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This is what I never understood : why don't they create cars where the battery is removable and when you go to a "gas" station there's a machine that just chang

This is what I never understood : why don't they create cars where the battery is removable and when you go to a "gas" station there's a machine that just change your empty battery for a full one. In fact I thought about patenting the idea 10 years ago but I didn't have the know-how.

empyrical 9y ago
Tesla was going to have something like that, but they ended up dropping the idea for a while. Looks like they might be considering it again, though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-program-for-superchargers/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-prog... https://electrek.co/2017/09/15/tesla-new-battery-swap-technology-to-deploy-trailer/ https://electrek.co/2017/09/15/tesla-new-battery-swap-techno...
afterburner 9y ago
They did this in Israel. Maybe still are.
- azernik 9y ago
  Better Place sadly went under in 2013; not enough market penetration, lack of focus on a few target markets, and difficulty getting enough capital together for the infrastructure.
chrisper 9y ago
Kind of like how you can swap the gas canister of a BBQ grill!
eloisant 9y ago
Because batteries get old and need to be replaced, so you'd have to pay for the aging of your battery when you get the new one
- ekianjo 9y ago
  you pay for the service and that cost should be factored in.
- kalleboo 9y ago
  You could solve that by subscribing to your battery rather than outright owning it.
fergie 9y ago
The battery-swap idea has in fact been fairly well established for a while, but nobody has actually made it work. I believe that Tesla considered going down this route for a while. Here is a HN classic about "Better Place", a company that rolled out "battery swap" electric cars in Israel. https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...
dagw 9y ago
People have been talking about this for as long as they've been talking about electric cars, and several companies have demoed prototypes. The two main problems are that the machines needed to do this change are very expensive and tricky to maintain compared to a simple gas pump, and more importantly, unless you can get all car manufacturers to agree to a universal standard for batteries and battery access you're going to need a half dozen different machines and batteries at each gas station, driving up the costs even further.
- michaelt 9y ago
  unless you can get all car manufacturers to agree to a universal standard for batteries And unless batteries get so good that the battery in that £19,000 Renault Zoe has identical performance to the battery in that £90,000 Tesla Model X, they never will :)
  - dagw 9y ago
    Or for that matter people accepting having their brand new Tesla X battery replaced with a 5 year old Tesla X battery. I suppose one solution would be that cars have two batteries. One battery that is specific to the make/model of the car and one battery that is easily replaceable. So perhaps the cheap Renault basically only has the replaceable battery while the Tesla X has 70% of its battery capacity in it's super awesome main battery and only 30% in the 'crappy' replaceable battery which you only replace when you quickly need an extra 100 miles of range.
aquadrop 9y ago
I think it was too complex for a demand it has (most people can just charge car at home every night). They will probably revisit it when more electric cars are around (especially later with self-driving fleets, it's a no-brainer).
ThomPete 9y ago
Better place did that but it's actually far worse idea than it sounds. People have electricity in their homes and it's much easier to establish a grid of super chargers than building for changing batteries. It might happen over time when infrastructure is better established.
stephengillie 9y ago
The size of battery needed to propel a full-size car makes swapping mechanically prohibitive. It would be like swapping a 4U rackmount server loaded with HDDs.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  It's doable, I've seen prototypes where you just drive your car onto a platform and robots do the replacing.

empyrical 9y ago

Tesla was going to have something like that, but they ended up dropping the idea for a while. Looks like they might be considering it again, though https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-program-for-superchargers/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-shuts-down-battery-swap-prog... https://electrek.co/2017/09/15/tesla-new-battery-swap-technology-to-deploy-trailer/ https://electrek.co/2017/09/15/tesla-new-battery-swap-techno...

afterburner 9y ago

They did this in Israel. Maybe still are.

azernik 9y ago
Better Place sadly went under in 2013; not enough market penetration, lack of focus on a few target markets, and difficulty getting enough capital together for the infrastructure.

chrisper 9y ago

Kind of like how you can swap the gas canister of a BBQ grill!

eloisant 9y ago

Because batteries get old and need to be replaced, so you'd have to pay for the aging of your battery when you get the new one

ekianjo 9y ago
you pay for the service and that cost should be factored in.
kalleboo 9y ago
You could solve that by subscribing to your battery rather than outright owning it.

fergie 9y ago

The battery-swap idea has in fact been fairly well established for a while, but nobody has actually made it work. I believe that Tesla considered going down this route for a while. Here is a HN classic about "Better Place", a company that rolled out "battery swap" electric cars in Israel. https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...

dagw 9y ago

People have been talking about this for as long as they've been talking about electric cars, and several companies have demoed prototypes. The two main problems are that the machines needed to do this change are very expensive and tricky to maintain compared to a simple gas pump, and more importantly, unless you can get all car manufacturers to agree to a universal standard for batteries and battery access you're going to need a half dozen different machines and batteries at each gas station, driving up the costs even further.

michaelt 9y ago
unless you can get all car manufacturers to agree to a universal standard for batteries And unless batteries get so good that the battery in that £19,000 Renault Zoe has identical performance to the battery in that £90,000 Tesla Model X, they never will :)
- dagw 9y ago
  Or for that matter people accepting having their brand new Tesla X battery replaced with a 5 year old Tesla X battery. I suppose one solution would be that cars have two batteries. One battery that is specific to the make/model of the car and one battery that is easily replaceable. So perhaps the cheap Renault basically only has the replaceable battery while the Tesla X has 70% of its battery capacity in it's super awesome main battery and only 30% in the 'crappy' replaceable battery which you only replace when you quickly need an extra 100 miles of range.

aquadrop 9y ago

I think it was too complex for a demand it has (most people can just charge car at home every night). They will probably revisit it when more electric cars are around (especially later with self-driving fleets, it's a no-brainer).

ThomPete 9y ago

Better place did that but it's actually far worse idea than it sounds. People have electricity in their homes and it's much easier to establish a grid of super chargers than building for changing batteries. It might happen over time when infrastructure is better established.

stephengillie 9y ago

The size of battery needed to propel a full-size car makes swapping mechanically prohibitive. It would be like swapping a 4U rackmount server loaded with HDDs.

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
It's doable, I've seen prototypes where you just drive your car onto a platform and robots do the replacing.