[Al Skierkiewicz]

Guys,
When you take a battery directly off a charger and add it to your robot, the dashboard will report a terminal voltage of something higher than 12 volts. This will rapidly fall to a nominal voltage once you start to draw some current. This is a well documented condition, even here on CD. This is not an indication that the battery is any better than another battery, simply that it has some "surface charge" from the battery charger. Lead Acid batteries require a charger to have a higher voltage to push charge current into the battery.