Why Battery Swapping Is A BAD Idea
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 มิ.ย. 2022
- Battery swapping on electric cars sounds like a good idea, but if its so good then why did Tesla abandon the concept altogether? And why have so many others failed to make it work? Rory Reid breaks it all down.
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as a nio car owner in china, here's how things actually done. a typical 2nd gen nio battery swap station tipically houses 10-13 batteries. and the whole station takes up 3 standard parking spots. and it can swap battries at around 5min per viechel. and one empty battry takes 50-60mins to charge to full. so the idea is that, say if you are the first one to swap, by the time the 10th person is swapping, your old battery that you swaped 50min ago, is now full again and ready to be swaped to the next person. by doing this, nio has achived non-stop battery swap, using minimum resources. i've been a nio es6 driver in shenzhen china for two years now, there are around 30 swap station in my city and i've done almost 200 swaps. best of all its free of charge. i relally find it easy and coivent.
Thanks for the comment! Out of curiosity, do you think rapid charging or overnight charging is an option for you? Or is this simply a convenience issue?
@@AutoTraderTV well in china there are over half a million rapid charging piles, and nearly a million slow piles. Ppl can choose from both, as for overnight charging. The fact that many Chinese are living in apartment buildings, and in major cities such as Beijing Shanghai and Shenzhen, these apartments parking are often only for rent. So ppl living in these apartment(which is majority of the population) don’t actually own a garage therefor it’s quite a hassle for them to install their own overnight slow charge pile. But currently all new office/apartment buildings are required to install charging piles. So normal electric car owner can choose to charge at either slow or fast charge stations or for me as a nio car owner. I normally choose to do battery swaps as it’s more convenient and most importantly free of charge.
@@nieruidong Can you use Tesla superchargers in your NIO yet or is that only in Europe?
@@lachlanB323 as far as i know Tesla superchargers are for Tesla only. This apply to all Tesla superchargers around the world.
@@nieruidong Apparently in Europe Tesla has now allowed other cars to use it. Hopefully they will allow this everywhere in the future.
I think this video forgot to mention when you have a swappable battery platform you have 2 options, either you can charge the battery or use a swapping station.
right, a fast charging to get to the next swap station without any issue and swap it... also why swap stations can´t have support from governments if it solves and promotes the BEV adoption which is supposedly what everybody wants
I didn't listen to a word he said. I was in a state of shock from his hoodie
link
I really liked that Hoodie! I want one!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🪦🪦🪦🪦
Man’s dripping
@@mk810 🤣☠️🤣☠️
There are several misconceptions in this video, the main of which is that battery swapping is just an alternative to chargers. Its purposes are varied: 1) Alleviates range anxiety for those long trips (you can still use chargers for regular city use). 2) Under the BaaS (Battery as a Service) model customers can actually switch out batteries for newer and longer-distance ones, they are not tied to a single battery for the entire car's life cycle. If a new battery is released, it's made available to the pre-existing cars. So if you just bought a car with a 100 kw battery and NIO comes out with a 200 KW battery, it just takes 3 minutes to upgrade to it. 3) No battery wastage. Your precious Tesla is junk after a few years or you have to pay like 20k for a battery replacement - absolute bonkers. With the BaaS model your battery is always in good condition. 4) You can actually swap your battery for a larger one just for a long trip, and then switch back to your usual (cheaper) size for daily use. 5) When autonomous driving kicks in, companies with swap station infrastructure will be ready for fully automatic recharging, while Tesla owners will still have to fiddle around with charging cables and wait for an hour for the car to charge - hardly a seamless experience. I could go on and on.
What you Elon fanboys fail to understand is most people do not want to think a single minute of the day about transportation. They just want it ready to go with no prepping issues.
Would you like to have a battery swap service for your phone? In the earlier versions of phones batteries were swappable, but in 2022 batteries are much better than in 2000. Hence swappable batteries no longer exist in phones. Cars will go the same way. As cars approach 800km or 1000km per charge, swappable batteries will not be useful.
