That got me to thinking about batteries and I did a search "Pancake batteries" which yielded a number of results which looked like they would probably satisfy the general operating perameters of your car and had similar Voltage/Mah characteristics, advantages being the would not sit as high in the car and would lower the center of gravity, allowing the use of a wider range of bodies. I am not sure what these batteries are designed for, but I am assuming cell phones?
Anywayz, I can only hope that you looked into this when you designed the car and for reasons I can't know decided on the path that you did!? BUT, alternatively maybe these batteries just did not exist then??? I don;t know!?
Anywayz, Just thinking out loud and trying to be constructive!
Food for thought, but a Cell phone battery might make finding battery replacements very simple and cheap!
