Lithium Battery – Interim Report

It’s been a good 1.5 months since we installed a lithium battery in our Grand California. Now the first trip is behind us, in total we drove almost 8000 kilometers through Sweden, there is all the info in a separate post 🙂 The power supply has taken over the lithium battery.

We received a lot of backlash for the YouTube video, as well as for the post here on the blog. It was really frightening in part how much hatred and resentment, and even apparent ignorance, is present in people and was poured on us. Thank God we listened to ourselves and dared to rebuild. Beforehand neither the battery, nor the Grand California have made a problem on this trip!

First of all, we would like to take up two points of criticism as to why the conversion, according to various people, is not possible and cannot work.

• The temperature under the hood is too cold or too warm.
  • As mentioned in our original post on the conversion, the battery has a built-in heater, which was even used in Lapland. At -5 degrees, the integrated heater turned on without a problem and brought the battery to a core temperature above 0 degrees. The battery was charged in the morning by the solar system as well as by the alternator while driving. The current draw was never affected.
  • We had the stark opposite last week, back in Germany, in a traffic jam with an outside temperature of 31 degrees and an engine oil temperature of 105 degrees. The core temperature of the battery was never above the 31 degrees outside temperature. Even at the campground in the sun never reached the 45 degrees that the battery could handle without problems. As it looks, the installation location of VW is not so badly chosen, but here again, of course, there is someone who will know better.
• The battery cannot be charged with the original alternator.
  • Here, too, the clear answer is: Wrong! This also works and without any changes.

That was just an excerpt from the arguments why it supposedly doesn’t work. Of course, even now various people will find arguments why the battery will soon break or something else.

We would do the remodel again anytime and are really happy to be able to use the diesel heater, light and refrigerator without concern. We don’t need to fool ourselves, especially the diesel heater consumes an enormous amount of power, if you use the consumers in the Grand California accordingly, the battery is down to 50% the next day, it would then be tight with the AGM.

To be fair, we don’t want to hide anything, there are also three things that don’t work the same way as with the AGM.

• The display in the camper unit always shows 100%, this is due to the higher voltage of the lithium battery. There are suppliers on the market that reprogram the camper control unit, restoring the correct display. The fact that this intervention is formally associated with a loss of warranty does not really need to be mentioned at this point. However, the charging status can be checked at any time via the Wattstunde app.

• For this reason, the battery is only charged when using the battery booster button while driving.
• The Grand California delivers, according to our observations, again there may be other opinions, as soon as the battery is below 50% a charging current of 120A. This is too high for the lithium battery! The battery we use has a maximum charge current of 100A, if the Grand California delivers too much current, the battery’s BMS will shut down properly and protect the cells from being overcharged. This process is repeated until a voltage of 50% is reached, then our Grand California charges with 104A until the battery has about 95% and then regulates the current further and further down until a charge of 100%.

Of course, the last point in particular invites the haters again, and comments along the lines of “let’s see how long the battery lasts” are in the air here. We are also relaxed about this point and are pretty sure that the battery here will last just as long as an AGM. The too high charging current can of course be remedied with a charging booster, but again, no more warranty by Volkswagen.

Finally, we would like to mention that we would never spend five or more thousand euros on a conversion to put the battery in the back and make various changes, that is unnecessary for our purposes as of today. To be honest, we also lack the imagination why one should carry out a battery conversion for 10000 euros, which not only voids the warranty of the vehicle, but is also completely oversized. What’s the point of going 8 days without external power if the toilet is full or the water tank is empty. In the end, of course, everyone should decide for themselves.

We plan to write another report in a year with our experiences.