Could Rivian offer a retrofit battery upgrade in future?

[jollyroger]

I came across this vinfast https://vinfastauto.us/ which prominently advertised that you buy the vehicle and have a battery subscription. They replace it when it hits 70% useful capacity. It’s like $150 ish a month. At least right now. So there are folks thinking along the lines of designing for battery replacement.

https://vinfastauto.us/battery-subscription

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[Zoidz]

I came across this vinfast https://vinfastauto.us/ which prominently advertised that you buy the vehicle and have a battery subscription. They replace it when it hits 70% useful capacity. It’s like $150 ish a month. At least right now. So there are folks thinking along the lines of designing for battery replacement.

https://vinfastauto.us/battery-subscription

Interesting. Like an extended warranty, it's a questionable cost propostition, but it gives peace of mind. $150/month = $1800 a year = $18,000 in ten years, which seems to be, give or take, when you might hit 70% charge capacity to qualify for the replacement. That same money invested wisely (if you have the discipline every month) would be worth more than $18,000 in ten years, and could pay for the replacement with money left over?

 

[pc500]

Anybody think that Rivian could offer a battery upgrade?
Get a 135 kwh now and upgrade to 180 later?
The battery packs are modular I think???? Why couldn't they add the extra later on?

Anybody got an opinion

It's unlikely they will even if they could and the economics would probably also favor selling and replacing the truck

 

[zipzag]

Interesting. Like an extended warranty, it's a questionable cost propostition, but it gives peace of mind. $150/month = $1800 a year = $18,000 in ten years, which seems to be, give or take, when you might hit 70% charge capacity to qualify for the replacement. That same money invested wisely (if you have the discipline every month) would be worth more than $18,000 in ten years, and could pay for the replacement with money left over?

I assume that the base price of the vehicle is lower. If true, its more financing plus extended warranty.

 

[kewlasu]

I would not be surprised if that subscription goes up in time, so 18k would not be what the total cost in 10yrs.

 

[Dark-Fx]

It's unlikely there will be anything other than an exact replacement with same voltage, kwh and physical form factor, whether's it Rivian or 3rd party. There's simply no way to increase power density unless it's a new cell chemistry/technology, and that would almost certainly require changes to the Battery Management System hardware and software. Can't see that happening in the mass market. Maybe EV tuner shops will pop up, like BMW tuners Hamann and Dinan?

I hear this a lot, but if the chemistry is tolerant of all the rates and voltage the current BMS controls, then it should work fine even if you aren't making full use of it. A future pack could be capable of charging at 5C, but wouldn't really matter if you never exceed 2C.

 

[Taycanfrank]

Considering a battery replacement for every EV on the market is billed at over 30% of the entire vehicle MSRP.. NO.

It makes more sense to buy a new car.

 

[jakef801]

Meanwhile, companies like Nio and Xpeng are proceeding with the battery swap format. NIO claims it will have 4,000 swap stations by 2025 (1,000 outside of China). This will allow for customers to have an alternative to fast charging on long trips. The claimed time for a swap is about 5 mins with options for different sized batteries. They announced availability of a 150kwh battery 4Q22. Will this concept ever catch on in the USA? Who knows?

https://insideevs.com/news/581626/china-nio-900-battery-swap-stations/

All of the NIO models can use the battery swap stations as an alternative to fast charging on long-distance travel or to upgrade their existing battery to a newer or higher capacity unit. The batteries are offered as a separate rental item (with a monthly fee) to lower the initial purchase price, or as part of the car.

 

[CharonPDX]

Huh. That’s cool that they do now. Still don’t think you’ll be able to upgrade the battery. Maybe a direct replacement but no upgrading unless it’s aftermarket.

They've done this for decades. The term is "crate motor" - as in, you buy a motor that arrives to you in a crate.

GM and Ford have even both started offering *electric* crate motors. Ford's is the Mach-E's motor. It doesn't come with battery, control electronics, etc. Just the motor, so unless you're repairing a Mach-E, it will take a lot more than just the motor.

BMW is the only automaker I know of that has ever offered an EV battery upgrade -and they only offered it in Europe, not in North America. The i3 originally came with a 22 kWh battery pack. It got upgraded to 33 kWh a few years later, then up to 42 kWh. They officially offered a first-party upgrade from 22 kWh to 33 kWh while the 33 was the current pack size. I can't find any reference that they ever offered the 42 kWh pack; or even that the program was available at all any more after the 42 kWh pack came out. And again, it was never offered in North America.

Nissan would replace the battery pack in a Leaf for money if your pack was degraded after the warranty expired, but even though a higher-capacity pack that fit in the same footprint was available, they wouldn't let you upgrade. (Third parties offer it though.)

I'm not counting Tesla's "unlock the full pack capacity for vehicles that were sold as a smaller pack size, but were really the larger pack with a software lock." That wasn't a battery swap. Even if you got a larger battery as part of a warranty replacement, it wasn't an official upgrade (officially if they did that, they were supposed to software-lock the battery at your original size, although there are multiple reports of them forgetting to do so - this wasn't an official "battery upgrade", this was "we don't have any of the smaller battery available, so you get a bonus.")

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