@@veerkar Phones and cars are not comparable because you can change your phone every 2 or 3 years, but most people cannot change their cars every now and then.
@@veerkar no. Batteries can't be swapped on phones because manufacturers don't want you to. They give many reasons such as water resistance but on some old galaxy flagships you could change the battery even tho they had very high water resistance.
Anyway, my old Samsung note 8 is absolutely as good as new. Maybe not as many updates but many of us don't care about that. The only reason I have to get a new phone is the battery. Do you understand why batteries can't be changed? Because otherwise people like me would not buy a new phone.
@@veerkar I do want a swappable battery in my phone. But you know... You are not wrong when it comes to cars, despite being wrong when it comes to phones. In the future, with good enough batteries, swapping a car battery as a method of charging will sound absurd. But We still need swappable batteries to be able to change them when they degrade or malfunction. Both in cars and phones.
Battery swapping makes a lot of sense for heavy duty vehicles. Lorries can have much smaller batteries, possibly 200 miles will be sufficient, allowing more goods to be carried. Most batteries can also be charged when demand for electricity is low, saving renewables that would otherwise be wasted.
A locomotive with autopilot, connects up, pushes or pulls for a while, then disconnects and exits onto a side track to charge.
Lorries need gigantic battery packs; upwards of 300, sometimes 400kw packs. Range isn’t the issue with them, it’s the weight
Ye this is a nice idea, but ultimately, sod lorries having batteries. They should be green hydrogen-fuelled. Weight is too much for batteries
How do you change battery from fully loaded lorries ? If possible I bet the cost of the swapping station for HDVs would be much more higher.
Moot point if 18 minutes charging is coming 😁
Maybe while hotswapping is not the best idea, the concept of universal batteries could work by giving owners of EVs alternatives for when their current battery dies...
I don't think it would be hard to find 3rd party batteries provider for mass produced cars if demand arises.
It is a right to repair problem.
I know certain automaker is notorious of that, which makes people expect EVs hard to repair, but other automakers prob. could do better.
500k miles warranty by Tesla on battery is ample I think.
How long do you think a battery lasts these days? Modern batteries OUT LIVE the car itself. So why bother?
@@HermanWillems Where do you get this BS from? cars don't rot anymore and EVs only have batteries and drive units. The biggest reason that EVs are taken off the roads and scrapped is because of battery damage...
@@veerkar Where's this BS from? here in UK, the warranty is 150k miles and that is only to keep 70% battery capacity retention which is pretty poor.
The world agreed on domestic battery standards, why not vehicle battery standards? No need for mechanised swap stations, and if the batteries made smaller and modular, any bad cells can be isolated and sent back to manufacturer easily. If you have ever played with Radio controlled vehicles in your life you'd know a removable batteries is a godsend. Nobody got time to wait for a charge.
everyone builds their platforms differently unless you are on a shared platform like the Nissan Rogue and Mitsubishi Outlander, or Toyota BZ4X and the Subaru variant....you get the idea.
The problem is that for EV's batteries are still not a fixed standard and probably won't be for some time as there are three main size types but multiple different chemistry's at the moment. Tesla also want to go with the 4680 cell and put it as part of the structure in the vehicle so not easily removed. This also creates less weight, less material used so less costs. Also cooling/heating battery systems are complicated using fluids and are different in every vehicle so it's hard to create a universal standard.
I get you.. however: that might me a damper on research. If I came in and said Hey guys, I have this great idea, but it would require us to redo A LOT of the processes.. What would most likely happen: a big fat NOPE!
However: I would love it if they at least agreed on a standard for where to place the charging port.
@@Brandofviti sadly every manufacturer wants to the keep any new battery technologies secret as it's worth a lot of money and creates an advantage. With regards to charging ports I'm sure it has something to do with which side the steering wheel is on (especially as Tesla started in the US, so left side rear was better) but also the distance from the charging port to the actual charger built into the car, the less distance, the less cable you need to use which in turn reduce costs. Tesla is even missing out some of the screws in the battery casing now to reduce costs, as when you start producing hundreds of thousands of vehicles, every penny counts!
