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The cable is fairly long with a number of sharp curves in it. Leaving it tight on will cause stretch, and then its going to need adjustment. Its not the greatest, but just consider it as part of regular maintenance, along with greasing the suspension grease points . I guess people dont do that either. The E1 may be electric but you still need to do maintenance. It does help with longer term ownership. Greasing the suspension bushes is really important and almost never done. Greasing pushes out the dirt that acts like grinding paste. Regularly pressure wash the bushes/ arms. It will help. Dry conditions with dust and sand can be really bad, wash off the excess grease / dust, re grease and wipe away the excess. If you are really into maintenance, then strip wash and re grease all the suspension bushes annually. The propshaft has a number of grease points, and it may be easier to do this with the belly pan removed. If you catch the belly pan at the front edge. Dont leave this, I have had a couple with this and it then acts as a scoop , result even more crud inside. .

When new take it easy and light usage for about 20 charge cycles, if you do the life of the batteries will be longer. If you thrash it from new and heavily deplete the battery pack the life will be significantly shortened. Check all the battery and power connections regularly for tightness. I do Li ion conversions on these in the UK, and all have huge amounts of crud under the seats between and down the side of the batteries, as well as under the floor in the drive tunnel hump. It helps to clear that out regularly. The small belly pan can be dropped of and let some of the stuff out, but you have to lift the floor / tunnel to get that out. I also change the bolts that hold the belly pan for std (although stainless) m6 screws, as for some reason they use screws with small heads, that easily wring round. Only use 6 point sockets on the originals, 12points will round off much easier. Occasionally check that the fan on the charger at the front hasnt got clogged up with mud.

Sector E1 12v battery. Just been doing a Li ion conversion on a customers E1, and with the old pack disconnected (DC to DC runs all the while with pack connected) the 12v battery was showing 4v. Its worth shutting off the main pack occasionally (big red button near your right leg on UK spec machines) and checking the 12v battery. Once the pack is off measure the 12v battery with a multimeter, its under the opening beneath the drivers seat behind the drivers legs. . Its important if you use the winch, as the DC to DC isnt man enough on its own to power the winch under load. Its important for me as I need a decent 12v supply to run the Electronics on the conversion. The battery is a YTX20L-BS

Sevcon list 52c2 as an over current fault. and comment check motor wiring. I would check all the cable connections, from each battery in the string, to the Sevcon and then all those to and on the motor.

I just looked at the Intimidator web site. It makes a lot about it being built of "American Steel" but like all such vehicles, most of the components will be unlikely to originate in the US. The point being mature foreign built vehicles can be good value and use many of the same components. As an example The US constructed Ranger uses a motor controller from Poland , the Hisun uses the same make. The Canadian "Designed" Delta Q chargers used by both Polaris and Hisun (different models) are actually made in China. Just dont count something out before really looking at it . Made in USA doesnt really mean its all made in US it means assembled in USA using parts sourced elsewhere. An issue with the Ranger and wet lead batteries in general, is chassis corrosion from the gas condensate. Its a real issue, and American Steel wont save you from having a rusty chassis once the paint has peeled away.

I am in the UK and only see these vehicles as real working vehicles, we dont have the leisure market here. My interest, is that I build and install Li ion conversions to Polaris Ranger EVs and Hisun E1. The Ranger (current model not the forthcoming re launch / Li ion / Expensive version) is a well established and fairly robust vehicle, but has wet lead acid batteries that need to be regularly watered. WIth all lead you get around 500 charge cycles. My commercial / landowners that equates to less than 2 years of ownership. If you dont maintain the batteries properly they might only last 6 months. With the Hisun, they have a slightly smaller motor power and a smaller sealed GEL battery pack. The Gel batteries must be treated gently for around the first 20 charges. or they fail very quickly. These too are then lasting under two years of hard usage. If you are considering long term ownership, and use such a vehicle hard then consider Li ion when the battery pack needs replacing. Its cost effective over longer and harder usage. Hard to justify when used occasionally as a leisure vehicle . Conversion does allow you to spread the capital cost, rather than the really high initial cost of a Li ion from new. Although Hisun have now launched their own Li ion vehicle, but at a much higher cost. They also have a higher power faster vehicle (demo vehicles only here in the UK so far) You need a decent power supply and dont even consider running off long extension leads. Do it properly. With all UTV maintenance is important, and keeping the suspension clean and greased is vital for long life. Hisun has a slightly complex drive shaft with a number of bearings requiring grease. With both consider dropping the belly pans / lifting the drive tunnel to clear out the crud every 6 months. Its staggering just how much can get under the floors and never cleaned out. Worst is long grass with rangers, as the plastic belly pan has holes in it and acts like a cheese grater on grass. For ride quality, I am staggered by the Hisun E1, they have used (at least in the UK market) some expensive coil overs with gas reservoirs, and the ride is brilliant. I think overall build quality of the Ranger is higher, but here they are almost twice the cost of the Hisun E1. Just dont expect a set of lead Acid or GEL to last more than two years (may be less) if you are using such a vehicle on a regular/ hard use basis (Ie charging every day after a full days use). Consider Li ion Conversions at 1stPack replacement, add that into the budget when doing your cost analysis. If replacing the pack with lead, do not expect cheap batteries to last. You really do get what you pay for, treat the first 20 charges with care and dont thrash them when new. A new set of GEL can be destroyed in a couple of months, if you dont break them in.

