ev battery swapping

[Jim Stewart ...]

always said battery swapping is the only way EVs would work.....

[Jim Stewart ...]

said on here years ago and you all said it wouldn't work

[alan_m]

Buy a EV without a battery which makes the car initially cheaper to purchase but then be tied into expensive battery replacements.

Someone has still got to pay for the battery and that someone is the same consumer who purchased the car.

[Colin Bignell]

About a century ago, there was a taxi company in America that used electric taxis with interchangeable battery packs, and a huge stadium where they swapped them out. It didn't work out as a business model.

[Rod Speed]

Colin Bignell [e-mail]> wrote

Irrelevant to what might work today with very different batterys and non taxis.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

batteries are rented....

[Fredxx]

I was an advocate of it. Not everyone has a closed mind.

Tesla even had a video of the time taken to change a battery wrt filling up with fossil fuel.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

good man

[alan_m]

But the rental fee has to cover the cost the battery over approx 10 years plus the cost of keeping a supply and the infrastructure to swap it out.

It's a similar business model as printers. The hardware is cheap but the consumables are expensive.

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

you don't want to own the battery if it is getting swapped when it goes flat

[Fredxx]

The consumable is electricity. I don't get your point.

Or are you saying that you can only 'fill' batteries from a manufacturer's supply, in much the same way you have to buy manufacturer's ink?

[Mark Carver]

Perhaps they should have asked Calor Gas for advice.

[SteveW]

You pay for "a" battery when you buy the car. You can charge at home, work, etc. as with today's EVs, but also swap batteries instead of recharging on a long journey. You always have one battery and, if it is beginning to fail, it is just taken out of circulation at your next swap. Replacements for failing batteries being paid for by all users as part of the "refill" price. That has the benefit, unlike buying a non-swappable BEV today, of no individual having to take the risk and the burden of the high cost of happening to be the unlucky one who suffers an early battery failure.

[Theo]

It doesn't work because the battery *is* the car. The chassis is essentially a big battery with some wheels and motors bolted on to the battery mounting frame.

If you battery swap, you've now massively constrained the form factor of the car because you have to have a generic battery size. Remember when every electrical gadget had to run off AA or C or D batteries, you had to build your thing around the space the batteries would go. Every mobile would be as chunky as a cordless phone, because of being built around the AAA cells.

If you can charge fast enough (Teslas can charge at 1000 miles per hour, or

75 miles in 5 minutes) you don't need all the huge investment in battery swapping stations (where do you store all these batteries as they're recharging? what happens if you run out of freshly charged ones?). You need more charging spots as the number of EVs increases, but that's mostly wiring. In both cases you need the grid infrastructure and the AC to DC converters, which are typically shared across multiple car hookups.

Batteries now last the lifetime of the car (Teslas typically get 300K to

500K miles and are aiming for a million), but if you are worried about your battery failing early on, that's what warranties are for. If you are concerned about being unlucky later on and the odds are favourable, I'm sure an insurance company will take your money - this is what they do all day long, after all.

Theo

[jon]

Does that mean you wouldn't have to buy a new battery ?

[SteveW]

You don't have "a" battery, you have multiple, smaller ones. Small cars need only one, bigger cars 2,3 or even 4. Bigger cars could even have just the one in, but with the option of putting the rest in for longer journeys or when towing.

Multiple batteries allows for more flexibility in their location.

That is no different from petrol stations.

But batteries can be charged continuously, at lower rates, rather than the extremely high rates needed to match the speed of filling up with petrol.

Half a dozen cars turning up for battery swaps, is not the same load on the supplies as half a dozen turning up for high-speed charging.

You also ignore that far fewer battery swaps would be needed than petrol or diesel refills, as even swappable batteries would mainly be charged at home overnight, in the company car park or similar. With only those on longer or unexpected extra journeys needing swaps.

Insurance companies, like some breakdown companies, will refuse to insure the batteries of older vehicles, charge steep premiums or decalre them uneconomic to repair. Those unable to afford the premiums, will do without and hope, but if they are unlucky, a battery failure will mean the car is worthless and repairs unaffordable.

[Andrew]

:-)

But with those the 'battery' is quite portable and easily carried (apart from the 47 Kg jobbies). An EV battery is really heavy and is full of gubbins that keeps it warm when it is cold, and cools it when it is too hot.

When a Toyota dealer changes the battery on a hybrid car, the technicians have to wear full NBC kits to protect them.

[Fredxx]

I assume you would rent it, where you're charged by the available capacity, dictated by the construction and possibly age/deterioration. Not everyone has access to off-road charging facilities.

If EVs are to become widespread, then I don't see much alternative. You can currently get an old banger for a few hundred pounds and if you want a healthy take-up of EVs by those who can't save or afford their own battery then battery rental is the only way to go.

[SteveW]

For a battery swap station, you wouldn't have technicians. Being designed to be swapped, you'd just park the car, the camera would read the registration, work out the make and model and use the appropriate, manufacturer supplied "program" to allow a robot arm to grab each of the (multiple smaller) batteries and slide, tilt, rotate, move them to follow the manufacturer's route for removal ... reversed for insertion.

That path can be as complicated as needed and the batteries can go in from the top, bottom, front, back or side, at whatever angle suits the design of the vehicle.

[GB]

The video said that the battery rental fee is only $12 a month, which includes up to 6 battery swaps a month. Over ten years, that's under $1500, whereas the video says a battery pack costs $11000. Plus, there's occasional maintenance if the packs break, and the electricity to charge them.

Clearly, something isn't adding up here. Apart from the cost of the battery packs, NIO need to run all the changing stations. Plus, there's no incentive for customers to look after the batteries, and they won't necessarily last even ten years.

Once NIO have sucked you in to buying one of their cars, you are stuck with their battery plan, even if the price shoots up. Maybe, that's the business plan, ie sucker people in with a $12 price, then milk them for all they are worth later?