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by gnaritas 2323 days ago
Lead-acid is still better, it's 1/10 the cost for equivalent usable amp-hours. Most boaters use deep cycle golf cart batteries, they're produced at such scale that they're cheap as hell. Lithium is a waste of money and dangerous to boot. They only make sense if you're extremely space limited, which most bigger boats aren't.
1 comments

Most marine lithium batteries are LiFePO, not lithium ion. They're far more stable and safe to have on a boat. Compared to lead acid, they have better charge efficiency, deeper cycles, longer lifespans, higher energy density and specific capacity. Furthermore, I've never found lead acid batteries that come close to 1/10th the price...1/4 is more like it.
Fair point on the LiFePO, but none of those other things really matter as they're easily made up for by a larger bank, what matters is the cost per amp/hour and lithium isn't remotely there yet. The exact fraction varies, but lithium isn't going to touch some Costco golf cart batteries at a $100 a pop. You can buy an entire house bank for the cost of 1 lithium LiFePO battery (nearly 1k on Amazon). Unless you just like wasting money, deep-cycle lead-acid is a far better choice.