Main contactor is one part, Its what connects the battery pack to the main Sevcon, . You turn on the ign, that puts pack voltage to the Sevcon, if all OK the sevcon then turns on the main contactor connecting itself to the main pack. If there is a fault with the contactor (actually fairly rare) then you get either a brief drive or no drive at all. You would have got a fault come up on the main display if it was a contactor fault. If the sevcon doesnt see voltage after turning on the main contactor, it throws a fault, if the contactor has a fault giving poor voltage under load it will also give a fault code. As a point the make of contactor (Allbright) are actually a decent high quality part. Much more reliable than the ones used by Polaris to do the same job.

Interesting words the dealer has used. There is no main board. The sevcon motor controller is the only device thats involved with the drive system (other than switches and throttle etc. ) Its not a servicable item, except by the makers, so not a board replacement. It will be interesting to see the outcome. You actually get very few sevcon failures., You do however get a lot of faults caused by poor but not totally duff batteries. Rangers use the same make of controller, and like the slightly larger version they use the sevcon in the E1 is normally made in Poland. Its actually fairly straighforward to diagnose faults with the Sevcon, but you do need specific kit (IXXAT Can compact ) and software, DVT (the latter is licenced from Sevcon) to talk to the Sevcon, No other kit is supported by the software, which does allow you to change parameters, load the configuration files and download etc. Do let us know what the outcome was. And how many batteries they end up replacing.

Check all the battery terminal connections. To ensure you dont cause too many problems, use the big red cut out to split the pack and ensure the circuit is unable to be complete. Follow the circuit from the negative end on the Sevcon controller, through all of the batteries, the big red cut out, and then through the contactor to the Sevcon + becareful dont touch the =+and - and dont drop any metal tools onto the battery terminals. Add a bit of safety and wrap your spanner with insulating tape. Only have one end open. Check the 3 connections from the sevcon to the motor. Check each battery voltage as you go. Again start at the negative end of the pack. Note the voltages. Put them on here.

