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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) There was an Israeli battery/car tech startup that wa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) There was an Israeli battery/car tech startup that was built on that model, but it sadly went kaput. I still firmly believe that the hot-swap model is the winner long term.

jessriedel 8y ago
Yea, worth noting that the small-tank propane market also works like this. When you go to a supermakert or gas station, you just swap an empty tank for a full one. Refill is done after hours at scale.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  It works almost the same for bottled oxy/fuel/shielding gas used for cutting and welding operations across the country.
- swish_bob 8y ago
  Notably, 10 years ago I could swap a butane or propane tank from one vendor with one of another vendor at any place that sold butane/propane. The last time I tried to do that (6 months ago) they rejected it. I had to go to the original supplier, as they were no longer refilling each others branded containers. In spite of standard fittings/sizes/etc. They've become significantly less fungible, and I can no longer just go to the nearest or cheapest supplier based on my needs. Even worse, I've just realised that I now effectively have two un-refillable tanks, as Homebase just shut down all my local branches. Which I paid deposits on when I bought them, obviously. Nice ...
  - triviatise 8y ago
    uhaul will generally fill propane tanks. When you swap tanks you get substantially less than what uhaul will fill to.
  - secabeen 8y ago
    Yep. They also over-charge for propane, sell the tanks not fully-filled, and don't compensate you for propane left in the tanks when you return them. All to increase convenience slightly (I can get the swap tanks at the supermarket or Home Depot, but I have to go to a specific gas station to fill the tanks I own). I strongly prefer the non-swap solution.
Klathmon 8y ago
I used to think the same, but I'm starting to disagree. Batteries aren't as "fungible" as something like gas or electricity is. (is that the right word to use for this?) You can be reasonably sure that gas is gas, and electricity is electricity, but not all batteries are going to be the same. Some will be higher capacity, some will have greater life, some will be heavier or lighter, some cars or trucks will need bigger or smaller batteries, etc... Some could even be damaged and unsafe, which is something you don't really get with gas (sure bad gas could ruin your car, but gas from a pump isn't going to catch fire randomly and hurt you because it's bad) At the end of the day, it's just too much variation for me to trust a random battery pulled from a depot of them. The thought experiment that put me over the edge was imagine instead of batteries, we were talking about tires. What if it was deemed better to swap out your tire when you had to put air in it. So you brought it to your shop and they pulled the wheel and tire off, then put one that they had in-store on full of air, and they refilled the one you gave them and handed it to someone else. Would you trust that? How would it change how we handle tires on cars? Would the public go for it? I really don't think they would, I know I wouldn't, and it's the same kind of feeling with car batteries.
- throwaway5752 8y ago
  You assume gasoline is fungible, right?
  - Klathmon 8y ago
    to an extent that it matters, yeah. Sure, I put 87 octane in our SUV and 89 in the audi, but yeah for the most part gas is gas, unless something is wrong. Getting 2 random batteries to have less than 10% variance among them is going to be a lot harder (especially when battery health changes a lot depending on how they are treated. Users running them to near empty in cold weather is going to shorten the life a lot faster than the guy who only runs it to 50% before swapping out every time), and I have a feeling that the amount of "problem" batteries will be much higher than the amount of times i've ever had "problem gas" (which is basically 0 times so far).
    - 8y ago
Animats 8y ago
Oh, that guy. I met the Better Place CEO once. Good looking, great talker, knew many national leaders, totally unworkable business plan. Along the lines of "take over the world, with 10x growth per year." In a business where you actually have to build stations and cars, not just distribute software, and the margins are low. I wouldn't go all the way to "con man", but it was close. More like someone who bought into their own hype. Automated battery swapping takes tight standardization. It's in use for some industrial robotic AGVs.[1][2][3] Mechanically, it works, but all the vehicles have to be very similar. A taxi fleet, maybe. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvqbw0UT5pM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvqbw0UT5pM [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKg8Zxmmpv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKg8Zxmmpv4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJwtwdeAXhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJwtwdeAXhM

