the NexPower lithium?

lots of people, lots of threads. i'm sure they'll be chiming in

 

I helped with the final prototype testing, so I've have one of these packs in my Prius for 18 months. It's the most significant upgrade you can do for an old Prius. Because of all the extra amps the balance between electric motor and gas engine leans towards electric motor more than gas even down to just 3 bars of charge and when climbing over a mountain that translates to way more power & speed.

Catch is there's only a couple weeks supply of remaining packs for sale because factory had to shut down due to Lithium an Nickel markets inflating so high it would of raised the price of the packs too high. Hopefully markets will stabilise in Fall and into 2023.

Anyone who purchases with my affiliate link get all the tech support they need and discount on installation if they live near me: https://projectlithium.com/products/camry-hybrid-lithium-upgrade-pack

 

I have also had the Lithium Pack for almost 2 years.

Check out my profile page for more info!

 

Installation is very easy... Any friend or family member who has basic car repair skills can do it for you.

And quite frankly, there's way too many auto mechanics who don't understand that once the Orange safety plug is removed there's no risk of high voltage. But when fossil fuel mechanics are being made obsolete with electric powered vehicles, they get their wires crossed / get irrational real quick about electricity.

This guy shows how you can swap a pack in a Prius in 13 minutes with experience. I have experience but nowhere near as fast as him:

The rest of the work is simply unbolting and replacing modules. And while I can't show up to Missouri in person, if you use my affiliate link I'll be more than happy to walk you or whoever you get to do the work for you thru each step in whatever communication format you most prefer no matter how long it takes. But even for a newbie this is less than a 3 hour job.

 

13 m8n it's his personal and some bolts screws left out on purpose like mine now makes it possible. With all bolts in place with air or electric rachets and everything open and laid out before camera rolls 13 to 22 min is possible . We play around like that herr

 

I wouldn't say it's quite that clear-cut. With the orange plug in, the battery is 28 modules at 7.2 volts each (nominal), or around 202 volts, more than that when well charged.

With the plug removed, it is one 9-module battery and one 19-module battery, so around 65 volts and 137 volts (and more than that when well charged). Both can supply quite high currents and be dangerous in several different ways.

The battery is safer with the plug removed, but when mechanics still treat it with respect anyway, it's not because they don't understand something.

 

Commodity prices (in yuan in China) for those two materials:


Nickel - 2022 Data - 1993-2021 Historical - 2023 Forecast - Price - Quote - Chart


Lithium - 2022 Data - 2017-2021 Historical - 2023 Forecast - Price - Quote - Chart


Nickel had in 2022 what looks like a short term supply problem, resulting in a very high, fairly narrow price hike. That price is trending back down now.

Lithium, on the other hand, started going up much earlier, and has not come down nearly as much.

I have no idea how much nickel is in these batteries. However, one value I have seen is 80 g/kWh for lithium in a LiFePO4 battery. Don't know what the capacity of the lithium pack is, but the NiMH is 1.3kWh. Let's call it 2 and work from there. That would be 160g Lithium for the pack. Lithium carbonate is 475500 yuan/ton. That is probably metric ton (10^6 grams) and a yuan is 0.15 dollar. Lithium carbonate is ~74g/mol and Lithium is 7 g/mol, so price per chemical component of the pure stuff would be 10X higher (not counting the cost of refining it enough to make it acceptably pure). So for lithium the price would be

(10 * 475500 * 0.15 dollars)/10^6 gram = $.71/gram

It would need 160 g for a 2kWh battery, so $113 for a pack.


Anyway, $113 vs. around half that at the end of 2021 for a ~2k$ battery. That would be a significant price increase, but not a deal breaker. I bet what is really tipping the price over the edge, economically, are Covid lock downs in China, competition for shipping slots out of the country (the ports are jammed), and other related issues.

 

My understanding is that it's not just the math you've done but 1) supply chain issues, which create periodic scarcity and thus price volatility of many things... 2) Ongoing covid lock downs that have been happening in China recently, as well as 3) all the ancillary requirements to bring all the materials together at the same place at the same time in way that the factory can run efficiently and doesn't have down time... All these things quickly raise the numbers.

 

@PriusCamper , original hv battery died 2 years ago and I replaced it with cylindrical nimh battery and did the job myself even though I was petrified about it and it took me 4 days to do the job slowly and carefully and it is starting to age after 20k miles and it stays in 1 red bar especially on highway driving and there is no torque available but does fine in city, I am not sure how much long it holds up, I am considering to replace it with nexcell li pack that you have tested and how similar is to the job of replacing with nimh pack that I did 2 years ago and do I need any special tools. Thank you in advance.

