Very early this morning I was unable to sleep, so I retired to the shack to draw up the battery system for the NEV.

The first figure is the original battery layout. It helps to realize that the batteries are located under the driver’s bench seat. The bench seat hinges in front and tilts up toward the front of the vehicle. Unfortunately, the steering wheel is enough in the way that the seat will not stay in that position, so I need to use a piece of rope or a couple of bungie cords to hold the seat in the open position. The dashed box in the first drawing shows the limited access to the batteries from this opening. In the original design, the rear 3 batteries are partially covered by the back of the front seat and a plastic cowling which is impossible to remove without removing the rear seat assembly, which is an extra pain.

Figure 2 shows the new battery layout. Only significant change is that the rear 3 batteries have been turned around so that the positive terminals are clearly accessible.

Figures 3 through 6 provide a little detail on the old versus new battery configuration, from a dc resistance point of view. The long and short of it is that even though the new configuration makes for longer jumpers, the exclusive use of 2 gauge copper jumper cable actually provides for a lower total resistance, making the battery assembly that much more efficient.

Tonight I’d prefer to sleep as opposed to thinking more about this right now.