why vehicles use 12v electric systems? Why a seemingly strange arbitrary figure like 12? Why not 10?
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Lead acid cells have a 2V output.
To make a 10V battery would take 5 cells, and 12V six cells in series. If you arrange the cells linearly then a 10V battery would generally be shorter. If you want to make a rectangular arrangement of cells then you’d prefer 12V since you can create a rectangle using 6 equal sized cells, but you cannot do so with 10V and its 5 cells.
Earlier batteries used 6V (3 cells). When they wanted more power it was fairly easy to just wire two 6V batteries in series and get 12V. Telecom used 48V (which is a multiple of 12, but not 10).
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