Because it would require everyone to use the same platform, meaning that automakers would have much less freedom in the way they manage space and batteries in their vehicules.
You really did minimal work before come to a conclusion battery swapping is a bad idea. Apparently it’s working and working very good in every places now.
I believe India are implementing standard battery formats so they can be swapped across multiple vehicle types. Granted it is only light vehicles like scooters, bikes & them tuk tuk thingymajigs but if they are actually mandating the change to any new vehicles it's a bloody good start - I'm not 100% on the details. Smaller format battery packs would then be able to be used on a lot of bigger vehicles too i.e. 1 pack for a scooter, 2 for a motorbike, 4 for a tuk tuk, 8 for a small car, 16 for a large one - you get the idea. You could pay more for the convenience of swapping out batteries for fully charged ones instantly, or simply recharge them yourself if you aren't in a rush. The rest of the world should follow suit so any battery pack will fit any car in the future. The only stumbling block is economics to make it viable & value for money compared to how it is done now as there are many variables to consider. Apologies if any of this is covered in the video, I haven't watched it yet lol ;p
Mandates in India are really suggestions though. I'll believe that will get traction when i see anyone stop for a red light, and wait for the green to go, while the number of cars wide equals the number of lanes available
Manual battery swaps would most likely win over the automatic stations. Definitely far better to spend 5 minutes swapping than 20-30 min charging.
India is also working on aluminium air battery swapping station
True, there is a plan by Hero Motors to set up a dense battery swapping infrastructure in Mumbai. India could lead this electric revolution just like it did in digital payments and leap frogged the entire world.
Battery swapping has additional benefit that was under the radar..
Quick charging batteries degrade them faster. We will need physically less resources to sustain such system (resources for new batteries) (although bigger investment of resources on start)
It's not like batteries in swap station are fast charged all the time
But most people charge their cars slowly. Only like Taxi's use the fast charger a lot. So yeah maybe the use case could be taxi's. But at my company there are like 20+ people having EV's and barely need any fast charger. Only a couple of times a year.
For delivery vehicles and taxis, it could be a great option, so a driver can get quickly back on the road, especially if a company only have the same vehicles.
But, not only because we offer home chargers, but because it makes more sense, charging is the future of EVs, matching your home or public charger with solar panels is the sustainability winner!
Great video! Thank you for sharing 🔌⚡🚘
except solar panels arent the sustainability panacea that they have been touted as. They lose effieciency dramatically, are not recyclable, have many toxic materials in them that leech into soil if they panel is damaged, and because of supply chain issues, are more expensive now than they were a few years ago. Add to that the fact that most people are away from their homes when the sun is out and home when it is dark, you're actually at a big sustainability loss.
Even if you had a powerwall or another equivelant way of storing the energy obtained during the day, all you are doing is increasing the already massive amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere by lithium mining, shipping, and refining, not to mention the myriad human rights abuses taking place in the countries where lithium is mined.
@@SkillzorZ021it's not the way it works : you can have home batteries if you want, but most don't. The energy generated by the solar panels goes into the grid where it is consumed immediately. Solar panels efficiently does go down with age but not that much and as pollution is concerned, you got to compare it with the disaster that oil extraction, refining and transport is
You would have to create a universal battery standard. I think for HD Trucks, it would be a great service to have them scattered near mountain. Maybe just a Kicker battery that is mounted in addition to the everyday battery. Just for extended range on big loads. Big project!
This may have a spot in transport where you have fast turnaround for a delivery truck and the depot has a swap station i.e. something on a more or less set route - a bit like having a hydrogen pump at the depot.
That's a good idea
This seems to be true of EVs as a whole. Good for vehicles where you know where they're going to be used and they can be plugged in overnight, less so otherwise.
I thought manufacturers were now making the battery an integral part of the structure of the car to save weight - this would imply it’s difficult for such a battery to be made replaceable at all?
It honestly seems like a standardization and upgrade nightmare.
