4 ms·

I don't get your (4). It's a capacitor + lithium battery. It's got to be nominally 12 volts, or else it wouldn't work in a car. Capacitors only charge to the vo

I don't get your (4). It's a capacitor + lithium battery. It's got to be nominally 12 volts, or else it wouldn't work in a car. Capacitors only charge to the voltage you apply -- in this case, 12v. I'm not sure if you mean voltage by "beyond that", but fire risk isn't really correlated with voltage - more with chemistry, energy, and fusing. As for (5), they clearly care about cost.

sandworm101 11y ago
I was thinking about the internals. They might have components with higher potentials that are then regulated down to 12v. In a crash, those could be a source of high-voltage shorts that might be a source of ignition.
- conjecTech 11y ago
  No worries there. Everything is right around the 12V level. We can boost the voltage on the capacitors some, but we never exceed anything that the alternator is spitting out.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    But a car alternator's output is nominally 13.8V.
    - Dylan16807 11y ago
      13.8V is around the 12V level and is not high voltage. What are you objecting to?