5 ms·

I did not expect Nio's 5-minute battery swap technology to become obsolete this soon.

c9lgPZqHNGdC1V1 6mo ago
If anything, Nio battery swap stations would allow car users to swap to newer types of battery as they become available. I say this knowing Nio is one of CATL's most important partners[1]. [1] https://eletric-vehicles.com/catl/catl-calls-nio-an-irreplaceable-strategic-partner-amid-battery-swap-race/ https://eletric-vehicles.com/catl/catl-calls-nio-an-irreplac...
- dirck-norman 6mo ago
  5 minute swap is not needed for this.
  - cestith 6mo ago
    Well, if it degrades to 90% after three years, and let’s extrapolate to 81% after another two to three years, then a battery swap in 5 minutes might be reasonable to do instead of charging once every three to five years or so. I guess it depends on the quality and retained capacity on the batteries being swapped in.
    - crote 6mo ago
      The vast majority of charging is done at home, though. Five-minute-charging/swapping is basically a gimmick to show off to your friends, and only really sees (questionable) use during that once-a-year road trip. The main value in these technologies is to shut up the "But sometimes I want to drive for 20 hours without being forced to take even a single 30-minute break!" pseudo-argument as to why an EV is "impossible" for their lifestyle. Same with the Lucid Air and its 1000km range: basically zero people truly need it, but it needs to exists in order to drag the last few holdouts into the future.
      - cestith 6mo ago
        When my road trip is in negative temperatures, I appreciate not having to be in the cold for too long. I think the bigger adoption issue is thoughts of scaling the charging stations. If there’s a line of cars at a liquid fuel pump, one can still get fuel in twenty or thirty minutes. If there’s a line of four cars at every charger and every car takes 15 minutes to charge on average, that’s an hour before you can start.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
      > Well, if it degrades to 90% after three years, and let’s extrapolate to 81% after another two to three years, then a battery swap in 5 minutes might be reasonable eh? are you saying that something that is done once every 5 years has to be done inside 5 minutes? I strongly disagree. > charging once every three to five years or so Um, that's not how charging works at all.
      - cestith 6mo ago
        That’s not how sentences or quotations work at all.
    - nfriedly 6mo ago
      > Well, if it degrades to 90% after three years, and let’s extrapolate to 81% after another two to three years, That sounds like a phone battery, not an EV battery. Modern EVs should last 15-20 years before seeing significant degredation.
      - cestith 6mo ago
        That was assuming, based on their recharge count, daily 10% to 98% rapid charging. You’d only see that in a vehicle of this range if it’s being used as like a courier vehicle or moving billboard. Pretty much the actual worst cases.
- DennisP 6mo ago
  That'd be an interesting situation. They'd probably replace their fleet of batteries gradually, so with each swap sometimes you'd get upgraded, sometimes downgraded. Your range and home charging curves would change with the batteries, and Nio would have to update the battery management software when it puts in a different battery type. But over time, you'd get upgraded on average without having to pay for a new battery, as long as Nio kept updating to keep its batteries competitive.
  - xbmcuser 6mo ago
    Nio already has a service to swap to higher capacity battery if you want to go on a long road trip etc. It prices its cars according to battery capacity so even people that chose lower capacity car on purchase still have the option to swap to a higher capacity battery. Though I think the main use for battery swap technology will be for commercial trucking and if I recall correctly Chinese government and OEM are working on standardisation for that so all those truck batteries are swappable no matter which company builds the battery.
  - pjc50 6mo ago
    This is in fact the main argument to me why swaps would never work at all, economically: the "state" of the battery is a significant part of the value of the car. Being swapped to a worse one makes you several thousand dollars worse off. It only works in a leasing scenario, and everyone hates those.
    - sowbug 6mo ago
      I used to own a truck whose fair market value would double, temporarily, whenever I filled the tank.
    - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
      How's that any different than putting new tires on a shitbox?
    - toast0 6mo ago
      I think you'd need a contract where you buy (or lease) the car without a battery and lease/rent the battery separately. With some guaranteed offer for a battery with minimum spec X at maximum price Y when you exit the battery program. Preferably, not a mandatory offer, because one hopes specs go up and prices go down over time. Then have you pay something per month for having a battery (maybe depends on the specific battery installed), something per kWh for charge used, plus a rebate per kWh for charge added. Or roll it into usage tiers, whatever. There's lots of people that love leasing cars. I don't understand it, but it makes a lot of people happy?