First you need all the car makers to agree on a small number of standards. Multiple standards for different sizes of battery will increase the number of spare batteries the swapping stations need to keep on hand. They have to support big cars, small cars, low power cars, high power cars, all with the same standards.
And then as the tech improves with higher energy density or higher power density, it sounds like a nightmare to roll out new versions. They'd have to roll out a set of the new batteries to every swap station very soon after launch. And you'll still need to support the old standards for ~20 years until the old cars are phased out. Are the swapping stations prepared to support 10 different standards between different use cases and legacy cars?
Charging standards don't really have this issue. Aside from Tesla dragging its heels, the plugs are standard and will work up to 350kw. And if changes are needed for higher power, it's much easier to make backward and forward compatible plugs than entire battery packs. Or to create adapters if more drastic changes are needed.
I could see it for fleets like busses, semis, or mail trucks. But those would require fewer standards and they'd have more control over phasing out old standards.
Yes, all these are the big picture reason why its not sustainable long term.
Gay shit comment section
For standards, the same external form factor (achieved by having the battery in segments) and having the same connectors goes a long way. So long as these swap stations are in an area with charge points nothing is lost, swapping would just be a fast optional extra when in stock. The driver could pay to reserve stock on route and see stock numbers. Cars could be built to take several different types of cell.
Some years ago I saw the video of the battery swap 'Supercharging' stations that Tesla were planning. I was amazed.
Fast charging has got so good that swapping no longer makes much sense. If it takes roughly the same amount of time to do, I would much rather not taking apart my car every time I need to go some extra miles
As an EV owner, I concur. Swapping is a dead end.
Honestly I see it as a way to generate an ongoing subscription from the mfg. Booo!!
I also have a hunch that if hot swap was the standard, then the battery packs would be a lot smaller - on the order of 100-140 miles because "the average daily drive is 40 miles, 100 miles is far enough" This would actually make EVs less convenient. We very frequently take 180-220 mile day trips. As it is, I do these day trips with no charging needed. If my hunch is correct, day trips would actually be a PITA
It was realizing how frequently I stop on road trips, and how long those stops usually are that flipped the lightbulb on why fast swap is not needed.
With a *typical* fast charge taking 12-18 minutes, the usual time I 'wait' for a charge is really 0-5 minutes with the rest of the time spent doing things I'm already going to be doing anyway in a gas car and so its not actually taking time away from driving.
*Typical* In rare cases of course I have spent more time, but that was before the charger network was as filled in as it is now.
Exactly. Constantly connecting and un-connecting high voltage electrical connections is a sure fire road to eventual unreliability......
@@Brian-om2hh Depends on how it is made. You have proper DC switches. But they are expensive as they contain IGBT's and need to switch the current down with PWM. Which is costly.
I always forget that one can still charge their Nio, it's not swapping only.
Great points about battery swapping. I, too, had the thought when I initially got into electric cars in 2014. But like you said, with the charging rates that we are currently seeing, it just makes much more sense to focus on making the charging infrastructure more ubiquitous, robust, and reliable.
Another problem is battery production volume; it's very limited. So all the batteries going into a car is paid by the customer UPFRONT! Whereas sitting there in the charging station takes time to get the money worth.
Spot on Rory. One other point is the maintenance required by the system. Installing costs money, maintaining and manning it costs tenfold. Especially in the colder European weather, where cars come into the system wet, muddy and salty most of the year. The system will wear, its complex mechanics and sensors will fail. Ever tried keeping an outdoor escalator running? We have one partially covered in our building. And guess what? It’s always busted, as is the outdoor wheelchair lift. The most important point is heating the system, batteries need to be charged at optimal temperatures, the system needs to be warm or it will freeze. Heating is expensive. My list goes on. Just improve the charging infrastructure and increase speeds. Sorted.
Do you think before you post?
Is infrastructure there presently to support widespread home or outside charging of any type, let alone fast charging?
@@abbersj2935 Yes
@@AKA001 Clearly you don't, as everything you said is answered by swapping batteries and not done in home charging.