jessriedel 8y ago

Yea, worth noting that the small-tank propane market also works like this. When you go to a supermakert or gas station, you just swap an empty tank for a full one. Refill is done after hours at scale.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
It works almost the same for bottled oxy/fuel/shielding gas used for cutting and welding operations across the country.
swish_bob 8y ago
Notably, 10 years ago I could swap a butane or propane tank from one vendor with one of another vendor at any place that sold butane/propane. The last time I tried to do that (6 months ago) they rejected it. I had to go to the original supplier, as they were no longer refilling each others branded containers. In spite of standard fittings/sizes/etc. They've become significantly less fungible, and I can no longer just go to the nearest or cheapest supplier based on my needs. Even worse, I've just realised that I now effectively have two un-refillable tanks, as Homebase just shut down all my local branches. Which I paid deposits on when I bought them, obviously. Nice ...
- triviatise 8y ago
  uhaul will generally fill propane tanks. When you swap tanks you get substantially less than what uhaul will fill to.
- secabeen 8y ago
  Yep. They also over-charge for propane, sell the tanks not fully-filled, and don't compensate you for propane left in the tanks when you return them. All to increase convenience slightly (I can get the swap tanks at the supermarket or Home Depot, but I have to go to a specific gas station to fill the tanks I own). I strongly prefer the non-swap solution.

Klathmon 8y ago

I used to think the same, but I'm starting to disagree. Batteries aren't as "fungible" as something like gas or electricity is. (is that the right word to use for this?) You can be reasonably sure that gas is gas, and electricity is electricity, but not all batteries are going to be the same. Some will be higher capacity, some will have greater life, some will be heavier or lighter, some cars or trucks will need bigger or smaller batteries, etc... Some could even be damaged and unsafe, which is something you don't really get with gas (sure bad gas could ruin your car, but gas from a pump isn't going to catch fire randomly and hurt you because it's bad) At the end of the day, it's just too much variation for me to trust a random battery pulled from a depot of them. The thought experiment that put me over the edge was imagine instead of batteries, we were talking about tires. What if it was deemed better to swap out your tire when you had to put air in it. So you brought it to your shop and they pulled the wheel and tire off, then put one that they had in-store on full of air, and they refilled the one you gave them and handed it to someone else. Would you trust that? How would it change how we handle tires on cars? Would the public go for it? I really don't think they would, I know I wouldn't, and it's the same kind of feeling with car batteries.

throwaway5752 8y ago
You assume gasoline is fungible, right?
- Klathmon 8y ago
  to an extent that it matters, yeah. Sure, I put 87 octane in our SUV and 89 in the audi, but yeah for the most part gas is gas, unless something is wrong. Getting 2 random batteries to have less than 10% variance among them is going to be a lot harder (especially when battery health changes a lot depending on how they are treated. Users running them to near empty in cold weather is going to shorten the life a lot faster than the guy who only runs it to 50% before swapping out every time), and I have a feeling that the amount of "problem" batteries will be much higher than the amount of times i've ever had "problem gas" (which is basically 0 times so far).
  - 8y ago

Animats 8y ago

Oh, that guy. I met the Better Place CEO once. Good looking, great talker, knew many national leaders, totally unworkable business plan. Along the lines of "take over the world, with 10x growth per year." In a business where you actually have to build stations and cars, not just distribute software, and the margins are low. I wouldn't go all the way to "con man", but it was close. More like someone who bought into their own hype. Automated battery swapping takes tight standardization. It's in use for some industrial robotic AGVs.[1][2][3] Mechanically, it works, but all the vehicles have to be very similar. A taxi fleet, maybe. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvqbw0UT5pM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvqbw0UT5pM [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKg8Zxmmpv4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKg8Zxmmpv4 [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJwtwdeAXhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJwtwdeAXhM