At last! Some common sense
Discussion
Chinese manufacturer Nio is selling cars with swappable batteries. between five and ten minutes at a battery station and you have a 90% charge and away you go.
Youtube video to show you how
If UK legislates that EVs sold here have no plug-in facility and have this battery exchange system as part of the deal, it solves so many difficult problems with range anxiety, charging time, and for HMG how to glean an equivalent duty income to that from petrol sales without owners being able to pirate-charge at home on domestic rates.
Shame it's Chinese really, but the Chinese makers will be sinking the European manufacturers in the medium term anyway if governments allow them to.
Youtube video to show you how
If UK legislates that EVs sold here have no plug-in facility and have this battery exchange system as part of the deal, it solves so many difficult problems with range anxiety, charging time, and for HMG how to glean an equivalent duty income to that from petrol sales without owners being able to pirate-charge at home on domestic rates.
Shame it's Chinese really, but the Chinese makers will be sinking the European manufacturers in the medium term anyway if governments allow them to.
motco said:
Chinese manufacturer Nio is selling cars with swappable batteries. between five and ten minutes at a battery station and you have a 90% charge and away you go.
Youtube video to show you how
If UK legislates that EVs sold here have no plug-in facility and have this battery exchange system as part of the deal, it solves so many difficult problems with range anxiety, charging time, and for HMG how to glean an equivalent duty income to that from petrol sales without owners being able to pirate-charge at home on domestic rates.
Shame it's Chinese really, but the Chinese makers will be sinking the European manufacturers in the medium term anyway if governments allow them to.
Um... these have been around for ages, they already have swapping stations in europe. No one is really interested.Youtube video to show you how
If UK legislates that EVs sold here have no plug-in facility and have this battery exchange system as part of the deal, it solves so many difficult problems with range anxiety, charging time, and for HMG how to glean an equivalent duty income to that from petrol sales without owners being able to pirate-charge at home on domestic rates.
Shame it's Chinese really, but the Chinese makers will be sinking the European manufacturers in the medium term anyway if governments allow them to.
Tesla did this back in 2013. The old ModelS supports battery swapping. Hardly anyone used it and Tesla killed it.
motco said:
They have thousands of swapping stations in China, and Norway (according to the video) has one only thus far. It will remain to be seen whether it takes off but IMHO it makes eminent sense for several reasons.
I think battery swapping time has been and gone.Tesla apparently abandoned it in 2015 due to lack of interest from customers, BMW dismissed it as a waste of time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_swapping
Batteries are different from one manufacturer to another so it would seem to mean the cars need to be redesigned for a universal solution. I won't be holding my breath.
the sub 10 min charge will make it out of the lab and into production cars in the next few years. battery swapping may be valid for HGVs due to the amount of power you'd need to charge a huge battery pack quickly. might make more sense to charge at a lower rate and do swaps for lots of reasons
motco said:
Chinese manufacturer Nio is selling cars with swappable batteries. between five and ten minutes at a battery station and you have a 90% charge and away you go.
Youtube video to show you how
If UK legislates that EVs sold here have no plug-in facility and have this battery exchange system as part of the deal, it solves so many difficult problems with range anxiety, charging time, and for HMG how to glean an equivalent duty income to that from petrol sales without owners being able to pirate-charge at home on domestic rates.
Shame it's Chinese really, but the Chinese makers will be sinking the European manufacturers in the medium term anyway if governments allow them to.
How does it help with range anxiety?Youtube video to show you how
If UK legislates that EVs sold here have no plug-in facility and have this battery exchange system as part of the deal, it solves so many difficult problems with range anxiety, charging time, and for HMG how to glean an equivalent duty income to that from petrol sales without owners being able to pirate-charge at home on domestic rates.
Shame it's Chinese really, but the Chinese makers will be sinking the European manufacturers in the medium term anyway if governments allow them to.
If you are worried about getting to a charger, then worrying about getting to a swap station is the same problem.
And there couldn’t be anywhere near as many swap stations as there are charging stations. Think about the comparative costs.
It’s going to be a niche solution at the best. Just think about the logistics and cost of all those extra battery packs sat around being charged. What happens at a busy battery swap station when it’s out of charged batteries? It’s no better than a static charger then.