- newyankee 6mo ago
  In a well designed urban environment where cars have space for 2-3 modular batteries with swapping capabilities, I see no reason why taxis etc. need to carry battery payload > 150 km of range needed for local use, which would mean better fuel efficiency as well. Battery swapping done right is integral to this
  - 0xfaded 6mo ago
    Sorry, but I giggled at this. A well designed urban environment would have no cars.
    - horsawlarway 6mo ago
      Frankly - I agree with this take. If anything - my opinion at this point is that cars were a mistake in vehicle sizing caused by internal combustion engines. For the vast, vast majority of ubran transit, something akin to a bike in size seems to make more sense. We see this already in urban regions in India/Asia where scooters are the predominate transportation method, and I think even traditional scooters are heavy enough to be problematic. But a class 2 ebike (so throttle with no need to pedal) can weigh as little as 40lbs (20kg), and go 30 miles at 20mph. It's insane that we're not designing urban transit for bikes at this point. Much better density, much safer, much easier to store and park, much cheaper to operate and license.
    - vfclists 6mo ago
      Cars,those urban monstrosities the vehicles that weigh over 25 times their payload and take up 20 times the space on the roads. Should I adjust the figures for American sizes? Should I also add that they are engineered to travel at speeds over 120 mph and usually ply the trade environments where 30 mph is a dangerous speed?
      - postalrat 6mo ago
        Amazing machines. Can't wait till I can buy something a bit bigger that can also travel to other planets
    - 6mo ago
maeln 6mo ago
We should always take marketing number with a huge grain of salt, so the 10 to 98% in 7 minutes remain to be seen. Also, there is the question of if it lowers the battery lifespan faster than charging at lower power. It is does, there might still be a point in battery swap, especially for public transport systems (for bus). A public transit operator might want to have more battery than vehicle, so that they can rotate the battery regularly and charge them at lower power, to diminish and distribute the wear on battery. But that's obviously a big if and a more niche usage.
- xbmcuser 6mo ago
  the life span stat with the current battery tech is mostly useless for a normal car. 300 mile range most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. The battery degradation is not that bad in the first place.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
    > most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. When it comes to as-fast-as-possible charging, I think you can divide that number by at least 10. Slow charging while parked overnight or during the day should still be the most common case by far for most users. Very fast charging is important for road trips, but it is not the usual case.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
  - antonkochubey 6mo ago
    First, with range decreasing, number of charge cycles per mile, and therefore rate of wear, will increase. Second, average age of car on the road is above 10 years in most countries; and those that drive old cars definitely do not have €26,500* spare to swap their EV's battery for a new one. *That's what Audi charges here for e-tron 50 battery replacement, which are already starting to fail for many owners
rcxdude 6mo ago
Swapping does help reduce the high peak power demands that fast charging has. There's limited places where you can get the infrastructure to install a bank of chargers capable of this kind of speed (though, one potential approach is having a local block of batteries near the charger, but you are then paying the efficiency cost of another battery round-trip, and the cost of the batteries which will get a lot of wear and tear themselves)
- NetMageSCW 6mo ago
  But if you need batteries that gives you the opportunity to install solar and reduce your costs more than the efficiency hit.
- crote 6mo ago
  The charging station's batteries don't have to use the same chemistry though, as they aren't space- and weight-constrained like EV batteries are. You can optimize for durability and cost instead. Having station-based storage also allows the station to participate on the energy market and purchase only when electricity is cheap. It could even do double duty by selling back electricity from storage during periods of high grid demand! Heck, pair it with a local grid storage battery which is going to be built anyways and you basically get it for free.
  - wakawaka28 6mo ago
    Station batteries are an additional toxic inextinguishable fire hazard and expense to consider. I wonder what is the efficiency loss in charging one battery to turn around and charge another too. But you are generally right: stationary batteries do not need to be lightweight like the ones in cars.