@@abbersj2935 I guess you don't own a home but an apartment unit. Garages are always 10+ degrees celsius warmer than outside. You can preheat the Tesla battery before charging. A K is correct. Winter in many countries last for months and -20 degrees celsius is not uncommon. What works in China doesn't mean it's going to work elsewhere.
@@johdo9953 You're wrong on all counts. I own a house and a garage, unheated, detached, it's normally at outside temp.
What about integrating swap stations to store renewable energy? Using them as grid support units will be an important factor to consider. Swapping will be most viable for the micro mobility segment but any scenario where a quick turn around time is needed can benefit by this once doomed technology!
the NIO -model
If they have swaps they still need other batteries for grid stability / storage. Plus the other function requires other technology. So it's not a real savings.
That works when governments are able to force collaboration.
@@acchaladka It is savings... Once more people buy ev and older EVs are discarded now you have millions of lithium battery wasted, with Nio swapping stations you can simply swap to the latest battery hardware granted if it is compatible with your car, it will reduce landfills of abandoned vehicles
A single swap station can swap 100 EVs a day, while for charging you'd need a mall size parking lot to charge 100 EVs a day... That's assuming car owners can get space
Great idea, problem with green energy is storing it for when it’s truly needed. Perhaps Nio swapping stations can get us closer to mass V2G.
On another note, “Mr EV driver, would you like the option to upgrade your 5yr old EV to the latest battery technology?” “Er, yes please.”
I can see a few strategically placed stations to alleviate long trip / range anxiety issues but by there nature the usage would be light so not cost effective for the supplier. Better would be for smaller HGV local work where the weight of batteries could be smaller but the downtime much less per vehicle for the operator
Some people are held back from buying EVs because they are afraid of their battery going bad or becoming obsolete with better tech. Battery swapping can alleviate that fear. It can also alleviate the high up-front cost of buying an EV.
Catl is pioneering sodium ion batteries. Sodium is 1000x more abundant than lithium and is easily recycled. Sodium ion is better in almost every way than lithium batteries except for density. But you could have a low range sodium ion battery as a daily driver and swap it for a high range battery for long trips. Also you could just charge your batteries as always and just swap them if it made sense for your life style or immediate need.
As an EV owner of 3 years on my second Leaf, I have to agree with you. Battery swapping seems a great idea, however, when you’ve owned an EV you realise it’s trying to solve a problem that’s not there.
Like most EV owners I charge overnight. I have no off street parking so I plug into a street lamp in a residents charging bay. My car is my personal and driving school car so, on a day to day basis, I go out and do a days work then plug in again overnight. Battery swapping has no advantage compared to overnight charging. It would be more inconvenient because it would require a trip to a battery swap station and at 6:00 in the evening probably a wait in a queue. 15 seconds each evening and my car is plugged in near home.
Then there’s long journeys. The rapid charging network does have room for improvement. I’ve not ever been let down by it but have been mildly inconvenienced. The network is improving though, especially in the last year. No longer is charging a solitary charger in the corner of a dark car park but rows of shiny chargers. My envy for Teslas and their Superchargers has still made me order a Model 3 though. Tesla just got it right.
On long journeys rapid chargers usually coincide with a toilet break or food so the wait isn’t a problem. And while rapid charging costs more than overnight charging it’s still cheaper than running an ICE car. This is why battery swapping won’t find a market. As you say in the video, the scale and cost of the facility to store and charge enough batteries to to give drivers that 5 minute turn around without a queue will make it more expensive than rapid charging. The amount of people who will need this fast turnaround after a couple of hours driving is going to be small. As you said, is it worth it to save 12 minutes. As us humans need toilet breaks and food a battery swap will increase the time for these breaks as you have to be with the car while the battery swaps before you can get to the food or toilet, rather than about 30 seconds to connect to a rapid.
Some manufacturers are moving to structural battery packs to cut down manufacturing time and costs, and vehicle weight. This will increase range and reduce prices. A structural battery couldn’t be swapped.