It also restricts the design of the car to only using specific battery packs. Tesla are already moving to structural batteries and the associated efficiency and weight improvements.
The wear and tear on the connectors and fixings are just adding another point of failure.
All in all the advantages don’t seem to outweigh the disadvantages for most use cases.
It also restricts the design of the car to only using specific battery packs. Tesla are already moving to structural batteries and the associated efficiency and weight improvements.
The wear and tear on the connectors and fixings are just adding another point of failure.
All in all the advantages don’t seem to outweigh the disadvantages for most use cases.
This has been tried, it failed. It sounds like the most obvious, logical thing to do but...
- To make a battery pack swappable, rapidly, requires more weight and bulky engineering to make it possible vs a sealed pack
- It requires all EV's to use the same battery which is far from optimum
- Unless a significant number of motorists in a region (such as China) will definitely want to/need to use it, then it's prohibitively expensive for those that do. Most people don't have a need to swap batteries, they hardly ever charge away from home anyway.
- People have to stop for break for one reason or another every several hours of driving, so just charge then... It doesn't matter in the battery swap takes only 5 minutes if I'm stopping for 30 minutes anyway.
- To make a battery pack swappable, rapidly, requires more weight and bulky engineering to make it possible vs a sealed pack
- It requires all EV's to use the same battery which is far from optimum
- Unless a significant number of motorists in a region (such as China) will definitely want to/need to use it, then it's prohibitively expensive for those that do. Most people don't have a need to swap batteries, they hardly ever charge away from home anyway.
- People have to stop for break for one reason or another every several hours of driving, so just charge then... It doesn't matter in the battery swap takes only 5 minutes if I'm stopping for 30 minutes anyway.
Most existing ICE drivers don’t see a need for an EV, if we want to use that logic.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a swap station is easier/quicker to put in place than a supercharger hub. I bet you they don’t need anything like the amount of power, perhaps virtually none at all if they deliver the batteries from somewhere else. They can also charge at low low prices so better margins. I just had a glance at their map there and there’s like 2x the number of swap stations since I last looked.
You do need to pay them a battery rental fee though, if I recall. From memory, you can either buy a car outright and not get battery swap functionality or you can pay less and rent a swappable battery. I guess in the UK it’s mostly about salary sacrifice leasing so it’s renting one way or another.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a swap station is easier/quicker to put in place than a supercharger hub. I bet you they don’t need anything like the amount of power, perhaps virtually none at all if they deliver the batteries from somewhere else. They can also charge at low low prices so better margins. I just had a glance at their map there and there’s like 2x the number of swap stations since I last looked.
You do need to pay them a battery rental fee though, if I recall. From memory, you can either buy a car outright and not get battery swap functionality or you can pay less and rent a swappable battery. I guess in the UK it’s mostly about salary sacrifice leasing so it’s renting one way or another.
motco said:
There's a variety of available battery sizes, and you're less likely to find a station with no batteries than a charging station with no available chargers that work. The fuel duty aspect could drive it though - how else can HMG glean their cut?
In answer to your final question; charge per mile using ANPR cameras everywhere. Think ULEZ on steroids across the country. DMZ said:
Most existing ICE drivers don’t see a need for an EV, if we want to use that logic.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a swap station is easier/quicker to put in place than a supercharger hub. I bet you they don’t need anything like the amount of power, perhaps virtually none at all if they deliver the batteries from somewhere else. They can also charge at low low prices so better margins. I just had a glance at their map there and there’s like 2x the number of swap stations since I last looked.
You do need to pay them a battery rental fee though, if I recall. From memory, you can either buy a car outright and not get battery swap functionality or you can pay less and rent a swappable battery. I guess in the UK it’s mostly about salary sacrifice leasing so it’s renting one way or another.
If the EV driver has to charge to/from the hub to get the battery AND the batteries themselves have to be transported to/from the hub to get charged.. that would seem like a logic fail.I wouldn’t be surprised if a swap station is easier/quicker to put in place than a supercharger hub. I bet you they don’t need anything like the amount of power, perhaps virtually none at all if they deliver the batteries from somewhere else. They can also charge at low low prices so better margins. I just had a glance at their map there and there’s like 2x the number of swap stations since I last looked.