If anything, Nio battery swap stations would allow car users to swap to newer types of battery as they become available. I say this knowing Nio is one of CATL's most important partners[1]. [1] https://eletric-vehicles.com/catl/catl-calls-nio-an-irreplaceable-strategic-partner-amid-battery-swap-race/ https://eletric-vehicles.com/catl/catl-calls-nio-an-irreplac...

dirck-norman 6mo ago
5 minute swap is not needed for this.
- cestith 6mo ago
  Well, if it degrades to 90% after three years, and let’s extrapolate to 81% after another two to three years, then a battery swap in 5 minutes might be reasonable to do instead of charging once every three to five years or so. I guess it depends on the quality and retained capacity on the batteries being swapped in.
  - crote 6mo ago
    The vast majority of charging is done at home, though. Five-minute-charging/swapping is basically a gimmick to show off to your friends, and only really sees (questionable) use during that once-a-year road trip. The main value in these technologies is to shut up the "But sometimes I want to drive for 20 hours without being forced to take even a single 30-minute break!" pseudo-argument as to why an EV is "impossible" for their lifestyle. Same with the Lucid Air and its 1000km range: basically zero people truly need it, but it needs to exists in order to drag the last few holdouts into the future.
    - cestith 6mo ago
      When my road trip is in negative temperatures, I appreciate not having to be in the cold for too long. I think the bigger adoption issue is thoughts of scaling the charging stations. If there’s a line of cars at a liquid fuel pump, one can still get fuel in twenty or thirty minutes. If there’s a line of four cars at every charger and every car takes 15 minutes to charge on average, that’s an hour before you can start.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
    > Well, if it degrades to 90% after three years, and let’s extrapolate to 81% after another two to three years, then a battery swap in 5 minutes might be reasonable eh? are you saying that something that is done once every 5 years has to be done inside 5 minutes? I strongly disagree. > charging once every three to five years or so Um, that's not how charging works at all.
    - cestith 6mo ago
      That’s not how sentences or quotations work at all.
  - nfriedly 6mo ago
    > Well, if it degrades to 90% after three years, and let’s extrapolate to 81% after another two to three years, That sounds like a phone battery, not an EV battery. Modern EVs should last 15-20 years before seeing significant degredation.
    - cestith 6mo ago
      That was assuming, based on their recharge count, daily 10% to 98% rapid charging. You’d only see that in a vehicle of this range if it’s being used as like a courier vehicle or moving billboard. Pretty much the actual worst cases.
DennisP 6mo ago
That'd be an interesting situation. They'd probably replace their fleet of batteries gradually, so with each swap sometimes you'd get upgraded, sometimes downgraded. Your range and home charging curves would change with the batteries, and Nio would have to update the battery management software when it puts in a different battery type. But over time, you'd get upgraded on average without having to pay for a new battery, as long as Nio kept updating to keep its batteries competitive.
- xbmcuser 6mo ago
  Nio already has a service to swap to higher capacity battery if you want to go on a long road trip etc. It prices its cars according to battery capacity so even people that chose lower capacity car on purchase still have the option to swap to a higher capacity battery. Though I think the main use for battery swap technology will be for commercial trucking and if I recall correctly Chinese government and OEM are working on standardisation for that so all those truck batteries are swappable no matter which company builds the battery.
- pjc50 6mo ago
  This is in fact the main argument to me why swaps would never work at all, economically: the "state" of the battery is a significant part of the value of the car. Being swapped to a worse one makes you several thousand dollars worse off. It only works in a leasing scenario, and everyone hates those.
  - sowbug 6mo ago
    I used to own a truck whose fair market value would double, temporarily, whenever I filled the tank.
  - cucumber3732842 6mo ago
    How's that any different than putting new tires on a shitbox?
  - toast0 6mo ago
    I think you'd need a contract where you buy (or lease) the car without a battery and lease/rent the battery separately. With some guaranteed offer for a battery with minimum spec X at maximum price Y when you exit the battery program. Preferably, not a mandatory offer, because one hopes specs go up and prices go down over time. Then have you pay something per month for having a battery (maybe depends on the specific battery installed), something per kWh for charge used, plus a rebate per kWh for charge added. Or roll it into usage tiers, whatever. There's lots of people that love leasing cars. I don't understand it, but it makes a lot of people happy?
newyankee 6mo ago
In a well designed urban environment where cars have space for 2-3 modular batteries with swapping capabilities, I see no reason why taxis etc. need to carry battery payload > 150 km of range needed for local use, which would mean better fuel efficiency as well. Battery swapping done right is integral to this
- 0xfaded 6mo ago
  Sorry, but I giggled at this. A well designed urban environment would have no cars.
  - horsawlarway 6mo ago
    Frankly - I agree with this take. If anything - my opinion at this point is that cars were a mistake in vehicle sizing caused by internal combustion engines. For the vast, vast majority of ubran transit, something akin to a bike in size seems to make more sense. We see this already in urban regions in India/Asia where scooters are the predominate transportation method, and I think even traditional scooters are heavy enough to be problematic. But a class 2 ebike (so throttle with no need to pedal) can weigh as little as 40lbs (20kg), and go 30 miles at 20mph. It's insane that we're not designing urban transit for bikes at this point. Much better density, much safer, much easier to store and park, much cheaper to operate and license.
  - vfclists 6mo ago
    Cars,those urban monstrosities the vehicles that weigh over 25 times their payload and take up 20 times the space on the roads. Should I adjust the figures for American sizes? Should I also add that they are engineered to travel at speeds over 120 mph and usually ply the trade environments where 30 mph is a dangerous speed?
    - postalrat 6mo ago
      Amazing machines. Can't wait till I can buy something a bit bigger that can also travel to other planets
  - 6mo ago

