3 ms·

Tesla demonstrated battery swap in less than 2 minutes. So it is at least technically possible.

by duhast 11y ago

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

Tesla demonstrated battery swap in less than 2 minutes. So it is at least technically possible.

by 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