So on a ICE UTV engine replacement not much less than the cost of a new pack, and probably at considerably less hours than the average Li ion pack life. Thats also assuming the rest of the systems are not required to be changed, a bit like changing the engine to find the EFI and the main processor also needs changing. Dont forget no drive belts, no engine oil changes, no fuel filters, no oil filters and disposal costs. Its not so unrealistic. Companies tend to make products to price, as consumers we tend to assume that you are still getting the high quality we had years ago when the product was made in a higher cost economy. So much of what we buy and the waste associated with its creation is now shifted to the far east. Dont just talk about battery waste being put into Asian land fill, think about all the waste that gave you your lap top, the kitchen utensils, your TV etc etc etc, oh and a high proportion of parts that are in the GM and Ford Vehicles that are made in the US. You have already left that waste behind, and the pollution from the coal fired power station making it. We are all now so disconnected from the stuff we buy. Michigan may have cleaner skys now that the industry has gone, but other places now have it instead. The Article is full of un substantiated "Facts" and figures. Many of which I dont see any research to support. The MI doesnt apear to be an organisation inclined towards the Climate change agenda or any move to sutainability. I had assumed it was an Educational establishment from the title rather than what is in effect a lobby organisation, for big business. For many of us the other side of the Pond we feel fortunate not to have had 4 years of alternative facts. Thanks for sharing the source it does help to understand someones viewpoint. I have been to the US a few times, mostly to Montana and Wyoming and it is such a different world to us in Europe. I live in a village with a population of about 700. we are about 8 miles from a town of 7000, 12 miles from one of 30,000 and 10 miles from one heading to 200000. We are 50 miles from London and no one is ever more than about 3 hours drive from the coast. We have no accessible trails to ride. A very different life from much of the US. We do however have a national power grid, so Offshore power is put into the UK wide grid, as does Solar, Nuclear, Hydro power and Gas and we are actively encouraged to generate our own power (wind or solar) feed it back to the grid and get paid for it. I gather the US is very different. Oh and we have no coal power stations now. But we dont have to drive 80 miles to the supermarket. We share a language but live in very different ways. I worked in flood risk management for close on 20 years and even in that short time we saw dramatic changes. With so many of our population at risk of coastal and river flooding, and an increasing frequency of very major flooding, climate change is a reality for many of us here. In fact we all end up paying the costs of such things. People here are definitely more in tune with our changing world. This year EVs out sold DIesel vehicles for the first time ever. All makers will be selling mostly EVs in less than 5 years. But back to my original question. What would you need to consider a shift to an electric EV, forget the claims and counter claims. Is low running costs, limited maintenance, no exhaust fumes or noise something that would be an advantage.?

Thank you Travis, thats a really interesting insight into what people think. Its also useful to perhaps address some of the points. Dont rely on here say, its often not well informed. As we move forward the Li ion battery will become the mainstay of all EVs, and they have a lifespan in complete charges , ie virtually empty to virtually full of something like 4000 cycles. Some cheaper versions like Lifepo4 may have half that. Partial charges extend the life considerably. One OEM company I have worked with has vehicles using the Li ion Cell blocks I use, that have passed the 300000Km mark. A taxi I had a ride in in Amsterdam works the airport route 24/7 , a Tesla, its 18months old and already passed 200000km. So achieving 1000 hours of use really isnt a problem. I have a number of owners who use their Polaris rangers and were killing a set of lead acid in around 2 years . Thats probably heading towards around 500 hours of use. Now they have shifted to Li ion and already well past the 2 year stage. As many people who use these vehicles in the UK also have Solar PV systems on their properties (They feed the grid and get paid for it) they effectively get the power for nothing. But even if you pay for the electricity at an average of £0.2 /kwh (most pay considerably less) then that equates to around £0.04 per mile or less. Here petrol (Gas) costs £6.5 per 5 ltrs and rising daily. In Automobile terms ,the energy cost of producing gas is around the equivalent of being able to drive around 25miles in an EV, thats the energy cost of production . the energy used to refine one US gallon of fuel. The weight issue is interesting, back to Rangers, if we shift to Li ion from Lead acid we lose over 160kg of weight , but gain around 50% extra range over lead acid. The motor weighs around 30kg and the Li ion pack around 100kg. There is no gearbox so weight is lost there as well. fully charged makes no difference. If you have 20ltrs of fuel then thats about 20kg of weight. its no longer such a big issue. On the cobalt front, its a few grams used in only some of the battery chemistry. Cobalt is heavily used in the petro chemical industry as well as in many of the steels and alloy components. Its just convenient for some who wish to rubbish EVs to forget about such things. Reality is very inconvenient. Some countries do have some really awful cobalt mines, but industry and the public have not worried about it in the past. Most cobalt does not come from such clearly bad places. The production of Diamond however is however mostly reliant on very low wage economies, but that doesnt stop the sale or concerns on that front. Its all about what you what to portray and how you wish to see the world. Cobalt is used to increase the energy denist, ie more charge for a given volume of cell. I dont understand the " 5 pounds of raw earth per mile" point. Could you explain that please. The recycling of Li ion batteries is moving forward, its not good at the moment. Mainly because the volumes have been so small so far that people havnt seen how they can make money from it. Thats changing. But put that into perspective. The bulk of a li ion battery is aluminium and copper foil. A thin layer (think photocopy black print) of carbon in which is a small % of lithium and the other compounds. That can be recovered, and gives the bulk of the value. Its interesting that you appear to be saying that countries like the US simply ship their waste abroad. Thats been banned for some time in Europe, we can only hope that the US will deal with its waste at home. The originator of Tesla , JB Straubel is going out in a big scale to develop li Ion recycling technologies and equipment. Stuff generally goes to landfill because people wont pay the cost of proper disposal. Thats their choice. Again that phrase is one we keep coming back to. Choice. But choice needs to have people willing to understand the issue and not rely on here say. We should all take some responsibility to pass through life and understand the world, unfortunately we tend to only listen to those re-enforcing the views we already have. Thats a challenge in life in general, not just EV v ICE. As to burning batteries, on EVs it makes great news to show a burning TESLA, but not good news to show the hundreds of conventional fueled vehicles that burn every day. That is also changing as curiously its the cobalt in the cells that causes the burn. In the chemistry that doesnt use Cobalt, and there are loads that dont , (lifepo4) they dont ignite. They do get hot they do melt plastic they do give of huge amounts of vapour. But lifepo4 dont burn. Thanks for taking the time to comment, and keep enjoying repairing your internal combustion engines. They will be with you for many years to come. Out of interest what is the cost of a replacement engine in an average UTV? 1000 even 2000 hours is a really short lifespan.