Battery swap might have worked if it had been adopted initially and EVs had no way to charge other than battery swapping. It would have needed agreement of a standard from all manufacturers because as soon as one put a charge socket on a car owners would start charging overnight and ruin the business model. It would also have needed enormous investment in swap stations up front.
Nio are making some very nice cars. Hopefully the UK s one of the European countries they’re exporting to. I think they will be charged just like any other EV with a few battery swap stations that are a marketing tool.
Besides 18 minutes charging is just around the corner😁
@@mannyechaluce3814 I Have a Tesla Model 3 on order. The spec from Tesla says it will charge up to 171 miles in 15 minutes at a Supercharger.
@@EVinstructor The spec and reality are not always the same.
Don't get me wrong, love our Tesla and absolutely would buy it again. Road conditions dictate how much range you get at a supercharger.
That said you are spot on about battery swap. After almost 3 years owning a Model 3 I see it as a dead end idea
If anything I see how swapping as an excuse to make batteries a subscription product (ugh) and an opening for governments to impose a limit of 100-130 miles per battery. That in my book would greatly hamper adoption.
Given that fast charge is already a 12-18 minute event and gets you 120-180 miles, hot swap wouldn't actually 'solve' the problem people imagine.
interesting video.. 1) NIO has rolled out 200,000 cars.. that's a contribution of around $3,000 USD/car to fund the swapstation network. 2) Customers get to pay less upfront for the car though when they lease it, and NIO recognizes full price 3) the ability to lease a small capacity for city, and swap a big one when traveling 4).no degradation to worry about...all that being said, swapping makes more sense in China and not in the US
Very interesting video mate 👌
Nice! I was so afraid the video wasnt going to discuss both sides of the argument :). great work.
Battery swapping is one direction of the future bcos of simplified ownership structure. Many Europeans prefer Nio for this exact same reason of simplified ownership. Fast recharging, get latest battery technology and low cost of ownership.
China as you mentioned is easy to integrate cos many accept government leadership. Even in Europe with battery pack of 1000 km range it’s not a challenge to have many recharge locations even at higher land prices.
Just because Tesla and Renault couldn’t succeed with battery swapping, it doesn’t means it’s not gonna be a success. Battery swapping needs volume. This is one reason it’s so successful in China.
Ample is setting up battery swapping for light duty commercial vehicles. Fleet vehicles and taxis spend a similar amount of time on the road each day and may not always have enough range to last an entire day, so battery swapping may be attractive for them.
However, battery electric vehicles that have enough range to last an entire day simply need nothing more than slow, overnight charging.
An alternative for vehicles driving on highways for longer distances is in-motion charging.
I don't see any Nio cars driving around in Europe. What a joke many Europeans prefer Nio. Nio is failing big time outside China.
@@johdo9953 because at the moment Norway is the only European country where NIO delivered cars to its customers. Later this year the ET7 model will become available for delivery in Germany, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
@@Janaale So exactly how many cars did NIO sold in Norway? And how many reservations across Europe? Demand outside China is non-existent that NIO didn't want to mention or publish.
Everyone said NIO can’t make BAS work but so far they seem to be doing great- I wouldn’t doubt NIO
Well, NIO is still running as a perceived startup and not making any money. Lets see if they can change that, if not they will simply disappear again.
Sales of NIO this month has been in a decline compared to last year this month. And they making HORRIBLE HORRIBLE losses compared to their overall operation cost. While Tesla is making record sales this month compared to last year January. So doing great? not sure.
@@HermanWillems Well NIO is quite a bit younger than Tesla. Tesla also wasn't in such a great position at its age. Even now it isn't quite at its best
I loved that argument you presented and it makes sense. I’ll have to take while to mull it over to offer a counter argument. Great blog as always, however, that hoodie, come on mate. If you’re going to get serious on us 😂
Great blog - you’re the best out there. Respect ✊🏻
Whatever happened to swappable aluminium-air batteries? The theory was high density batteries that could be swapped quicker than filling your car with petrol, however as you can't charge them yourself, there has to be a large-scale recycling system in place to handle them... and we're not exactly shit-hot on that front right now.
