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Question for the more EV knowledgeable people out there. Is there anybody pursuing the idea of charging stations where one swaps your EV’s battery for a fully

by gen220 5y ago

Question for the more EV knowledgeable people out there. Is there anybody pursuing the idea of charging stations where one swaps your EV’s battery for a fully charged one, and pays a fee proportional to how expensive it was to charge that battery at the local electricity rate? Specifically, what are the barriers? Legal? Technical? Patent-related? Capital? Or is it not worth investing in this vision, because there’s reason to believe we’ll reach ubiquitous availability of charge stations with <5 minute charge times for a 350 mile range (i.e. equivalent to a full tank fill-up at a gas station) in the not distant future? To understand the use case better, we own a car and only use it to “get away” (i.e. 200-600 miles over the course of a day into somewhat remote locales). We’d love to have an EV, but the idea of pausing to take a long charging break in the middle of an already long drive is very unappealing.

aaronblohowiak 5y ago
Driving 200 miles is doable today. 600, I definitely need to stop, stretch legs and eat. Sfbay to az and and I stopped more frequently than “required” just to get a break from the road. I’m middle aged though so ymmv
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  When I was in college, and much more willing to suffer, it was 335 miles from home to school, and took 5.5 hours driving. I could do that without stopping, though normally would stop at least once for snacks/bathroom. Now I’m more likely to stop two or three times on a trip that long. Even now on a mountain west traffic-free interstate I don’t really count on going more than 500 miles in a day. And that includes a meal break. Both of these use cases sound like they would be very minimally disrupted by planning my stops around a charging break. I think that range anxiety is largely overblown for a huge majority of use cases.
a9dhalaan 5y ago
The battery is probably the singular most expensive component in an EV Vehicle. And batteries degrade with time and are in different states. If someone comes in with a batter that's only half working, then swaps it for a fully working one? or One that comes to the station with a fully working one and swaps it for a half working one? Batteries would need to be a communal resource - with them being expensive i don't see it happening. Batteries need to be cheap for companies and people to take the risk of swapping their battery with a random one.
- ajuc 5y ago
  > companies and people to take the risk of swapping their battery with a random one. What if you don't own the batteries, just buy the car without a battery and sign a contract for X years and $Y that you will get the battery replaced on each station? > with them being expensive i don't see it happening People rent cars that are more expansive than batteries.
- lostdog 5y ago
  Obviously we should just swap the entire car. It would be like with horses, where you could swap for a fresh one to speed up a long ride.
otterley 5y ago
Tesla and Elon Musk presented a demo of just that over 8 (!) years ago and then ... nothing. https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY
- gen220 5y ago
  I’ve tried thinking about this from Tesla and the auto manufacturer’s point of view. I think, while battery technology is rapidly evolving, the incentives of EV manufacturers is not to create “open interfaces”, but instead to integrate the battery into the hardware as much as possible. This gets better performance but also creates lock in. In short, my theory is that until there’s a “battery company” ecosystem that sells up to auto manufacturers, this dream of swap stations will not materialize. Barring some regulation, I guess.
fuzzy2 5y ago
It’s available in China today. I think I read somewhere the Chinese government will also enforce interoperability or something like that. There was an Israeli company in the past, Better Place. It failed because car makers didn’t participate. But that was almost 10 years ago, so EV adoption was way lower.
iamben 5y ago
Similarly, EVs feel incredibly impractical for cramped city life. If you're living in a small London flat with no garage, parking etc. (hey!), the whole where and how are you going to keep something charged is very real. I'm completely unsure how that's meant to be solved in a real and practical long term way.
- TheDudeMan 5y ago
  Streetside charging stations? They exist.
  - iamben 5y ago
    You're right. I've just had a google and looked on https://www.zap-map.com/ https://www.zap-map.com/ - there's not enough though. But I stand by my original point - it's hard enough to find somewhere to park, never mind the parking spot next to the charger.
  - leoedin 5y ago
    Long term this is probably the solution. Sort term though - the ratio of cars to street side charging is about 50 to 1 right now. Even if we put a charging socket in every existing lamppost we'd still only be at about 10:1. We basically need to dig up the streets of entire cities and lay additional high voltage cables and a charging point at every parking space. There doesn't seem to be any desire to do that right now.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  I don’t know about in London, but here in Canada a lot of businesses like grocery stores and movie theatres are realizing that charging stations are great for business. If you have a car in the city, you probably only need to charge once a week depending on usage, is it really that outlandish to think that in an entire week you won’t take your car somewhere with a charger nearby? Besides that, you can slow charge off mains voltage using an extension cord in many cars. We have wired every room in every building in every city across most of the globe to have electricity. I really don’t think it’s much of a stretch to run some extra wires to the curb as ecar adoption rises. The current system of moving billions of gallons of highly explosive liquids to custom built dispensing facilities placed every few kms on valuable real estate is far less practical when you think about it.
SuoDuanDao 5y ago
I heard of an Israeli startup working on that, not sure what happened with it. More moving parts around delicate electronics probably make for a challenging combination, I'm guessing the biggest challenges are technical.
- wolf550e 5y ago
  Defunct 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)
martro 5y ago
There is alliance of big motorcycle producers (Honda, KTM, Piaggio, and Yamaha) to standardise batteries, probably aimed to be used in scooters: https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-news/swappable-electric-battery-consortium/ https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-news/swappable-e... Edit: added brands
cronix 5y ago
Nio is doing it in China. Here's the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMr42VnFyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMr42VnFyo
gregmac 5y ago
One of the issues is the battery is the heaviest part of the car, and tend to be pretty large. Most EVs today are basically built around the battery, using it as a foundation that everything else attaches to. Making it replaceable means sacrificing range, because the battery must be smaller and there's more weight for a frame to hold the battery pack(s). This is in addition to the more practical problems such as standardizing packs, network of swap stations, ownership of the batteries. If the packs are big you need a machine at every station (which can break), but if they're small enough for a driver to swap you sacrifice even more range and increase other potential problems like theft.
djaychela 5y ago
This is already a thing. I don't know how widespread it is, but take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw
- visarga 5y ago
  Battery swap is sweet but mobile charging stations coming on demand using a phone app and charging your car as it is parked on the street - that's a new and interesting idea for me. You could call one overnight and have your car ready next day, even in a place without fixed charging stations.

