How do lithium-ion batteries help sales of Electric golf trolleys?

In the past, the preferred power source for an electric golf trolley was a Sealed Lead Acid battery, but this technology has some serious drawbacks. Even when new, a lead-acid battery holds barely enough power to get a golf trolley through a full day on the course. After a few months, the battery starts to show signs of age, and you can’t rely on the battery to make it through 18 holes.

No wonder many of the top manufacturers are switching to lithium-ion batteries for their golf trolleys.

7 Reasons To Use Lithium-ion Batteries For Golf Trolleys

Let’s look at the advantages this technology offers, and how it makes golf trolleys more marketable and appealing to golf enthusiasts.

1. Longer Lifespan and Warranty

As lead-acid batteries go through charge and discharge cycles, they can never be fully charged to their original capacity. Over time, they slowly wear out until the voltage drop mentioned above is too great. When this happens, the battery can’t power your golf cart any longer, even on a full charge. This is not the case for lithium batteries.

Lithium batteries typically last for five to ten times as long as lead-acid batteries. Lithium batteries are true deep-cycle batteries with minimal impact on their lifespan as they go through repeated charge and discharge cycles.

BSLBATT lithium batteries generally come with a 10-year warranty. Compare this to lead-acid batteries, which usually only have a 1-2 year limited warranty.

2. More Energy Efficient

As mentioned above, lithium batteries have a flatter voltage curve than lead-acid batteries. Lead-acid batteries can typically only be discharged to about 50% of their capacity before the voltage drop is too significant and your golf cart dies.

Conversely, lithium batteries can discharge almost entirely with minimal voltage drop. This means that you can use nearly the entire capacity of a lithium battery each time you charge it.

Additionally, lithium golf cart batteries can fully charge with the proper charger in about two hours, which is significantly faster than their lead-acid counterparts.

3. Less Charging Time

With low resistance lithium batteries, charging time may be reduced to a couple of hours. That means a customer could play a round in the morning, recharge their golf trolley and play again in the afternoon or evening.

4. Less Heavy

Lithium batteries are about half the weight of lead-acid deep-cycle batteries. Reducing the weight of the golf cart increases your runtime, allowing you to spend more time driving and less time charging.

5. Consistent Power

An electric golf trolley must be able to maintain consistent power and speed over varied terrain, instead of slowing gradually as the charge level drops. Lithium provides higher voltage through the discharge cycle, resulting in a more enjoyable customer experience.

6. Less Overall Cost

Lithium golf cart batteries have a higher initial cost but often provide overall cost savings over time since they last 5-10 times longer than lead-acid batteries.

7. Safer

One significant risk in all types of batteries is thermal runaway. Thermal runaway causes damage to the battery and can even lead to a fire if not controlled quickly.

Lead-acid batteries offer no protection against thermal runaway. On the other hand, lithium batteries have an integrated battery management system (BMS) that helps regulate the battery’s temperature, monitors for internal shorts, and shuts down the battery if thermal runaway is detected.

The advances in lithium battery technology have helped them become much safer than their lead-acid counterparts.

With these seven advantages, why would engineers still use lead-acid batteries when designing electric golf trolleys? Some may not fully understand the value provided by lithium-ion batteries. They may need to test these batteries for themselves in a trial run to realize the performance gains they could achieve with this technology.

Increasing Value To Drive Sales

As you finalize your engineering and manufacturing decisions for your electric golf trolleys and other products, remember that the type of battery you choose is going to have a significant impact on your sales and revenue. To boost your bottom line, you need to meet the needs of your customers in a way that improves their golf experience. Delivering consistent, long-lasting battery power in a lightweight, convenient golf trolley is a great way to earn repeat business from private golf courses and word-of-mouth recommendations from your individual enthusiasts.

Remember, it is your role to serve your customers and make product engineering decisions, such as battery choices, in their best interest. While your customers always have the option to purchase a golf cart with a lead-acid battery and replace it with lithium, you should anticipate their needs by providing the right golf cart lithium ion batteries solution from the beginning.