Phoenix: the best hybrid is yet to be sold

Let me tell you my surprising story of just trying to buy 12 LiIon cells. This was for work on a government job, not a hobby effort.

I needed 12 LiIon cells for a radio I was designing. The previous generation design used non-rechargable Lithium Manganese Dioxide batteries. Found the ideal candidate was a Panasonic rectangular cell, (which are limited in size since LiIon cells as large as a C-cell are considered too dangerous to built).

Found out from various manufacturer and battery distributors that you can only get LiIon by going to "Certified" distributors. Turns out a "Certified" Distributor can only sell LiIon batteries under the following written conditions:
1) The battery can not be used on any military, aviation, or medical application. This is a Japanese national policy requirement and not a Panasonic requirement.
2) Certify that the end use has the entire set of safety cutoffs, overtemp isolations, proper charging circuit design, and is used in applications that do not gang too many cells together.

Most Certified distributors solve the last issue by only providing battery packs that incorporate their internal safety circuitry since most users are not too keen to show a distributor all the details of what they are working on. I was unable to find any US built batteries. The actual LiIon manufacturing plants were all overseas a couple of years ago.

I got around this temporarily by having the distributor built battery packs and then I dismantled the packs (very, very carefully with safety gear and safety observers) and intalled them in my radio (which had all the safety circuitry required by LiIon standards). Alkaline, NiCd, and NiMH are inherently safe if an internal short occurs, but LiIon chemistries are quite a different story.

Moral---Do your homework on LiIon dangers, then buy or obtain a couple of the A123 (or any other LiIon) cell before you commit to a big project like this.

Please do a lot of homework on how hard it is to contain a LiIon ignition starting a thermal chain reaction. It is straightforward to just string batteries together. It is VERY VERY DIFFICULT to engineer a really safe big battery pack made out of LiIon. I mean safe in that if some drunk were to hit you LiIon vehicle that you do not die in the unbelivably intense thermal reaction.

I fully support your EV build and am not trying to discourage you. You may know a lot more than I do about LiIon and if this is the case then educate me, I have a lot more I can learn.