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i always wondered why the battery cannot simply be swapped for a charged one. like going through a carwash. would be even faster than filling a tank of gas. on

i always wondered why the battery cannot simply be swapped for a charged one. like going through a carwash. would be even faster than filling a tank of gas. once there's enough EV, it seems justified to democratize the consumable batteries.

Armisael16 7y ago
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/12/elon-musk-reality-check-tesla-battery-swap-station-video/ http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/12/elon-musk-reality-check-t...
kcolford 7y ago
This was actually proposed as a solution with a full demonstration video. I don't know of it was Elon himself who did it or someone else though.
harikb 7y ago
In theory yes, but only if battery is being leased from a nationwide entity. However, practically it takes more than 10 minutes to securely remove and attach the heaviest thing in a car no matter how easy we make it. Super charging will already make it < 10 minutes
reportingsjr 7y ago
This has been tried, in fact the original Tesla Model s had a swappable batteries[1], but it has never worked for a variety of reasons. [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg
- HALtheWise 7y ago
  From what I gather, it worked fine technically, but very few customers actually decided to use it. Lots of Tesla owners tried it once, but most realized that it wasn't worth paying the cost associated with additional complexity (it wasn't free) especially since it's actually really nice to have a 20 minute break after driving for five hours.
sewercake 7y ago
Better Place was an early attempt at this strategy that ended in disaster, though I don't think you can attribute it to the underlying strategy. Here's a post-mortem on the company https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Unless the batteries are standardized every manufacturer needs their own distribution network for their batteries. I don’t think that’s viable. Making the battery swappable would probably also require some serious design compromises.
redis_mlc 7y ago
What's interesting is that aircraft piston engines are remanufactured that way (using swapping.) After flying 2,000 hours, you drop your engine on a palette, ship it back, the mfg. sends somebody else's overhauled engine back to you, and you install that one. But instead of 10 minutes, it takes over a month. Oh, and that $10k to $100k bill per engine ...
hamstercat 7y ago
You can, batteries are just super expensive right now. So a trade-in program (like it exists for BBQ gas tank, or the SodaStream pressured gas) doesn't make a lot of economic sense for the partner taking on the risk of getting a bad battery in. Maybe it could become a possibility in the future as the price drops though!
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
There's an Indian (IIRC) company that does this with scooters, eg https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Electric-scooters-blazing-a-trail-for-Taiwan-s-economic-future https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Electric-scooters-blazing-a....
adrianmonk 7y ago
The technology exists, but in practice I think people just don't want it. It is psychologically unappealing. When people are going about their business, trying to get from point A to B but interrupted by insufficient fuel, they don't want anything that feels like major surgery being done to their car. There's a possibility for something to go wrong, and no matter how statistically unlikely, they're still going to think about it. People want this to be a casual interaction that stays in the background of their mind so they can focus on whatever they were already thinking about. Also many people prefer to hold onto the thing they already own even if it is a convenient moment to think about changing. For example, if you have a cheap beater car that's worth $1000 and it needs an $1100 repair, you could buy a used $1000 beater car instead of fixing the one you have, but many people will pay to have theirs fixed. This is partly to avoid the hassle of buying but also partly because their beater is a known quantity to them. Back to the electric car battery swap, maybe your battery pack is a few years old and only retains 90% range, which isn't great, but how do you know the one you swap to won't have 80%? Maybe it will have 97%, but you just don't really know. As a thought experiment, imagine a gas station near you offered two options for inflating your tires. You can pay $2 to use a self-serve air compressor, which will probably take you 5 or 10 minutes. Or, for free and in only 1 minute, a pit crew will come out and swap out your tires and rims for a different set, that they promise are the same make and model and are in equal or better condition. Do you take the pit crew option? I wouldn't.

Armisael16 7y ago

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/12/elon-musk-reality-check-tesla-battery-swap-station-video/ http://www.autoblog.com/2015/06/12/elon-musk-reality-check-t...

kcolford 7y ago

This was actually proposed as a solution with a full demonstration video. I don't know of it was Elon himself who did it or someone else though.

harikb 7y ago

In theory yes, but only if battery is being leased from a nationwide entity. However, practically it takes more than 10 minutes to securely remove and attach the heaviest thing in a car no matter how easy we make it. Super charging will already make it < 10 minutes

reportingsjr 7y ago

This has been tried, in fact the original Tesla Model s had a swappable batteries[1], but it has never worked for a variety of reasons. [1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg

HALtheWise 7y ago
From what I gather, it worked fine technically, but very few customers actually decided to use it. Lots of Tesla owners tried it once, but most realized that it wasn't worth paying the cost associated with additional complexity (it wasn't free) especially since it's actually really nice to have a 20 minute break after driving for five hours.

sewercake 7y ago

Better Place was an early attempt at this strategy that ended in disaster, though I don't think you can attribute it to the underlying strategy. Here's a post-mortem on the company https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-place https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...

Ididntdothis 7y ago

Unless the batteries are standardized every manufacturer needs their own distribution network for their batteries. I don’t think that’s viable. Making the battery swappable would probably also require some serious design compromises.

redis_mlc 7y ago

What's interesting is that aircraft piston engines are remanufactured that way (using swapping.) After flying 2,000 hours, you drop your engine on a palette, ship it back, the mfg. sends somebody else's overhauled engine back to you, and you install that one. But instead of 10 minutes, it takes over a month. Oh, and that $10k to $100k bill per engine ...

hamstercat 7y ago

You can, batteries are just super expensive right now. So a trade-in program (like it exists for BBQ gas tank, or the SodaStream pressured gas) doesn't make a lot of economic sense for the partner taking on the risk of getting a bad battery in. Maybe it could become a possibility in the future as the price drops though!

pbhjpbhj 7y ago

There's an Indian (IIRC) company that does this with scooters, eg https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Electric-scooters-blazing-a-trail-for-Taiwan-s-economic-future https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Electric-scooters-blazing-a....

adrianmonk 7y ago

The technology exists, but in practice I think people just don't want it. It is psychologically unappealing. When people are going about their business, trying to get from point A to B but interrupted by insufficient fuel, they don't want anything that feels like major surgery being done to their car. There's a possibility for something to go wrong, and no matter how statistically unlikely, they're still going to think about it. People want this to be a casual interaction that stays in the background of their mind so they can focus on whatever they were already thinking about. Also many people prefer to hold onto the thing they already own even if it is a convenient moment to think about changing. For example, if you have a cheap beater car that's worth $1000 and it needs an $1100 repair, you could buy a used $1000 beater car instead of fixing the one you have, but many people will pay to have theirs fixed. This is partly to avoid the hassle of buying but also partly because their beater is a known quantity to them. Back to the electric car battery swap, maybe your battery pack is a few years old and only retains 90% range, which isn't great, but how do you know the one you swap to won't have 80%? Maybe it will have 97%, but you just don't really know. As a thought experiment, imagine a gas station near you offered two options for inflating your tires. You can pay $2 to use a self-serve air compressor, which will probably take you 5 or 10 minutes. Or, for free and in only 1 minute, a pit crew will come out and swap out your tires and rims for a different set, that they promise are the same make and model and are in equal or better condition. Do you take the pit crew option? I wouldn't.