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> I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station before It really seems like EVs should have easily replaceable batteries, so that in situations

by thayne 3y ago

> I have had to get my car towed a mile to a charging station before It really seems like EVs should have easily replaceable batteries, so that in situations like that you can just have roadside service bring you a charged battery and swap it out. Or for that matter, charging stations could pre-charge batteries, and you pay to swap your drained battery for a charged one.

blamazon 3y ago
In that case I was towing a U-haul trailer, which leads to another thing that probably should exist: trailers with supplemental EV batteries. Not sure if the extra capacity is made up for by the extra weight though. (For context my car uses maybe ~1.5 - 4.0 times as much power when pulling the various sizes of U-haul cargo trailers)
- WaxProlix 3y ago
  Aerodynamics are at least as bad as weight when it comes to trailers iirc. And there are at least leisure trailers that come with battery packs in them. The Lightship and Boulder come to mind for instance. I suspect it's a matter of time for more utility trailers, if it's not already a thing. Batteries are expensive though.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  Maybe it would be distasteful, but a trailer with an ICE engine that could charge the battery while driving. Might be a trick to make it so that the generator could supply more energy than is consumed per minute.
foolfoolz 3y ago
it’s been done https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) they were probably 25 years too early
- blamazon 3y ago
  It's today a popular and I think ubiquitous thing in Taiwan for scooters: https://youtu.be/87T6okeKu3A https://youtu.be/87T6okeKu3A https://www.gogoro.com/ https://www.gogoro.com/
rnk 3y ago
swapping been done and shipped on production vehicles that are still around. The original tesla model s had this capability. Tesla had a working station in california, it took a couple of minutes to do the swap. It had basically no demand. Tesla stopped supporting it.
raisedbyninjas 3y ago
I wish there was some standard to add short term battery capacity for EVs and PHEVs. An e-scooter battery can get most EVs 5 miles down the road. A standardized battery pack and wiring harness in the trunk could allow roadside assistance to get you unstrained or rent a bigger pack for road trips. I'm sure OEMs don't want to warranty 3rd party equipment connecting to their vehicles and making charge/discharge, cooling, securing heavy packs, etc. reliable.
bonestamp2 3y ago
Tesla has talked about that. The main issue with swappable batteries is that the whole battery has to be accessible from the bottom or side of the car. This provides design constraints on battery size. Most automakers don't want to compromise on battery size, they want to pack as much battery as possible in the space that's available. The next biggest issue with swappable batteries is responsibility. If all of the batteries are shared, who pays for a new battery when a battery reaches its end of life? This problem will have to be solved at some point anyway since nobody likes paying $15K+ when their vehicle battery reaches end of life. It would make much more sense to amortize this cost over the life of the vehicle. It would be easy to do that with higher fees of battery swaps, but people don't normally like higher upfront costs even if it works out to the same in the end.
diebeforei485 3y ago
This became very difficult when Tesla added the undershield.

by thayne 3y ago

blamazon 3y ago

In that case I was towing a U-haul trailer, which leads to another thing that probably should exist: trailers with supplemental EV batteries. Not sure if the extra capacity is made up for by the extra weight though. (For context my car uses maybe ~1.5 - 4.0 times as much power when pulling the various sizes of U-haul cargo trailers)

WaxProlix 3y ago
Aerodynamics are at least as bad as weight when it comes to trailers iirc. And there are at least leisure trailers that come with battery packs in them. The Lightship and Boulder come to mind for instance. I suspect it's a matter of time for more utility trailers, if it's not already a thing. Batteries are expensive though.
fbdab103 3y ago
Maybe it would be distasteful, but a trailer with an ICE engine that could charge the battery while driving. Might be a trick to make it so that the generator could supply more energy than is consumed per minute.

foolfoolz 3y ago

it’s been done https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company) they were probably 25 years too early

blamazon 3y ago
It's today a popular and I think ubiquitous thing in Taiwan for scooters: https://youtu.be/87T6okeKu3A https://youtu.be/87T6okeKu3A https://www.gogoro.com/ https://www.gogoro.com/

rnk 3y ago

swapping been done and shipped on production vehicles that are still around. The original tesla model s had this capability. Tesla had a working station in california, it took a couple of minutes to do the swap. It had basically no demand. Tesla stopped supporting it.

raisedbyninjas 3y ago

I wish there was some standard to add short term battery capacity for EVs and PHEVs. An e-scooter battery can get most EVs 5 miles down the road. A standardized battery pack and wiring harness in the trunk could allow roadside assistance to get you unstrained or rent a bigger pack for road trips. I'm sure OEMs don't want to warranty 3rd party equipment connecting to their vehicles and making charge/discharge, cooling, securing heavy packs, etc. reliable.

bonestamp2 3y ago

Tesla has talked about that. The main issue with swappable batteries is that the whole battery has to be accessible from the bottom or side of the car. This provides design constraints on battery size. Most automakers don't want to compromise on battery size, they want to pack as much battery as possible in the space that's available. The next biggest issue with swappable batteries is responsibility. If all of the batteries are shared, who pays for a new battery when a battery reaches its end of life? This problem will have to be solved at some point anyway since nobody likes paying $15K+ when their vehicle battery reaches end of life. It would make much more sense to amortize this cost over the life of the vehicle. It would be easy to do that with higher fees of battery swaps, but people don't normally like higher upfront costs even if it works out to the same in the end.

diebeforei485 3y ago

This became very difficult when Tesla added the undershield.