5 ms·

The problem here is the form factor of the cell as much as the chemistry. Pouch style cells are very difficult to regulate temperature in. This is a key reason

The problem here is the form factor of the cell as much as the chemistry. Pouch style cells are very difficult to regulate temperature in. This is a key reason why other automakers like Tesla use the small cylinder cells. Chinese companies like BYD have always used lithium iron phosphate. It has less energy density than lithium nickel batteries like NCA and NMC, but is cheaper. The patent was never taken out in China and the key patent expires for the rest of the world in April 2022. As much as 3/4 of vehicle batteries might end up being LFP. Improvements in the chemistry and less need for cooling systems and packaging mean its disadvantages aren't so glaring. Plus there aren't enough nickel mines to supply the coming avalanche of demand. Lithium, iron, and phosphate are plentiful.

beamatronic 5y ago
If batteries are easily swappable with minimal tools, then a lot of range concerns go away as well. I think battery ownership and care needs to be decoupled from the vehicle. I also think the federal government should enforce interoperable batteries between vehicle brands.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  They are too heavy to swap them by hand
  - beamatronic 5y ago
    Tesla actually had a battery swapping machine at one point, I think it was at the Kettleman City location. There's no reason the battery and charging infrastructure can't be leveraged for all passenger vehicles. The battery on your electric vehicle should be like the propane tank on your gas grill - just swap it out when you need to. (This doesn't preclude recharging it) Not to mention, when the battery reaches the end of its normal life cycle. Just goes straight into the recycling pipeline.
    - clouddrover 5y ago
      Nio's cars support battery swaps: https://electrek.co/2021/07/09/nio-plan-open-battery-swap-stations-to-other-electric-automakers/ https://electrek.co/2021/07/09/nio-plan-open-battery-swap-st... You can rent the batteries and upgrade and downgrade the capacity as you like. It also makes it easy to replace the battery in the future if you buy it outright. They offer 70 and 100 kWh packs now. They're aiming for 150 kWh packs next year: https://insideevs.com/news/465188/nio-150-kwh-solid-state-batteries-2022/ https://insideevs.com/news/465188/nio-150-kwh-solid-state-ba...
    - thesausageking 5y ago
      Tesla's swapping machine was just for tax credits. It was never built to be something they'd sell to customers. They built that one demo location and then abandoned battery swapping completely as not viable.
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        If they legitimately cared instead of faking it they could probably do better. Especially if the target is a maintenance-style machine setup rather than a 30 second gas station rival setup.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
    The comment you replied to said minimal tools. In practice this would probably mean something like: a vehicle hoist, a suitable lifter, a couple of sockets and a racket handle, and a screwdriver or two.
- avernon 5y ago
  The people I know with electric cars charge at home the vast majority of the time. Swapping adds a lot of complexity and cost in the pack design. NIO is doing swaps as another commenter pointed out, but more customers in China live in apartments. In the end, I think charging stations will be ubiquitous, even for apartment dwellers, and swaps will be rare.
- ReGenGen 5y ago
  The battery is the most expensive part... which susceptible to wear, abuse and fraud. (and fire). Making them easily swappable with minimal tools means they'll be easily stolen.
- gpm 5y ago
  The cars shape and structural components are designed around the battery. The cars software, motors, charging electronics, software, cooling systems, etc are all designed for the specific battery. The battery eats up a significant fraction of the cost of the car, and the systems designed around it a significant fraction of the remainder. Asking for interoperable batteries between vehicle brands is like asking for interoperable engines between vehicle brands, it's ridiculous. The government should not be saying "hey, that $xx,xxxx item with a million constrains and optimizable variables, why don't you make it meet this arbitrary standard so people could theoretically put it in another chassis that wasn't designed to let you optimize it as well as possible".
