4 ms·

> No range limitations exist once the infrastructure for refueling is in place Holds true for any type of energy source.

ars 11y ago
Mostly true, but only if refueling doesn't take more than 5 minutes or so. So not necessarily true for battery energy storage.
- duhast 11y ago
  Tesla demonstrated battery swap in less than 2 minutes. So it is at least technically possible.
  - ars 11y ago
    Technically, but not practically. You'd have to have some government involvement here so that all batteries are owned by the same entity, so you can swap batteries from different manufacturers, at any energy station. You also have to standardize on only a few battery types, which makes it harder to design the car, since you can't custom fix the battery to available space. And that means future battery advances are impractical - who wants to use a battery that can't be part of the swap network? It's not realistic. A hybrid power system is more practical - use hydrocarbon fuel for >50 mile trips, and a battery you plugin at home for shorter trips.
    - keenerd 11y ago
      Practically it could work out very well. The Big Three might voluntarily standardize on a battery formfactor and swapping bay, because it would put them ahead of Tesla. "Our patent is free, follow our lead Mr Musk." There could still be plenty of flexibility in shape, but it would likely be constrained. Like, the width/depth must be a fixed number of centimeters, and there must be a common connector and common mounting points. But the length is up to the manufacturer, programmed into an RFID tag for the swapping bay. (And you'd be able to use shorter batteries inside a larger vehicle.) Battery advances are the most trivial of all to incorporate. Already li-ion packs require dedicated charging circuitry. The exact cells used don't matter, a tenth-of-a-cent EEPROM is programmed with the charging curves of the cell chemistry. If anything battery tech will advance much faster with swapping. Without swapping you have to be very conservative. Advances can only be introduced with new models (so once a year) and are very costly to get wrong across a fleet. With swapping you could put a couple of prototypes into the pool every month, and swap them out immediately if the prototype underperforms.
  - Shivetya 11y ago
    but they did nothing with it. there is a lot of talk it was only done to qualify for a specific tax break and after that one station where have they built more? is that one station even open to the public? to be honest I think the idea of swapping the battery is more of admission of the shortfalls of battery technology than anything. Now I think having a battery that swaps is more interesting from the serviceability aspect
- nkoren 11y ago
  ...until battery-swap technology was invented.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    That's not really a mass-market option, you'd need to stock large amounts of batteries for a fuckton of different models (each car or at least segment or manufacturer having their own battery geometry), or all cars would need to use modular batteries which loses structural advantages and reduces storage capacity. Battery-swap is more of a stunt than anything useful. All vehicles can load up at a pump, you can't swap the same batteries in a tuktuk, a large sedan and a bus.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    You meant 'until it was made practical'. It was invented more than a 100 years ago.
- mikeash 11y ago
  The current state of the art requires charging for 20-30 minutes for every 2-3 hours of driving. Not ideal, but pretty good. Already good enough to make for the best road trip experience out there as a whole. And that's today, not some hypothetical future. How good will it be by the time hydrogen fueling stations are more than a novelty?

ars 11y ago

Mostly true, but only if refueling doesn't take more than 5 minutes or so. So not necessarily true for battery energy storage.

duhast 11y ago
Tesla demonstrated battery swap in less than 2 minutes. So it is at least technically possible.
- ars 11y ago
  Technically, but not practically. You'd have to have some government involvement here so that all batteries are owned by the same entity, so you can swap batteries from different manufacturers, at any energy station. You also have to standardize on only a few battery types, which makes it harder to design the car, since you can't custom fix the battery to available space. And that means future battery advances are impractical - who wants to use a battery that can't be part of the swap network? It's not realistic. A hybrid power system is more practical - use hydrocarbon fuel for >50 mile trips, and a battery you plugin at home for shorter trips.
  - keenerd 11y ago
    Practically it could work out very well. The Big Three might voluntarily standardize on a battery formfactor and swapping bay, because it would put them ahead of Tesla. "Our patent is free, follow our lead Mr Musk." There could still be plenty of flexibility in shape, but it would likely be constrained. Like, the width/depth must be a fixed number of centimeters, and there must be a common connector and common mounting points. But the length is up to the manufacturer, programmed into an RFID tag for the swapping bay. (And you'd be able to use shorter batteries inside a larger vehicle.) Battery advances are the most trivial of all to incorporate. Already li-ion packs require dedicated charging circuitry. The exact cells used don't matter, a tenth-of-a-cent EEPROM is programmed with the charging curves of the cell chemistry. If anything battery tech will advance much faster with swapping. Without swapping you have to be very conservative. Advances can only be introduced with new models (so once a year) and are very costly to get wrong across a fleet. With swapping you could put a couple of prototypes into the pool every month, and swap them out immediately if the prototype underperforms.
- Shivetya 11y ago
  but they did nothing with it. there is a lot of talk it was only done to qualify for a specific tax break and after that one station where have they built more? is that one station even open to the public? to be honest I think the idea of swapping the battery is more of admission of the shortfalls of battery technology than anything. Now I think having a battery that swaps is more interesting from the serviceability aspect
nkoren 11y ago
...until battery-swap technology was invented.
- masklinn 11y ago
  That's not really a mass-market option, you'd need to stock large amounts of batteries for a fuckton of different models (each car or at least segment or manufacturer having their own battery geometry), or all cars would need to use modular batteries which loses structural advantages and reduces storage capacity. Battery-swap is more of a stunt than anything useful. All vehicles can load up at a pump, you can't swap the same batteries in a tuktuk, a large sedan and a bus.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  You meant 'until it was made practical'. It was invented more than a 100 years ago.
mikeash 11y ago
The current state of the art requires charging for 20-30 minutes for every 2-3 hours of driving. Not ideal, but pretty good. Already good enough to make for the best road trip experience out there as a whole. And that's today, not some hypothetical future. How good will it be by the time hydrogen fueling stations are more than a novelty?