maeln 6mo ago

We should always take marketing number with a huge grain of salt, so the 10 to 98% in 7 minutes remain to be seen. Also, there is the question of if it lowers the battery lifespan faster than charging at lower power. It is does, there might still be a point in battery swap, especially for public transport systems (for bus). A public transit operator might want to have more battery than vehicle, so that they can rotate the battery regularly and charge them at lower power, to diminish and distribute the wear on battery. But that's obviously a big if and a more niche usage.

xbmcuser 6mo ago
the life span stat with the current battery tech is mostly useless for a normal car. 300 mile range most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. The battery degradation is not that bad in the first place.
- SideburnsOfDoom 6mo ago
  > most people will need to top up 2 times a week 100 times a year 1000 times in 10 years. When it comes to as-fast-as-possible charging, I think you can divide that number by at least 10. Slow charging while parked overnight or during the day should still be the most common case by far for most users. Very fast charging is important for road trips, but it is not the usual case.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- antonkochubey 6mo ago
  First, with range decreasing, number of charge cycles per mile, and therefore rate of wear, will increase. Second, average age of car on the road is above 10 years in most countries; and those that drive old cars definitely do not have €26,500* spare to swap their EV's battery for a new one. *That's what Audi charges here for e-tron 50 battery replacement, which are already starting to fail for many owners

rcxdude 6mo ago

Swapping does help reduce the high peak power demands that fast charging has. There's limited places where you can get the infrastructure to install a bank of chargers capable of this kind of speed (though, one potential approach is having a local block of batteries near the charger, but you are then paying the efficiency cost of another battery round-trip, and the cost of the batteries which will get a lot of wear and tear themselves)

NetMageSCW 6mo ago
But if you need batteries that gives you the opportunity to install solar and reduce your costs more than the efficiency hit.
crote 6mo ago
The charging station's batteries don't have to use the same chemistry though, as they aren't space- and weight-constrained like EV batteries are. You can optimize for durability and cost instead. Having station-based storage also allows the station to participate on the energy market and purchase only when electricity is cheap. It could even do double duty by selling back electricity from storage during periods of high grid demand! Heck, pair it with a local grid storage battery which is going to be built anyways and you basically get it for free.
- wakawaka28 6mo ago
  Station batteries are an additional toxic inextinguishable fire hazard and expense to consider. I wonder what is the efficiency loss in charging one battery to turn around and charge another too. But you are generally right: stationary batteries do not need to be lightweight like the ones in cars.