The battery compartment has a cover that slides in and locks which fully shields the battery. My current cover is nylon at about 0.150" thick. I use two gorrilla straps for insurance keeping the cover from sliding out. Wouldn't be hard to make the cover Al either. In fact you'd only need a belt sander to file the ends to an angle. I've just moved on to different trucks and the nylon cover shows no signs of issues after over a year. My pictures don't do justice I guess, but I think you're jumping the gun on calling it unsafe. It also accepts a 9 cell pack if you prefer.