I'm looking at a new mobility scooter. All scooters are electric powered usually 24V... 2 SLA (Sealed Lead Acid) or Gel true deep-cycle batteries in series. RV wet cells are not spill proof & are really a hybrid battery just as a FYI. So this scooter I'm looking at is really extreem light weight & the maker offers a Li-Ion battery pack which would be a great option if the price wasn't rediculious. I am considering buying the scooter without batteries or with the SLA & sourcing my own LiFePO4 cells or battery pack. I don't have any experience with these. I'm told they require a balancing system (BCS: Battery Control System) charger but the sources are a very short on information. I'd be happy dirrect sourcing battery packs w/ charger if I could find the right physical dimensions. A lot of what's out there is clouded by mumbo-jumbo to discourage people who might otherwise save some bucks by DIY.Does anybody here have Li-Ion expertise?Russ

They do need a fancy charger. They also have a weird discharge, seemingly at 100% and then falling on their face. So when your scooter starts slowing down, you'll be lucky to get much farther. It will be the same speed up until that point. As with any other batteries, they do wear out. The cordless drills everyone uses are li-ion and eventually they start lasting only 10 minutes at a time. They have their benefits and drawbacks. They sure charge a lot faster. There are some huge articles on google about them. Well heres one of them http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

OK, I'm going ahead with the mobility scooter purchase (buy your own Christmas present & you get what you want! Besides, wifee doesn't want any more VS gift cards, LOL!!) I was successful in ordering the scooter 'less batteries'. Now I have to make a decision. The whole principal of the unit is it's extreem light weight... & lead batteries are clearly 4X heavier & less useful power. It's easy to source a SLA battery pack? ($75)Do I skip the SLA battery pack & put the money towards a LiFePO4? (lastest generation LiIon chemical composition) ($300)Do I go SLA until they fail in a couple of years & THEN go to LiFePO4. I have the common LiIon experience, laptops & cordless drills... not anything bigger...

In my opinion I think I would keep using the SLA's.. I mean they are heavy but eh they probably will survive as long as a lithium and when you have to replace them they cost $75 and the lithium costs $300 soooo yeah.. Lithium batteries don't seem to really die but rather last shorter and shorter until the fully charged battery goes dead in 5ft. Maybe the bigger lithium batteries are different but the way I see it, they are still lithium batteries so I would think they would still suffer the same weaknesses.