What would you need from a UTV to make you go electric? We have the likes of The ranger EV and the Hisun E1, which when coupled with Li ion packs actually do what many people want. Im in the UK and here the UTV market is mostly for Landowners and Farmers, who use them as work vehicles, . We dont have the same leisure market as the US. But with world markets, we only get what will sell in the US. In the same way the market for lift kits is small as are non utility extras. So what would you need from an Electric UTV to encourage you to change from Petrol or Diesel? Some thoughts, Reliability, virtually no drive train maintenance, No drive belt change,. No clutches. Lack of exhaust fumes. Virtually no noise. Instant response. The power source available in virtually every garage . No more filling up cans of fuel. And of course saving the Planet, mustnt forget that. But seriously what would you need to enable you to make the shift. How many hours a day do you run, how many miles, what implements do you use? Throw it all in.

Never take a 12v tap off the main traction pack. However tempting that may be. If you tap off from a single battery (or two on the Hisuns 6v batteries) that 12v battery (6v batteries) will end up at a lower state of charge than the rest of the pack. This will then impact on the way the vehicle drives , as that lower voltage battery (ies) will reduce the overall performance. Unless you then do significant over charging (All batteries will then get hot) they will never get re balanced again. And excessive overcharging will cause damage to all the traction pack batteries. Anything attached to the 12v battery or accessory should have its own fuse. As a guide dont put anything on that pulls more than 10a without talking to the dealer as how best to do that. Especially if the vehicle is still under warranty.

The fault code is a fan problem. Firstly check there is no debris stuck in the fan. Dont just poke the fan, if there is debris, then you need to clear it all out, otherwise the fault will just return. The next fault I have dealt with was because the connection block (top left as you look at the charger) was full of mud and dirt. Pull out the mains plug or ensure the charge lead is unplugged. Remove the cover, two torx screws. Pull the cover forward. Dont put anything in the crud yet. The two large wires are attached to the battery. Short them and you will cause some damage. You could disconnect the main battery connections if you are unsure. So only excavate using a small plastic item, slowly and gently clear the muck out, use an air line with low pressure, a small brush may help. or a plastic ended vacuum cleaner nozzle (Tape a piece of plastic garden hose into the vacuum cleaner nozzle)When all is clear you will see the small wires entering the junction box from the right these are the fan wires. They are polarity conscious. So take a photo or note which wire goes where. Now with a set of long nose pliers pull off the spade terminals, do not pull the wires. I found that the spade terminals were not clean and ended up replacing the female connectors on the leads. The negative was however oxidised, so you have to clean that off. I use a scotch bright pad or very fine sand paper. You will find this easier to do with the fan out. But thats a bit more work to get the cover off and the fan out. The original connectors were crimped and soldered. I repeated that. Dont use insulated crimps as the electrical contact may be poor and the oxidisation insufficiently removed. The std crimp is a better all round crimp rather than the insulated which is really a two side squash. Before you reconnect the fan test it with a 12v supply. (note the polarity again). WIth the connectors off the spade terminals, try and clean them. A non metallic nail sanding strip/file can be useful. Clean the inside of the plastic cover before you put it back. Test. hopefully all is good. If not then its a service time with the DeltaQ charger. The photos show some of the problems with dirt in the charger.

