I’m planning a 144v DC electric vehicle conversion. I’m looking for a decent sealed lead acid or agm battery. I have heard about optima yellow tops but I can’t seem to find out the a/hr rating on them.
The web site is www.optimabatteries.com and they don’t list the A/HR rating, just cold cranking amps.
Asked by:Grant B
That info is on their website. “www.optima.com”.
I don’t know about the Optima’s amp-hr ratings off the top of my head, but I did see it once – maybe at EVParts.com. As I remember it, it wasn’t very competitive at $189. I am using Deka 8GGC2 batteries in my electric Geo Tracker. They are 200 AH 6-volt gel cell batteries and weigh 70 lbs each. I am using 16 of them for 96 volts. They seem to be perforning well, but overall I have less range that I would like, so if I did it again I would probably go with some big, heavy duty 12 volts and use 12 of them, or a lighter 12-volt and use 24 of them.
I have a spreadsheet I used to compare different batteries (trade-off analysis) – write me at and I will send it to you.
What vehicle are you using? Have you selected a motor and controller yet? I will be glad to share my “lessons learned”.