Battery swapping also makes a lot of sense in situations where there is inclement weather, such as areas in the desert or that receive very cold winters that affect battery performance and life. It also would be prudent to perhaps situate the stations along highways where people use them for road-tripping, such as interstates in larger countries and international highways in smaller ones. People could charge when they're using them as a daily driver by plugging in at home, work, or the grocery store, then could swap when going on a longer trip, such as a vacation or business trip.
What would be useful is an idea similar to the Chocosebs. Instead of making a universal battery pack for every vehicle, which would limit design and ingenuity much the way cars were in Soviet Russia and East Germany (Lada, Trabant, anyone?). This would make it possible to swap individual cells via access panels rather than swapping the entire pack. Individual cells would allow manufacturers more freedom of design and innovation, kind of like how CDs, DVDs, and Bluray discs all are the same size. It would also allow upgrading in the future. Replace your 20 KWH cells with 30 KWH cells in five years and get more range, for example.
Also, copyright pending on that idea if anyone wants it!
Good idea but I don't fancy swapping out 7,000 battery cells one by one very often
Totally agree, swapping would work if it could be only manual, without a swapping station. It would not replace entirely charging also: for example a standard car has a built in 100 km battery, that is charged overnight for daily use, plus empty slots for max 30 kg cells, that once in will immediately transfer the energy to the primary battery if empty. This will allow them to replace them at the next station. They will be returned and replaced in automatic erogators along the freeways, like we did with blockbuster videotapes once. This gives all the advantages without having to invest on a big infrastructure.
The trend at the moment is improving capacity and weight of EVs by structurally integrating the batteries. Here in densely populated Europe with a decent electricity grid fast charging at the main roads (theoretically up to 350KW at the moment) and a range of around 350 to 450km makes more sense. Even on the german Autobahn you'd be hard pressed to cover 350km in three hours and taking a 20 minute rest isn't a bad idea. A German EV youtuber recently drove from Fulda to Amsterdam and covered 500km in under 5 hours including two charging stops in a Mustang Mach-e, beating google maps estimate.
The current crop of EVs seem to work decent in Norway where they have cold winters! That's why everybody has a socket in his garage to preheat the coolant in the car. Diesels don't start easily below -25°C 😊 Now they charge their EVs over night.
@@MrMaxsavi it will be good to see if some company like CATL take educated risk and test this ideas too
battery swapping only works for those operating a fleet and knows exactly how many and when swaps will be needed.
Adding swapping means having the ability to add capacity occasionally, but mostly just means u lease a small pack for your daily commute, then u swap it out for the occasional road trip. Makes the journeys around town even more efficient when the pack is only good for 60miles and weighs barely 🪶
I think Fiat had some concept similar to that. The Centoventi it was called. You got a battery that could do 60 miles as standard and could lease up to 4 more batteries with 60 miles each, that they'd add at the dealer for a road trip.
When I worked at a distribution center and our forklift batteries got low we would switch them out and be on our way in a matter of minutes. Charging can go wrong and stuff there should be a swap system as a back up.
Brilliant video. Thank you.
Considering it costs £20,000 to have your EV battery replaced and therefore practically makes your 5 to 7 year old car worthless I think this is the perfect solution, not only getting a full charge in the same time it takes to fill your tank with petrol and pay, but also never having to worry about your car being devalued due to a pending new battery required.
This is exactly the rational argument which goes against the corporate interests of car makers. They want to sell you new cars. They don't care about the environment. Governments need to step up and create standards everyone will follow for EVs. Then there will be a market for both batteries and stations, and used EVs.
My nine year old Leaf still has 90% of its capacity. Costs me $150 a year to charge. Will last another 5 years. Will cost around 5k (20k is what the largest capacity Tesla pack costs - hardy representative)to replace. And it is the least durable battery pack on the market.
Swapping will require extensive modification to the car, much higher costs per swap compared to regular charging, and chargers can be
installed almost anywhere you can park a car, unlike the footprint of a single bay swapping centre.
