![]() ![]() "The battery has an emergency jump-start feature built into it," Schafer points out. Beyond the charge density benefits and sheer novelty of the concept, Antigravity's batteries offer several important benefits over a lead-acid battery that matter in real-world use. In general, this is considered to be the safest lithium technology available today." A real-world testĪntigravity offers automotive batteries that will fit nearly any passenger vehicle on the market today, so we decided to put its latest and greatest to the test with a late-model Dodge Challenger, which uses an H7-size battery. And the type of lithium chemistry we're using is iron phosphate, or LiFePO4. We knew the product needed to meet a certain standard, and that's why we developed our battery management system-it protects the lithium from getting into situations where thermal runaway could be an issue due to overcharging or other problems. "The real hurdle we needed to overcome was developing an internal management system that makes these batteries safe and durable in these types of applications. "There were other companies that got started around the same time that we did, but they were unable or unwilling to evolve as new technologies became available," Schafer tells us. "And at that point, it really became a legitimate product."įast-forward a decade, and Antigravity is now one of the leading suppliers of lithium iron phosphate batteries not only for powersports applications, but 12V automotive battery replacements as well. "That's when we made a molded plastic case and started making them look like real batteries," he quips. The team quickly outgrew Schafer's garage-based operations center and moved to increasingly larger facilities as word of his new product spread throughout enthusiast circles. "And over time, just being at the track and talking to people about it, we started getting more and more orders for these batteries." "Initially, we just made the batteries for ourselves and our friends who were doing track-day events," Schafer says. ![]() ![]() The two soon set to work creating a lithium motorcycle battery of their own. We discussed the shortcomings of that motorcycle battery, and he explained that if we did this, this, and this, we could create something with far better reliability." Not long after that, I started collaborating with a battery engineer who worked for SBC Global. I thought it was an amazing product, but it only ended up lasting about three months or so before it failed. "I found it through an online forum-it was a guy who was building them to order. "Back in 2010, I bought one of the very first lithium motorcycle batteries available," he explains. The Los Angeles-based outfit is the brainchild of Scott Schafer, an engineer and performance enthusiast who saw the writing on the wall more than a decade ago. ![]()
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