Battery Swapping

[electruck]

You have to look at the big picture. If EV are the future than batteries will become big business. Like everything else, over time the technology will become must cheaper and more competitive. You drop off an depleted battery, they install a charged battery, they charge the drop off and install it later in another EV. They can turn over a battery several times a day. As the battery ages, they replace them with the most state of the art battery available, so it keeps the technology as current as possible. Don't get me wrong, I am sure there are plus and minus's but personally l like the convenience. Either way, looking forward to my Rivian.

It might currently take an hour to charge but it will generally take days or in some cases weeks to consume that charge so you will never "turn over a battery several times a day". Sure, you can absolutely swap multiple batteries in a day - you're only limited by inventory, number of service bays and charging capacity. The real problem is this would be a business with no long term future. Within 5-10 years we will likely see battery advances reduce charging times to the point where battery swaps are no longer appealing and are outweighed by other advantages such as the ability to integrate the battery into the vehicle structure. Without a viable long term business model, nobody is going to invest the capital required to support battery swaps at any scale. Heck, there is barely a case for battery swaps right now with most charging happening at home over night. That said, apartment dwellers without a home charging ability and who put a lot of miles on their vehicle will likely find BEVs less than ideal for their lifestyle. Switching from charging to swapping would also not benefit small towns, remote areas, etc with limited or no charging capabilities at present. Given the head start that building out charging infrastructure has, rural areas would likely see chargers built out well before they would see "JiffyBattery" franchises opening up.

As an aside, I also think the lack of standardization around battery form factor and chemistry is a good thing in these early days of BEVs. Competition will drive the advancement of battery technology much faster than without. As a prime example, if the world had already standardized around the 2170 cell, would Tesla have put the effort into developing the 4680 cell?

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[Jehorton]

I agree with no going the route NIO has. I believe it may also could be demographics for the reason NIO has gone this route. China (and areas with similar structures) is very overpopulated and many live in very tall apartments. You can’t see everyone in those buildings using personal charging at night while they are sleeping. Hence they may have to have this system in order for everyone to keep a charge. Over here most have their own house and capabilities of setting up personal charging overnight. We don’t need ( or want for that matter ) to have to take our POV to a mechanic shop every time we need a charge.

 

[ajdelange]

It might currently take an hour to charge

It doesn't generally take an hour to charge. I think it has been determined that the average time at a Tesla SC is less than half an hour.

but it will generally take days or in some cases weeks to consume that charge so you will never "turn over a battery several times a day"

That applies more to home charging where the effective time to charge is about 5 sec to plug in and 5 sec to unplug the next day. The value of battery swapping would be realized by people on road trips i.e. those using the Super Chargers who well may go through a couple of C's in a day. I do. On a 600 mi trip I have to stop 2 or 3 times to charge. Total time is about an hour and a quarter. Would I like that to be 3/4 of an hour? To be honest I don't really care that much about it. Evidently Tesla has realized that the investment in battery swapping will not return enough improvement in customer satisfaction to make it a prudent one.

 

[Jmiller929]

It doesn't generally take an hour to charge. I think it has been determined that the average time at a Tesla SC is less than half an hour.

That applies more to home charging where the effective time to charge is about 5 sec to plug in and 5 sec to unplug the next day. The value of battery swapping would be realized by people on road trips i.e. those using the Super Chargers who well may go through a couple of C's in a day. I do. On a 600 mi trip I have to stop 2 or 3 times to charge. Total time is about an hour and a quarter. Would I like that to be 3/4 of an hour? To be honest I don't really care that much about it. Evidently Tesla has realized that the investment in battery swapping will not return enough improvement in customer satisfaction to make it a prudent one.

 

[electruck]

It doesn't generally take an hour to charge. I think it has been determined that the average time at a Tesla SC is less than half an hour.

So what? Unless you are proposing that the hypothetical "JiffyBattery" company should be DCFCing all of their batteries all of the time (which would not be good for the longevity of their batteries) then Telsa SC times are completely irrelevant. With current battery tech, they would more likely be looking at L2 charging which would take longer. I only mentioned "an hour" because that had been mentioned earlier in the thread and, unlike you, I have neither the time nor inclination to debate every word in every post on topics "I don't really care much about."

 

[DucRider]

How many swap stations and batteries would need to be deployed to cover the Tesla Supercharger and Electrify America locations? How many different battery types would each need to inventory? Could equipment be designed to autonomously swap the battery of any EV that pulled in? Or would every location need to be staffed 24/7 (or have restricted hours)?
Do we dictate a ""standard" battery and/or form factor that greatly inhibits advances in technology?

 

[ajdelange]

If you don't care about a topic why don't you just save yourself the trouble of posting and benefit the rest of us by reducing the noise level.

 

[electruck]

If you don't care about a topic why don't you just save yourself the trouble of posting and benefit the rest of us by reducing the noise level.

Pot, kettle. The don't care part was a direct quote from your own post.

 

[sdpugsley]

Pretty good summary, not moved on much since it was written:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a...eboot-that-affordable-electric-vehicles-need/

 

[sdpugsley]

 

[Jmiller929]

Pretty good summary, not moved on much since it was written:
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a...eboot-that-affordable-electric-vehicles-need/

Here is info on NIO's approach: https://www.nio.com/baas

 

[jjwolf120]

They can turn over a battery several times a day.

Turning a battery over several times a day does not a business case make.

 

[sdpugsley]

While the battery is bespoke and sold as part of the EV, standardized swappable batteries will not make any sort of business sense with each EV having its own custom battery model. Once diminishing returns sets in for the car manufacturers with new battery tech slowing, they will jump all over standardization and offload the battery costs to third parties. Still lots of development ramp to go with batteries until they are 'good enough' - when was the last time you felt the urge to upgrade your PC from one year to the next? At some point, car batteries will follow the propane tank exchange model - you'll have the choice of exchanging or refilling, depending on your circumstance. But this is years away.

 

[ajdelange]

What everyone seems to be missing here is that instituting a battery swap program is not going to help Tesla or Rivian, here in the USA, to sell cars. There is, thus, no reason for them to undertake such a program. The reason that it isn't going to sell more cars is that the public doesn't see much advantage to it. I find the present system, as represented by lots of SuperCharges relatively closely spaced, more than adequate even if I have, occasionally, to charge for 40 minutes. I won't trade in my Tesla for a Rivian if Rivian adopts battery swapping. For me it's a "don't care". You can be sure that both Tesla and Rivian have polled owners and prospective owners and found the preponderance to be of the same opinion. Hence their decisions to not do swapping.

Of course the engineering reasons cited here are not insignificant. But if customer preference studies showed that swapping would sell car's, solutions to the engineering problems would be sought.

 

[azbill]

Maybe a compromise solution would be to offer some type of battery pack on a trailer, that one could rent just for a long trip. The company could be called Ehaul. Then have a plug on the rear of the vehicle to parallel it in with the vehicle battery. This could be doable for the new larger EV trucks that are coming out, maybe not so useful for passenger cars. Different battery voltages, such as 400V and 800V could be offered. Very similar to the Jerry Can idea that Rivian has proposed and was discussed on other threads.

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