Chinese electric ATV

[ericm979]

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Can’t go wrong with a Polaris Ranger EV .

Paid 6500 5 years ago and she has been flawless

If I could get one for anywhere near that price I'd buy it and sell my Honda Pioneer 700. But Polaris put lithium batteries in it and now they're $30k! I don't need the fastest electric UTV or ATV, or one with a long range. It's for a small farm. It will probably never travel more than a mile at a time.

 

[Torvy]

The Hisun is on sale right now for $12k. That's less than I paid 2 years ago.

 

[lman]

I bought a Polaris Ranger EV about 5 years ago. The FLA (flooded lead-acid) batteries crapped out about two years later, even though kept charged and watered. I don't know how or if they were maintained at the dealer, although I suspect neglect. I was a bit lax about keeping the batteries fully watered until, after the second time dealing with 8 batteries, some of which were hard to get to the cells for watering, I bought a battery watering system with hoses and special cell caps that connected to the system hoses and had valves built in to prevent over-watering.
There is a way to reprogram the charger to minimize over-charging, which I did, and do not remember how, any more.

Solved all those problems with the replacement batteries by switching to Lithium batteries. No more watering, and running them to less than 50% charge does not shorten their life such as would be the case with FLA.

I researched and found batteries that could supply the 650 watt peak current draw - an educated guess on my part, from all the information I could find at the time. Now Google AI says the peak draw is 400A, with the controller rated for 650W burst. I'd go with 650W just to be safe.
I just substituted the LifePo4 batteries in place of the FLA, and wired in the charger that came with the batteries. I left the original charger in place and connected except to the batteries themselves, as otherwise some wiring modifications are needed. Seeing as the Li batteries are about 500 pounds lighter than the FLA, the extra weight of the original charger is negligible. I did wire in a current-sensing coulomb-counting meter to more accurately know the state-of-charge of the Li batteries, as the voltage does not drop linearly with discharge like the FLAs do, rendering the original meter useless.

I'm glad I went to lithium batteries, no more lead-acid where I have a choice. I also expect not to have to replce the batteries for a long time, rather than every 3-5 years with FLA. No more acid eating the battery floor. And no watering needed.
Any one want to buy a used battery watering system?

How much did the new lithium batteries cost?

 

[rontaki]

How much did the new lithium batteries cost?

I forget the actual number, they were more expensive to buy than FLAs, but should be less expensive in the long run due to lasting a lot longer. Also, the benefits of not needing watering, not having to worry about going over 50% discharge and being much lighter and a few other minor things are "sprinkles on top of the icing".
A possible downside is that the EV felt more stable with all that ballast below (500 more lbs.), in actual use that has not been a problem. Because the Li batteries can take a higher charge current than the FLA batteries, the regen braking is more effective.