Any update on this?

Take the time to change the m6 horrid cross head screws that hold the side panels underneath. Once the head is unusable, having the nice dome head you cant grip them to undo. I have had to cut flats on either side to get them out, I change these for m6 screws with either flange heads or larger washers. Do it while you can you wont regret it. Same with the awful m6 8mm head bolts on the under pan.

Part of the difference is that the originals are road rated and so the vehicles are legal to register and actually use on the road. Many of the std UTV/ATV tyres are specifically marked not for street / road use.

On the E1s I am currently converting to Li ion in the UK, some have real mud problems. This isnt restricted to Hisuns but the Polaris Rangers do as well. The E1 I have just finished had around a barrow load of the stuff under the floor and around the batteries and the side panels. The floor pan under the battery area had had the front edge bend down and was acting like a scoop. So much stuff. The propshaft was completely surrounded by dirt. I would really suggest to users that they take up the tunnel in the front floor and periodically clear this area. Take the sides off and clear out all the mud and debris you can see. This one was exceptional. I had problems reprogramming the charger as the USB flap on the drivers side of the charger had come out and filled with mud. So do check this, blow it out and tape the cover down. This one was so bad and likely to be so again so I have made polycarbonate sheet deflector shields on the front and sides of the charger . The charger fan also didnt work and gave an error as the mud was in the connections and had corroded the fan spade terminals. So just keep an eye out for floor pan damage, and do periodic clear outs. Dont pressure was the motor, or the Sevcon DC to DC or the Charger. Its also easier to get the muck out if you drop the steel floor panel. This uses M6 screws , but has an exceptionally small 8mm head, So I have changed these for some m6 shouldered bolts. I also replaced the cross head screws holding the side panels underneath as these get so corroded that you cant get them out.

Its down to use, here in the UK virtually all UTVs are used in a commercial or farming use, few are for personal/ leisure use. We dont have access to trails etc. So the increasing use of Electric UTVs is in a more professional way, here the land owners are willing to shift from fossil fuels and many have their own Solar or wind turbines. It all looks good shifting to a lower carbon business. My work on UTvs is mainly on Polaris Rangers , converting to Li ion, the costs stack up when you are using a set of lead every 18months which many do. The weight reduction is well over 150kg, and the same on the HisunE1. Here we are seeing a much bigger gain over the original batteries. My own view is the E1 originals are not big enough in capacity and they suffer from higher degradation as a resultunder tough use, but ok at a low / domestic level. In the UK a Ranger is around £14k a Hisun E1 around £9k. Thats a big difference. Now seeing some older E1s and they have taken some serious abuse, and still work well. The one I am currently converting , had been pressure washed before it came in. I then strip the sides off and pressure wash again, then I take out the old batteries, and drop the under pans, and pressure wash again. In all I would guess we got about 10 std buckets of mud out. Thats a lot of weight. The propshaft was not visible under the front floor. It was solid with crud. But still it worked. On the Li ion front I cant get as much into the E1 chassis space as the ranger. But its lighter and the suspension is brilliant. For users here its down to cost. I personally believe the Ranger and the E1 are as capable as each other, I like the ranger being slightly bigger. With Evs the old arguments about power generation losses etc are all out there. But remember the energy used to convert a gallon of gas from crude oil will take a road going EV around 28 miles. Thats before burning the Gas. WIth more and more localised power generation, from Solar and Wind the grid losses are much less of an issue. Especially when you generate the power your self, perhaps with your own storage. Here in the UK we have shifted away from Coal , as certain US presidents have discouraged, we now have a very high % of renewables providing our power. The last coal fired power stations have now closed. So the so called long tail pipe argument is no longer a vaild one. Thats very different in the US where renewables are still not dominant. That will change. In 10 years this discussion wont be taking place. There is also the pleasure of not having a noisy smelly power unit beneath you, and the knowledge that your efforts are making a difference to not only your environment, but the environment of all of us.