 

Interesting topic. I don't have much experience besides owning a 2007 for 3 years now. Car still runs fine. Being a 140k miles now, I thinking I should be ready for rebuilding or possibly changing the whole batter with a more better ones. How do you compare this to the original batteries?

 

Hard to predict when it will fail. Mine has nearly 200k miles on the original HV battery and while I expect it to give problems sooner or later it has not. If it happens tomorrow I’d not be shocked.

The more you drive it, the fewer problems you’ll have supposedly as the car continues to balance the cells. Of course other factors too, like keeping the fan clean and other maintenance items.

 

Thanks.. When I'm on park running after 20 minutes, the batter goes down to "Purple" with 1 or 2 bars. But it charges by itself and it will stop on a "Blue" 3 bars. I also notice that when I drive it around in my area with 10-12 miles per hour, the engine keeps on starting. Not like my wifes 2018 prius with a very few miles. the engine hardly starts.
Now is that normal for a 2007?
In the highway, I can easily get 425 miles full tank. on the side street or city driving, probably around 290 miles full tank. the accuracy of my mpg gauge is more précis on highways which is 46mpg reading vs my city driving reads 43.4 mpg.
Any thoughts?

 

For starters did you get cylindrical nimh from New Prius Batteries? Or the Chinese copy of that design? Sounds like you have a defective module that needs to be replace under warranty! 20K miles is not a long enough time for the pack to naturally go bad on its own. It's defective!

As for installing Project Lithium, it's much easier because there's no extra parts, just the modules. However, you are gonna need the packs original bus bars with voltage sensing harness, as well as the original rack (white end caps and 4 metal bars that hold caps in place). Because you switched to cylindrical you might not have those parts, but they're easy to re-acquire from a battery pack rebuilder. I can help you with that if you use my affiliate link when you purchase: https://projectlithium.com/?ref=9qLPw

 

Terrain, temperature and driving technique all play a role in what you get for normal. Your mpg is lower than mine but can’t really compare the two. If you get a copy of Dr Prius with a quality OBD dongle and run the paid version it will give you some capacity estimates or even the free version will give you Internal Resistance, cell voltages and differential voltage data.

 

Does your car show any HV battery DTCs? If you're not getting fault codes, then you have something else wrong with the car that is causing the battery to stay drained. Your description of highway driving is very indicative of a CAR problem, not a battery problem. Something is preventing the engine from making enough power to move the car at highway speed and the HV battery is draining itself trying to assist. The car won't let the HV battery go below a low point SOC, so then engine power is diverted to trying to keep the battery charged, and the downward spiral begins.

If that's the case, a battery straight from GOD won't make a difference.

I seem to remember a couple years ago a forum member had a similar problem and found a mouse nest in his air intake tube.

 

Probably the battery is getting old. But the car itself sound pretty good and rides very well. In fact I hardly even lose oil every 4500 miles. well see. Will wait till it the battery dies or if I get a deal for a new traction battery.

 

Nope I got the cylindrical nimh from new Prius batteries here in USA, they are red looking cylindrical cells, no dtc or error codes on dash, I forgot to mention that I had to disconnect 12v battery to install a broken cable spring under the steering and then I went on a 300 mile trip on 81N which had lots of up/down along and did not notice anything while going there but while coming back after resting for half hour I noticed that the car was not having enough torque when trying to pass a vehicle or climb a small hill and noticed that the battery was in the lower 2 red bars and the car continues to charge from 1 bar to bar but I had to climb a hill or pass another vehicle and it happened all the 300 mile down trip, once I reached city traffic the charge went back to all blue bars within a mile and since then I have been driving in city and it always stays in blue bars, for some reason it charges too quick and discharges quick as well, I have checked everything inside engine area and nothing wrong noticed, but every morning when I start my car it vibrates for couple of minutes until it stops charging the battery and vibration is not bad and one can feel it and I can see the exhaust is shaking a little while battery is charging and it stops shaking once battery charge stops in the morning and that is the only issue I can notice for sure, I used to get about 49 to 50mpg when I replaced this battery but now I get only 44 to 45 and I can feel car is fighting something but even dealer said he can't say what is wrong except car has 245k miles and getting old, no oil leaks of any sort.