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The lost route IMO was modular batteries. Say your Model S has a bank replacable modules instead of a single monolith. These can be pulled and swapped with pr
by hakfoo 8y ago
The lost route IMO was modular batteries. Say your Model S has a bank replacable modules instead of a single monolith. These can be pulled and swapped with pre-charged cells in minutes. This also allows older packs to be pulled from circulation, removing the fear of aging batteries causing depreciation on the vehicle.
- shawnz 8y agoWhy would you ever not want to swap the whole battery? They've demonstrated that a whole battery swap can be done in minutes. And the whole battery discharges/ages at the same rate, so there'd be no point in only swapping some of the modules.
- waterhouse 8y agoI figure that if you have different-size cars with different battery capacities (and shapes of their battery cavities), then "Car X needs 10 battery modules, car Y needs 13" is simpler (in one sense) to manage than "I have car X, do you have any of the batteries made to fit in it? No, you only have Car-Y-shaped batteries? Whoops."
- dave7 8y agoIt's also quite unsafe to run lithium ion batteries in series with different levels of wear / charge state, the old ones can easily be pushed too hard and fail (spectacularly).
- hakfoo 8y agoThe angle I was considering was size and weight. If you can keep the modules light enough to carry by hand, it means a lot less equipment for each swap facility.