What are the types of car batteries?

Now on the market there are many different types of car batteries. Experts divide them into several categories, which have their pros and cons.

Types of car batteries

Acid batteries

Classic acid batteries are available on the market in the following versions.

Serviced – these are the same batteries with plugs in the lid, through which you can check the density of the electrolyte and add boiled water to the level. It should be noted that the presence of plugs is due precisely to the tendency of this type of battery to boil away, this is due to the high content of antimony in the composition of their lead plates.

Maintenance free / low maintenance – these batteries are now the majority of those on the market. They have a significantly reduced antimony content, as a result of which the water does not boil away so intensively, and during their operation there is no need to add it.

Ca / Ca technology is a battery in which calcium is added to the lead alloy instead of antimony. This replacement was another step to reduce the rate of water boiling off. Also, the change of the element had a positive effect on the efficiency of the battery and its energy intensity.

But these batteries are not on the market in such a volume as those listed above, and this is primarily due to their high price compared to their antimony counterparts, as well as their hypersensitivity to overdischarge (it is enough to forget to turn off the headlights five or six times for a long time, and the battery can be thrown away, it will not restore its energy intensity).

Hybrid is a mixture of the previous types: antimony is applied to the positive electrodes, and calcium is applied to the negative ones. This decision made it possible to find a golden mean: water does not boil away as much as antimony ones, but at the same time they are not as sensitive to overdischarge as calcium ones.

Gel batteries

The next type is gel batteries (AMG). As their name implies, they do not have a liquid electrolyte, as in the classic ones, here it is presented in the form of a gel. This type has a lot of advantages: there is no boiling of water and, as a result, the plates do not crumble, it is airtight, which is important in various motorcycle and water equipment, their service life is about ten years. Of the minuses, this, again, is the high price and poor electrical conductivity of the gel at strong sub-zero temperatures.

Alkaline batteries

Alkaline batteries – again, the name speaks for itself: instead of an acid solution, alkaline batteries are used in such batteries. These batteries are insensitive to overdischarge, work perfectly in severe frost and accumulate energy better. But almost all these pluses overlap with one minus: they are very bulky, because. they require more sections to achieve the same voltage as the acid ones.