  - SamBam 5y ago
    Certainly no one should expect to be able to swap the main batteries that are embedded into the chassis of the car. The total weight of the batteries in a Tesla are around 1200 lbs. But it seems like there could be a hot-swappable portion of the battery, kind of like a separate "reserve tank" (although it wouldn't actually be reserved). Some back of the envelope math says that if 1200 lb battery gets you 250 miles, a 200 lb hot-swap battery would get you 40 miles. Possibly enough to get to your next destination.
    - usefulcat 5y ago
      > a 200 lb hot-swap battery would get you 40 miles. According to one report, for a Tesla Model 3, a supercharger can add ~100 miles of range in ~10 minutes. It's hard to see how any improvement over that could possibly justify the immense additional complexity of physical battery swapping for only 40 additional miles of range. https://insideevs.com/news/506520/tesla-model-3-supercharger-test/ https://insideevs.com/news/506520/tesla-model-3-supercharger...
      - TeMPOraL 5y ago
        Does the Supercharger network come with a fleet of drones that can autonomously repair a charger in the middle of nowhere, that broke down one late evening of a particularly snowy winter Sunday? That said, it's probably a UX problem. Once EVs stop competing on range so much, it'll make sense to just designate the last 10% of battery as "reserve" and not count it in the battery level indicator.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  Easily, yes, minimal tools, no. But a 93 second full battery replacement for the Model S: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://yewtu.be/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
- awesomeusername 5y ago
  The negative replies to this are largely valid, but ignore the fact that we can have multiple strategies at the same time. I for one would love to be able to take my battery out, swap it, have a few so some are always on solar charge. Be able to take one onto the boat. Use a new one for higher performance special occasion driving, and an old one for bumper to bumper slow commute which I can wrong every last mile out of. Have a few which default to home backup and can support the grid. The highly optimised around the battery argument is very good. But it doesn't mean that we can't also have a company focusing on interchangeable batteries with a third party market. Let the buyer decide. Neither solution will get 100% of the market, or zero. Why write one off right now with confidence when both could have a healthy market for the hugely diverse users (ie not just SV nerds) The fed enforcing interop wouldn't be black and white. Just like Mercedes are allowed to sell super low MPG AMG Sports cars because they also sell lots of small city cars. The fed could encourage things in this direction without being black and white and mandating 100% of batteries be replaceable. I think the downvotes of the parent comment here aren't what downvotes should be for. He or she brings up a very interesting point
  - nickik 5y ago
    Literally nobody is arguing against some companies being allowed to do that. And Nio does in China.
xmcqdpt2 5y ago
FYI nickel is plentiful and unlikely to ever be in shortage. It's just so cheap right now that most nickel deposits are "non-economic", and thus not counted as part of proven reserves. The same thing is true with uranium for example. see here for the difference between resources and reserves, http://minesqc.com/en/informations-sheets/what-are-mineral-resources-and-mineral-reserves-what-is-the-difference-between-them/ http://minesqc.com/en/informations-sheets/what-are-mineral-r... We are currently extracting 2.5 MT of nickel a year, from reserves of 94 MT. Resources are estimated at 300 MT, which is definitely a lower end, as prospecting tends to concentrate profitable ores. If the price of nickel went up, we'd see more resources becoming reserves and more discovery of new resources.