by gen220 5y ago

aaronblohowiak 5y ago

Driving 200 miles is doable today. 600, I definitely need to stop, stretch legs and eat. Sfbay to az and and I stopped more frequently than “required” just to get a break from the road. I’m middle aged though so ymmv

dghlsakjg 5y ago
When I was in college, and much more willing to suffer, it was 335 miles from home to school, and took 5.5 hours driving. I could do that without stopping, though normally would stop at least once for snacks/bathroom. Now I’m more likely to stop two or three times on a trip that long. Even now on a mountain west traffic-free interstate I don’t really count on going more than 500 miles in a day. And that includes a meal break. Both of these use cases sound like they would be very minimally disrupted by planning my stops around a charging break. I think that range anxiety is largely overblown for a huge majority of use cases.

a9dhalaan 5y ago

The battery is probably the singular most expensive component in an EV Vehicle. And batteries degrade with time and are in different states. If someone comes in with a batter that's only half working, then swaps it for a fully working one? or One that comes to the station with a fully working one and swaps it for a half working one? Batteries would need to be a communal resource - with them being expensive i don't see it happening. Batteries need to be cheap for companies and people to take the risk of swapping their battery with a random one.

ajuc 5y ago
> companies and people to take the risk of swapping their battery with a random one. What if you don't own the batteries, just buy the car without a battery and sign a contract for X years and $Y that you will get the battery replaced on each station? > with them being expensive i don't see it happening People rent cars that are more expansive than batteries.
lostdog 5y ago
Obviously we should just swap the entire car. It would be like with horses, where you could swap for a fresh one to speed up a long ride.

