Like many great aftermarket products, Optima draws upon its connections to racing in trickling-down innovation with its latest entry into the lithium battery market. The OrangeTop ORB20 is an extremely lightweight lithium battery, measuring just 9.2 pounds, but still boasts 1,000A cranking power at 0 degrees Fahrenheit and exceptional performance at -20 degrees. But the best part is that it’s so safe, it has achieved an FIA certification.
Like all OrangeTops, the ORB20 is a “smart battery” with a kill switch, integrated CANBUS communications, and integration with a Bluetooth app to display battery status — health, state of charge, usage, temperature, and alarms for the microprocessor-controlled Battery Management System (BMS).
“If it gets drained too low, it will shut itself off to protect the cells, and make sure you always have enough power to start the vehicle and get it charging again,” states Jack Reesman at Optima. “With lithium, you have a higher weight savings, better fit and form, and higher power. All of our lithium products have a five-year free replacement guarantee.”
In addition to these many safety features, the actual chemistry of the battery itself is also much safer than your typical EV battery. “We use lithium iron phosphate, so they are a very safe chemistry. You never have to worry about seeing things like with Teslas catching fire,” assures Reesman.
Daryl Brockman goes into greater depth: “There are a lot of different lithium chemistries. What’s used in cell phones or radio-controlled cars is different from EVs, and that’s different than what’s used in our batteries. We use a lithium iron phosphate, widely regarded as the most abuse-tolerant chemistry and the safest chemistry. Some of the lithium chemistries, particularly the cobalt-based, are much more energy dense. More energy density equals more volatility. And when those chemistries go off, it’s a much more volatile event — burns like the sun type of event.
“Lithium iron phosphate is incredibly tolerant of abuse. You have to really try to have it go into runaway. When it does, it’s more like a smoke event than a fire event. We tested it, and you basically have to run 36 volts into it, but we have a battery management system that shuts the battery down when you get to 15 volts. It has failsafes, layered protections in place that even if you hit excessive voltage there is no way for that voltage to get to the cells.”
Optima has a long, storied history with racing, so having a dedicated racing product should not come as a surprise. “We have cars that have raced in LeMans, Pikes Peak, we have a long racing history,” Brockman says. “It was a natural progression and also where our passion is — with racing. 20 years ago AGM was the ultimate in battery technology, but technology progressed, and right now the ultimate solution for energy storage is lithium. It’s much more challenging to design than an AGM battery. We weren’t the first to market with a lithium battery, so we wanted to make sure we did it right. Clarios is not only the world’s largest manufacturer of lead acid batteries, but also the world’s largest supplier of lithium energy storage systems for major auto makers. The engineering team that does those OE systems is the team we used to design the Optima line of lithium batteries. It’s an OE-level Tier 1 supplier product. We have a much more robust systems approach than smaller producers.”
“We have a proprietary cell design and the widest range of operating temperatures, you can operate this battery at minus 20 degrees all the way up to 167 degrees Fahrenheit. You can get 100 percent cranking amps up to zero degrees. And if you take care of the battery, it should last up to ten years. It’s a high pricepoint, but when you divide it out over 10 years it is really palatable,” states Reesman.
Speaking of pricepoint, the ORB20 comes in at $1,499. Even if you are skeptical of the 10-year claim, the five-year guarantee keeps you at $300 per year, so it’s not a huge gamble.