50mm 2 cable is adequate for the E1 . Rangers use slightly smaller cable size and many mainstream EVs use 50mm2 for the motor cables. You would need max power for some hours to get the cabling warm, let alone so hot as to melt the outer. As its happened in one location and high resistance would cause the localised heating that has to be the cause. I have owned and work on EVs for my income for the last 10 years. 50mm2 is adequate, for this use. The vehicle does not produce a constant 20+kw its a peak power output, if it did you would be working it continuously under full load, The motors are rated at under 7kw at continuous use under normal usage. At continuous 20kw use the motor and sevcon would have been cutting back due to over heating. Just to say the cable is undersized is to misunderstand how its used and how the vehicle functions., and the motor / controller specifications. It could also be a motor cabling fault at the junction with the three feed cables. Hisun really need to investigate this properly. The cable size has not been cut its always been the same. I have worked on a few early E1s and they are the same. Some have already been through two sets of batteries prior to coming to me for Li Ion conversions. None have had this problem. The cable from the Sevcon controller to the pack is the same size cable and if it were undersized then that would have been the first section to get hot and fail. On the Polaris rangers which I have been in for Li ion conversions, thats so far about 17, which have the higher power Sevcon controller and higher power motor than the E1, none have had fault due to cable sizing . The ranger motor (I just looked ) is rated at 8.5kw and is higher power than the hisun E1. 50mm2 is in between AWG 1 and 0 its larger than 1 (approx 42mm2) and smaller than 0 (approx 53mm2)

But the cables have lost the insulation , looks like its fallen away, so ultimately the cable will need to be replaced. If it was loose connections or crimps that can be re done, then the cables should be cleaned up and a double layer of heat shrink sleeve put over the melted section. Never run these with bare cable.

heat like this is normally caused by connections not being tight, or even the crimp terminal not being properly crimped. The heat comes from the resistance on the connection. With the ign turned off remove the cover and check the tightness of the nuts.

I have a rough Polaris Ranger EV, but my business is building EVs and supplying parts for conversions. And through this I have developed a Li ion Conversion for the Ranger EV, and am heading towards the 20th of those. I recently developed a related Li Ion conversion for the Hi Sun E1 . Through EVs I have also got to support the builds of a number of vehicles uses as specialised camera film tracking vehicles, 4 of which are Ranger EV based,. My battery systems have also found their way into a recent large 4x4 camera crane vehicle powering a 3kw hydraulic pump through a 5kw inverter. But most of my work is on conversions of vehicles to EV and supply of parts. If I can assist with comments relating to Electric Vehicles, I am happy to do so.

