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Come to think about it--the easiest hack-- is just a piggback battery. Lets say the Tesla power-source is 500 pounds. 1/10th would be 50 pounds. Assuming replac
by 001sky 13y ago
Come to think about it--the easiest hack-- is just a piggback battery. Lets say the Tesla power-source is 500 pounds. 1/10th would be 50 pounds. Assuming replacement of the battery is $15K at cost, that would be a $1500 asset. 4x of them would add ~$6K per charging depot (<~5% of planned capital outlay). Transport to site by 3rd pary service using a pickup truck (ie, no fancy gear needed).
Volumne would be the size of a a carry-on wheelie bag. The engineering solution would be to have a second charging point internal to the passenger/trunk--perhaps in the 2.0 version of the Tesla models currently on the board. The only engineering consideration would be that the li-ion powertrain would need to operate during charge (like a laptop or cell phone) but would presumably overcome.
- bri3d 13y agoThat's an interesting idea, although I think it'd be hard to make a piggyback battery pack light enough. The Tesla's swappable battery pack module including frame/supports, armor, and coolant weighs over 1,300lb. Nobody wants lithium batteries in their passenger compartment, but I do suspect it might be possible to make a ~200lb pack that would fit in a Tesla's frunk and move it at least a few miles. Thermal management would be a tremendous challenge in that area unless the "auxiliary battery" port could somehow interface safely with the car's existing liquid cooling system.