beamatronic 5y ago

If batteries are easily swappable with minimal tools, then a lot of range concerns go away as well. I think battery ownership and care needs to be decoupled from the vehicle. I also think the federal government should enforce interoperable batteries between vehicle brands.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
They are too heavy to swap them by hand
- beamatronic 5y ago
  Tesla actually had a battery swapping machine at one point, I think it was at the Kettleman City location. There's no reason the battery and charging infrastructure can't be leveraged for all passenger vehicles. The battery on your electric vehicle should be like the propane tank on your gas grill - just swap it out when you need to. (This doesn't preclude recharging it) Not to mention, when the battery reaches the end of its normal life cycle. Just goes straight into the recycling pipeline.
  - clouddrover 5y ago
    Nio's cars support battery swaps: https://electrek.co/2021/07/09/nio-plan-open-battery-swap-stations-to-other-electric-automakers/ https://electrek.co/2021/07/09/nio-plan-open-battery-swap-st... You can rent the batteries and upgrade and downgrade the capacity as you like. It also makes it easy to replace the battery in the future if you buy it outright. They offer 70 and 100 kWh packs now. They're aiming for 150 kWh packs next year: https://insideevs.com/news/465188/nio-150-kwh-solid-state-batteries-2022/ https://insideevs.com/news/465188/nio-150-kwh-solid-state-ba...
  - thesausageking 5y ago
    Tesla's swapping machine was just for tax credits. It was never built to be something they'd sell to customers. They built that one demo location and then abandoned battery swapping completely as not viable.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      If they legitimately cared instead of faking it they could probably do better. Especially if the target is a maintenance-style machine setup rather than a 30 second gas station rival setup.
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
  The comment you replied to said minimal tools. In practice this would probably mean something like: a vehicle hoist, a suitable lifter, a couple of sockets and a racket handle, and a screwdriver or two.
avernon 5y ago
The people I know with electric cars charge at home the vast majority of the time. Swapping adds a lot of complexity and cost in the pack design. NIO is doing swaps as another commenter pointed out, but more customers in China live in apartments. In the end, I think charging stations will be ubiquitous, even for apartment dwellers, and swaps will be rare.
ReGenGen 5y ago
The battery is the most expensive part... which susceptible to wear, abuse and fraud. (and fire). Making them easily swappable with minimal tools means they'll be easily stolen.
gpm 5y ago
The cars shape and structural components are designed around the battery. The cars software, motors, charging electronics, software, cooling systems, etc are all designed for the specific battery. The battery eats up a significant fraction of the cost of the car, and the systems designed around it a significant fraction of the remainder. Asking for interoperable batteries between vehicle brands is like asking for interoperable engines between vehicle brands, it's ridiculous. The government should not be saying "hey, that $xx,xxxx item with a million constrains and optimizable variables, why don't you make it meet this arbitrary standard so people could theoretically put it in another chassis that wasn't designed to let you optimize it as well as possible".
- SamBam 5y ago
  Certainly no one should expect to be able to swap the main batteries that are embedded into the chassis of the car. The total weight of the batteries in a Tesla are around 1200 lbs. But it seems like there could be a hot-swappable portion of the battery, kind of like a separate "reserve tank" (although it wouldn't actually be reserved). Some back of the envelope math says that if 1200 lb battery gets you 250 miles, a 200 lb hot-swap battery would get you 40 miles. Possibly enough to get to your next destination.
  - usefulcat 5y ago
    > a 200 lb hot-swap battery would get you 40 miles. According to one report, for a Tesla Model 3, a supercharger can add ~100 miles of range in ~10 minutes. It's hard to see how any improvement over that could possibly justify the immense additional complexity of physical battery swapping for only 40 additional miles of range. https://insideevs.com/news/506520/tesla-model-3-supercharger-test/ https://insideevs.com/news/506520/tesla-model-3-supercharger...
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Does the Supercharger network come with a fleet of drones that can autonomously repair a charger in the middle of nowhere, that broke down one late evening of a particularly snowy winter Sunday? That said, it's probably a UX problem. Once EVs stop competing on range so much, it'll make sense to just designate the last 10% of battery as "reserve" and not count it in the battery level indicator.
dredmorbius 5y ago
Easily, yes, minimal tools, no. But a 93 second full battery replacement for the Model S: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY https://yewtu.be/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
awesomeusername 5y ago
The negative replies to this are largely valid, but ignore the fact that we can have multiple strategies at the same time. I for one would love to be able to take my battery out, swap it, have a few so some are always on solar charge. Be able to take one onto the boat. Use a new one for higher performance special occasion driving, and an old one for bumper to bumper slow commute which I can wrong every last mile out of. Have a few which default to home backup and can support the grid. The highly optimised around the battery argument is very good. But it doesn't mean that we can't also have a company focusing on interchangeable batteries with a third party market. Let the buyer decide. Neither solution will get 100% of the market, or zero. Why write one off right now with confidence when both could have a healthy market for the hugely diverse users (ie not just SV nerds) The fed enforcing interop wouldn't be black and white. Just like Mercedes are allowed to sell super low MPG AMG Sports cars because they also sell lots of small city cars. The fed could encourage things in this direction without being black and white and mandating 100% of batteries be replaceable. I think the downvotes of the parent comment here aren't what downvotes should be for. He or she brings up a very interesting point
- nickik 5y ago
  Literally nobody is arguing against some companies being allowed to do that. And Nio does in China.

xmcqdpt2 5y ago

FYI nickel is plentiful and unlikely to ever be in shortage. It's just so cheap right now that most nickel deposits are "non-economic", and thus not counted as part of proven reserves. The same thing is true with uranium for example. see here for the difference between resources and reserves, http://minesqc.com/en/informations-sheets/what-are-mineral-resources-and-mineral-reserves-what-is-the-difference-between-them/ http://minesqc.com/en/informations-sheets/what-are-mineral-r... We are currently extracting 2.5 MT of nickel a year, from reserves of 94 MT. Resources are estimated at 300 MT, which is definitely a lower end, as prospecting tends to concentrate profitable ores. If the price of nickel went up, we'd see more resources becoming reserves and more discovery of new resources.