As some back ground I run a small business in the UK (since 2012) building EVs, supplying conversion parts, and developing new parts and Li ion conversions. I am not a specifically Hisun oriented business, but have created a li ion Conversion for the e1 , built on the setup I use on Polaris Ranger EVs. Hisun use the DeltaQ IC1200 charger. Each charger has an Algorithm loaded into it that tells the charger to what voltage to charge to at what current, and for how long and at what voltage to go to any maintenance/ trickle charge. It can also be reprogrammed (assuming DElta Q have one suitable) to work with Li ion cells. The algorithm can be changed using a download from a suitably formatted and set up USB storage stick. If you put a completely blank USB stick into the USB socket on the charger, then it will download a dump of charging statistics. Using the software from DeltaQ you can use that to look at the data, it tells you how many charges, when the last one was, if they are full or incomplete charge cycles, any faults, what Algorithm you are usng etrc. It only looks at the Charger. There is no connection to any form of BMS (No Lead systems do that) to give data on individual batteries. Inside each battery there are separate 2v cells . 3 to give 6v 6 to give 12v. and these cells do get unbalanced. That is why a Lead battery always gets over charged in a full charge cycle. It brings up any low voltage cells and high voltage cells just turn the unwanted power into heat. On wet lead thats when you get gassing. So always ensure you fully charge. Its worth occasionally doing a voltage check on each separate battery in the string , starting at the negative end. Note the at rest voltages when you have used the vehicle, then when its been fully charged and left to stand unplugged for say 20 mins. Do the checks again. Not them down. Now look at the data and are you seeing any that are really different voltages from the rest? If so it could mean you have a problem with a cell in that battery. As an example if at rest after use, most are reading at just under 12v, but one is reading a bit under 10v that battery almost certainly has a faulty cell. If these had wet cells then this is the point you re check the electrolyte level. But on sealed gel there is nothing that you can do. It possible that that battery has just got so unbalanced that the onboard over charge cant deal with it. Unlikely but possible, so fully charge the vehicle as normal. Then carefully disconnect that battery (Ensure any cable ends dont touch anything. Wrap the end in insulation tape and cable tie the cable (use releasable ties) or tie them up with string to something solid on the vehicle. No you can remove the battery or leave it in place and put an external charger of the correct type and voltage , leave it for a day. Then remove the external charger, re connect the battery to the rest of the pack, and see if its made a difference. If not then dont delay replacing it. A duff cell not only causes a voltage drop but to compensate the rest of the pack will have to discharge at a higher rate, so it puts all of the batteries under strain. A few terms Series connection. in battery terms, join the negative on one battery to another batteries positive and the overall voltage will be the sum of the two, ie two 6v will give 12v two 12v will give 24v. If you have 2 150Ah (Amps Hours) 12v batteries in series you will end up with a 150Ah 24v battery pack (This is called 2 S , two serial) Parallel connection. If you have two 150Ah 12v batteries and you join both negatives together and both positives together you will end up with a 300Ah 12v battery pack (this is called 2p) If you have two sets of the 300Ah as above and join them in series you have one pack of 2P 2S. Cell . The basic building block of batteries. In lead they are about 2v, in Nicad about 1.2v, in Alkaline/ zinc carbon about 1.5v and Li ion around 3.7v (lifepo4 3.3v) So your 12v lead battery will be made up of 6 separate 2v cells. Any one of which can fail. DC to DC converter. Takes High voltage DC and converts it to low voltage and not simply by using a big resistor. The output is a stable voltage suitable for the vehicles normal usage. It should never be used to charge another 12v battery by jumping of the onboard one Motor controller / Inverter. In the HiSun, this is the SEVCON unit beneath the seat. This takes DC power and converts it to three phase AC to feed to the AC motor. In broad terms the frequency of the AC is what dictates the motor RPM, the controller interprets the load , the motor speed (it has a thing called an encoder on the motor that gives data you can work out RPM from), throttle input and hey presto you get the power and speed your right foot is wanting. It has inbuilt data specifically for the motor telling it how to deliver power through the rev range, how the phases interact to give the acceleration you are asking for etc etc. Do ask a question on EV related things and I will answer if I can.

Its quite stunning how much better the E1 is with Li ion. But I think the forthcoming Factory Li ion will be a lot more expensive. I guess the choice to go Li Ion depends on how long you intend to keep it. The rangers I have done are from 2012 right up to a brandnew 2019 model that had done two weeks use. Most Ranger owners seem to hang onto them and be farmers or land owners (although one customer has 4, all used for virtually silent Camera tracking work) So for them the upfront investment pays off. It is possible to do a smaller pack, but I think thats less good option. The under load voltage on Li ion , with a decent size pack, is so much more stable. These particular cells dont drop much at all under load right through the charge cycle, which means the performance does not drop off as the pack goes down. I have to re programme the Sevcon motor controller so that it cuts back in a series of steps as you get near to the lowest voltage I want to take the pack down to. So its not an all or nothing setup. You do get some warning. Getting up to the pack size of the Ranger conversion just isnt possible within the space there is under the seats. (Ranger uses 8 cell blocks so 240ah rather than 180ah) . Im sure the Hisun is lighter than than the Ranger, so its probably not significantly different in overall range. I do know people who have tried off the shelf Li ion Battery replacements, but they are not so successful requiring separate battery chargers for each 12v block. They also tend to be Lifepo4, which doesnt burn if all goes horribly wrong, but in use the voltage sag under load is much greater. Lifepo4 can deliver huge currents, but they do voltage drop a lot. A lot of the Ranger owners despite doing proper battery watering are seeing them last under 2 years of regular daily usage. They have an approximate 500 cycles life so thats not far off the two years. A few do / have replaced the odd battery, but on a n older pack once they start to go they will all go, a bit like triggers broom, my pack is 6 years old and none of the batteries are original. My biggest surprise was on first going out in the Hisun, just how good the ride is. The shocks are an expensive item, but are worth every penny over rougher ground.