You do need to pay them a battery rental fee though, if I recall. From memory, you can either buy a car outright and not get battery swap functionality or you can pay less and rent a swappable battery. I guess in the UK it’s mostly about salary sacrifice leasing so it’s renting one way or another.
Surely they're charged at the hub once removed from the car?
DMZ said:
Most existing ICE drivers don’t see a need for an EV, if we want to use that logic.
I wouldn’t be surprised if a swap station is easier/quicker to put in place than a supercharger hub. I bet you they don’t need anything like the amount of power, perhaps virtually none at all if they deliver the batteries from somewhere else. They can also charge at low low prices so better margins. I just had a glance at their map there and there’s like 2x the number of swap stations since I last looked.
You do need to pay them a battery rental fee though, if I recall. From memory, you can either buy a car outright and not get battery swap functionality or you can pay less and rent a swappable battery. I guess in the UK it’s mostly about salary sacrifice leasing so it’s renting one way or another.
How many batteries would a station need delivering every day if it wasn’t charging them on site? How much would that cost?I wouldn’t be surprised if a swap station is easier/quicker to put in place than a supercharger hub. I bet you they don’t need anything like the amount of power, perhaps virtually none at all if they deliver the batteries from somewhere else. They can also charge at low low prices so better margins. I just had a glance at their map there and there’s like 2x the number of swap stations since I last looked.
You do need to pay them a battery rental fee though, if I recall. From memory, you can either buy a car outright and not get battery swap functionality or you can pay less and rent a swappable battery. I guess in the UK it’s mostly about salary sacrifice leasing so it’s renting one way or another.
And every night, when they all get taken ‘somewhere else’, what happens there?
Certainly seems the appetite for this is limited, here in the UK at least.
I'm intrigued by the EV owners on here being very quick to say they don't have a need for it though - is that because you've just grown to accept lengthy wait times at charging points? Surely anyone who has sat for more than 10 minutes waiting to charge has a 'need' for this?
I'm intrigued by the EV owners on here being very quick to say they don't have a need for it though - is that because you've just grown to accept lengthy wait times at charging points? Surely anyone who has sat for more than 10 minutes waiting to charge has a 'need' for this?
JackJarvis said:
Certainly seems the appetite for this is limited, here in the UK at least.
I'm intrigued by the EV owners on here being very quick to say they don't have a need for it though - is that because you've just grown to accept lengthy wait times at charging points? Surely anyone who has sat for more than 10 minutes waiting to charge has a 'need' for this?
My old EV had around 230 miles range, my new one about 270. Even if I managed an average speed of 60mph on a journey (optimistic), that's four hours of driving... I'm going to want a pee and coffee at very least, probably lunch.. I have time to charge while I do those things. I don't stop any more or less at the services now than I did in an ICE car tbh.I'm intrigued by the EV owners on here being very quick to say they don't have a need for it though - is that because you've just grown to accept lengthy wait times at charging points? Surely anyone who has sat for more than 10 minutes waiting to charge has a 'need' for this?
And most journeys don't require any charging en route at all. Most people only rarely exceed the range of an EV in the first place.
Also worth noting that even on longer journeys, most charging isn't to 100% capacity, often just 10-15 minutes is more than enough to reach your destination.
It might save a few minutes here and there but there's a cost for the service and also the aforementioned compromises for any EV's that have to be compatible with a standardised battery pack. You can perhaps see why every actual EV driver who has found this thread isn't excited about something they simply don't need.
JackJarvis said:
Certainly seems the appetite for this is limited, here in the UK at least.
I'm intrigued by the EV owners on here being very quick to say they don't have a need for it though - is that because you've just grown to accept lengthy wait times at charging points? Surely anyone who has sat for more than 10 minutes waiting to charge has a 'need' for this?
maybe because very few people stay with their vehicle while it's charging. that's the fossil refuelling mindset (which i've frequently queued for). you plug in and bugger off to do other stuff you'd probably do anyway if you were in an ICE vehicle. I'm intrigued by the EV owners on here being very quick to say they don't have a need for it though - is that because you've just grown to accept lengthy wait times at charging points? Surely anyone who has sat for more than 10 minutes waiting to charge has a 'need' for this?
certainly the case for charging en route. not sure about fast charging day to day as i charge overnight at home. 10 seconds to plug in, 10 seconds to unplug.
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