otterley 5y ago

Tesla and Elon Musk presented a demo of just that over 8 (!) years ago and then ... nothing. https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY

gen220 5y ago
I’ve tried thinking about this from Tesla and the auto manufacturer’s point of view. I think, while battery technology is rapidly evolving, the incentives of EV manufacturers is not to create “open interfaces”, but instead to integrate the battery into the hardware as much as possible. This gets better performance but also creates lock in. In short, my theory is that until there’s a “battery company” ecosystem that sells up to auto manufacturers, this dream of swap stations will not materialize. Barring some regulation, I guess.

fuzzy2 5y ago

It’s available in China today. I think I read somewhere the Chinese government will also enforce interoperability or something like that. There was an Israeli company in the past, Better Place. It failed because car makers didn’t participate. But that was almost 10 years ago, so EV adoption was way lower.

iamben 5y ago

Similarly, EVs feel incredibly impractical for cramped city life. If you're living in a small London flat with no garage, parking etc. (hey!), the whole where and how are you going to keep something charged is very real. I'm completely unsure how that's meant to be solved in a real and practical long term way.

TheDudeMan 5y ago
Streetside charging stations? They exist.
- iamben 5y ago
  You're right. I've just had a google and looked on https://www.zap-map.com/ https://www.zap-map.com/ - there's not enough though. But I stand by my original point - it's hard enough to find somewhere to park, never mind the parking spot next to the charger.
- leoedin 5y ago
  Long term this is probably the solution. Sort term though - the ratio of cars to street side charging is about 50 to 1 right now. Even if we put a charging socket in every existing lamppost we'd still only be at about 10:1. We basically need to dig up the streets of entire cities and lay additional high voltage cables and a charging point at every parking space. There doesn't seem to be any desire to do that right now.
dghlsakjg 5y ago
I don’t know about in London, but here in Canada a lot of businesses like grocery stores and movie theatres are realizing that charging stations are great for business. If you have a car in the city, you probably only need to charge once a week depending on usage, is it really that outlandish to think that in an entire week you won’t take your car somewhere with a charger nearby? Besides that, you can slow charge off mains voltage using an extension cord in many cars. We have wired every room in every building in every city across most of the globe to have electricity. I really don’t think it’s much of a stretch to run some extra wires to the curb as ecar adoption rises. The current system of moving billions of gallons of highly explosive liquids to custom built dispensing facilities placed every few kms on valuable real estate is far less practical when you think about it.

SuoDuanDao 5y ago

I heard of an Israeli startup working on that, not sure what happened with it. More moving parts around delicate electronics probably make for a challenging combination, I'm guessing the biggest challenges are technical.

wolf550e 5y ago
Defunct 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)

martro 5y ago

There is alliance of big motorcycle producers (Honda, KTM, Piaggio, and Yamaha) to standardise batteries, probably aimed to be used in scooters: https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-news/swappable-electric-battery-consortium/ https://www.cycleworld.com/story/motorcycle-news/swappable-e... Edit: added brands

cronix 5y ago

Nio is doing it in China. Here's the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMr42VnFyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMr42VnFyo

gregmac 5y ago

One of the issues is the battery is the heaviest part of the car, and tend to be pretty large. Most EVs today are basically built around the battery, using it as a foundation that everything else attaches to. Making it replaceable means sacrificing range, because the battery must be smaller and there's more weight for a frame to hold the battery pack(s). This is in addition to the more practical problems such as standardizing packs, network of swap stations, ownership of the batteries. If the packs are big you need a machine at every station (which can break), but if they're small enough for a driver to swap you sacrifice even more range and increase other potential problems like theft.

djaychela 5y ago

This is already a thing. I don't know how widespread it is, but take a look at this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw

visarga 5y ago
Battery swap is sweet but mobile charging stations coming on demand using a phone app and charging your car as it is parked on the street - that's a new and interesting idea for me. You could call one overnight and have your car ready next day, even in a place without fixed charging stations.