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[Chance]

Originally Posted by The Gritz Carlton

I always had trouble putting batteries in a flashlight the right direction. What's the advantage of 24 or 48V A/C?

Basically, for the same amount of power, you only need 1/4 the current. That means wire sizes can be reduced significantly, which is more important as we make RVs more electrical. At really low power levels like LED lights it’s no big deal, but when we start talking air conditioners which may require 100 Amps at 12V, reducing it to 25A at 48V is a lot better.

Even worse are large inverters that may see up to 3 times their current rating for a few seconds. When you have close to 10,000 Watts even for a few seconds, amperage at 12V would need to be close to 1,000 Amps from battery bank. Cable sizes and voltage drops are just much easier to handle at 1/4 the current. That’s why the auto industry adopted 48V.

They could have gone even higher voltage to reduce current even more, but above 60V there is a significant safety issue. Hence 48V is the sweet spot.