Lithium waar
normaal loodzuur zit.

Yes. The cell chemistry, BMS design and physical case are all derived from our normal leisure range, hand-built and end-pack QC'd in Cheltenham. The change is in BMS configuration so the pack tolerates the duty cycle of engine starting. We are open about the fact that this is experimental in the sense that we are still gathering install data; we are not unsure about the safety.

Yes, in theory. If the pack falls genuinely flat - cells below 3.0V - the BMS hibernates and the output drops to zero. That means no central locking, no immobiliser power, and you can be locked out of your own vehicle until the pack is woken. It is a rare state in normal driving, but it is reachable if the vehicle sits unused for weeks on a parasitic load (alarm, tracker, dashcam).

The fix is simple: keep an eye on the pack via the TITAN app. If the app shows below ~50% after a long lay-up, drive the vehicle or put it on a maintenance charge through the alternator. We recommend a check every couple of weeks for vehicles in regular use, and weekly for vehicles that get left for longer than a month. Hibernation is a protection event, not a fault - it is on the owner to keep the pack topped up.

This is the headline concern. So far we have not had a reported failure on the previous batches of these starter units. The risk is largely tied to vehicle architecture: modern EU alternators have stricter regulators and we do not believe they are at meaningful risk. We have written the BMS to permit a slight cell over-charge specifically so it never asks the alternator to back off suddenly. If you are running a tier-1 EU vehicle with a healthy alternator, we are comfortable. If your van is older or already running marginal, talk to us first.

Most systems use battery voltage as the green-light condition for stop/start, so on that test we expect it to behave normally and trigger as designed. Coasting / regen behaviour we are less sure of but have no reason to believe it will be a problem. If you fit a Labs battery to a Euro 6 vehicle, please email us how it behaves so we can fold the data into the official spec sheet.

Because a hard cut-off on a low-resistance lithium load is exactly how you damage an alternator. We would rather permit a small amount of cell over-charge - well within safe limits, not enough to trip protections - than have the BMS suddenly open and reflect a load step back into the alternator. The trade-off is that we accept slightly accelerated cell wear, hence the 8-year warranty.

Yes, with the usual caveat that you should not mix chemistries on the same bus without DC-DC isolation in between. The Labs pack should live on the starter side of a properly isolated install, with your leisure pack downstream of a DC-DC charger or B2B unit.

When we have enough real-world data to publish a spec sheet we can defend. That will mean a long enough sample of vehicles in the wild, a consistent failure mode (or, ideally, no failure mode), and a BMS configuration we are happy to commit to long-term. Until then, we are happy to sell them - we just want the warranty terms and the product page to reflect what we actually know.