Ioxus uSTART Lead-Free Truck Battery Replacement Helps Reduce Battery Waste

Ioxus uSTART has received two fleet industry awards for sustainability by eliminating lead-acid batteries with its ultracapacitor-based, drop-in battery replacement. 

"With uSTART, fleets not only realize the benefits of improved starting reliability, there are equally important and real sustainability improvements from lead waste reduction," says Chad Hall, Executive Vice President and co-founder of Ioxus. "By replacing one of the batteries on a vehicle with a uSTART module, up to 15 fewer batteries are needed over the lifetime of the vehicle. This translates into 1,000 pounds of lead that will never need to be disposed of or allowed to affect groundwater."

EU legislation on batteries is embodied in the European Battery Directive. Its objective is to contribute to the preservation and improvement of environmental quality by minimizing the negative impact of batteries and battery waste. As these preservation efforts expand, sustainable technologies develop to manage and mitigate these risks.

Replacing a lead-acid battery with uSTART in a typical commercial vehicle creates measurable environmental benefits:

• The elimination of the lead acid battery used for engine starting*, resulting in up to 15 fewer lead acid batteries being disposed of or recycled per vehicle.
• The reduction of one million pounds of lead and 225,000 lbs. of sulfuric acid for a 1,000 vehicle fleet and its impact on land and groundwater .
• The overall elimination of 4 million lbs. of recycled lead over 20 years for a typical logistics fleet. 

uSTART is an intelligent power management system that improves starting reliability and extends battery and starter life. Installed by the OEM or as a retrofit by replacing one or more vehicle batteries, uSTART reduces the number of batteries a truck would require throughout its service life. In addition, uSTART systems improve electrical component reliability by providing boardnet stabilization, increasing the low voltage during crank, and has built-in jumpstart capabilities. uSTART is designed to last 10x longer than a battery.

* based on a two battery starting system