the diesel vanagon had battery in engine bay.

I found that to be inconvenient for same reasons as you wrote below,
especially more so if you had luggage in back.

a sensible approach would be to maintain battery position and have
cables attached for remote jumpstarting and charging. something like
what Terry Kay sells:

"An Accessory Permanent Mount 12 Volt Jumper Cable plug & cables"

http://community-2.webtv.net/VanStuff/VanagonWestfalia/

And for trouble light, why not wire in some 12v sockets around the
van, not just where the battery is.

alistair

On 30-Sep-10, at 5:12 PM, Annie wrote:

Bryan,

You seriously want to know *what's wrong with the current location
under the
passenger seat???*

    - It's incredibly inconvenient when you're trying to jump another
car.
    - It's incredibly inconvenient when you need to put the charger
on it.
    - It's incredibly inconvenient when you're trying to use a
trouble light
    that is batter powered.
    - It's incredibly inconvenient for just about anything.

It's a royal pain the arse to get to when you need it.