1. Modern car batteries outlive the car it's life. 2. The battery in my Tesla cost price is only around 5000 to 6000 dollar. And will become cheaper in 10+ years. 3. Those batteries in those Swap stations will also degrade, they will not remove a 90% degraded battery. The first day you get your car you can go from a 100% SOH battery to a 90% SOH battery and lose 10% range IN ONE DAY. They won't refresh the batteries if they are a little bit worse, that would cost them too much money.
This!
This is why I will never buy another EV unless it has an easily swappable/replaceable battery pack. My 9 year old EV battery was on its way out, and I was quoted $11,000 to replace it.
Solid state battery technology sounds like the real solution to charging a battery quickly. I also don't think most drivers, electric or gas powered are going on long road trips that often anyway. Charging from home isn't a big deal even if it takes all night to charge, wake up in the morning, remove the charging plug and your good to go for 2-3 days...
4680 cells are also really good for charging. In fact just normal 2170 cells do a pretty good job. It takes 15 minutes to charge too charge 321 km. Oh you have to wait in the car for 15 minutes? Why? Why not go grab a coffee or eat or literally anything else?
This is at a Tesla supercharger btw.
Most drivers don't own homes where they're allowed to put any charging infrastructure.
@@lachlanB323 Agreed, but like I said most of the time supercharging is unnecessary anyway, unless you are on a long road trip.
@@prasvasu4217 Then we can invest in 'slow' charging infrastructure in the cities like in Amsterdam where you can find a charging pole every 100 meters or so
the sweater kept me more captivated than the content
Like FCEVs,it is a non-starter. One additional thing wrong with it is that the best electrical connectors are going to give trouble after being repeatedly plugged in and out dozens of times. Just like a wall socket that loses the ability to hold a plug securely after many uses.
500KG lump bolted to bottom of a car by a roadside vending machine..Errr no… My car goes 250 miles… so after 3.5-4 hours of driving, I’m fine with 30 mins of charging and a little break thanks.
How do you think a factory works?
At some point, the bottleneck is still how fast can you charge the battery pack. So it makes sense to directly tackle charging speed instead of workarounds.
esp for large vehicles.
Yeah, but the number of battery cycles before a lithium pack is "Worn out" is directly connected to how considerately they've been charged. If you charge a cell at close to it's maximum amperage limit you get less cycles before the capacity drops off, so a battery that's charged at a lower rate will have a longer usable life. Without a big leap in battery tech, even higher powered superchargers are just going to frazzle a cars pack quicker.
Pack swapping would have the benefit of allowing the system to adaptively vary charge rates depending on demand. If a "Pack swap station" that had 10 packs in it was only seeing 2 or 3 cars an hour during the early hours of the morning, it could charge up a few of it's stock at their maximum rate, but charge up some of the others at a lower rate to extend the average lifespan of the companies stock of packs.
There's pro's and con's to both ideas, but personally, I'm thinking that apart from having to have a battery lease, a universal battery swapping system would be the best way to get people to go electric. Too many folks are still scared of the predicted depreciation an EV will experience once it gets close to 10 or so years old. At that point the main thought in the mind of any prospective buyer will be that the car may soon be needing a new battery fitting, and that would cost more than the car was worth by this point. Knowing that the manufacturers had all got behind one standard and the expensive battery pack wasn't your problem anymore might finally remove the last few worries in people's minds about going for an EV.
At the minute EV's at the point that cordless power tools were at about 25 years ago. Batteries were tool (Not even brand) specific, so when the manufacturer decided to discontinue that particular tool, the supply of batteries also dried up. This put a lot of people off going cordless because they knew that 5 years down the line, their new tool would most likely become nothing more than land fill (regardless of how well they looked after it). But since we started seeing manufactures use 2 or 3 universal battery standards for their entire range of cordless tools, people have got the confidence that they won't be stuck with something that's worthless because the battery packs shot is a handful of years.
This is only taking into account personal vehicles but for commercial 3 wheelers and other last mile logistics it makes a lot of sense
Newer/future Tesla’s have their battery pack as part of the frame structure. You could remove it, but it could be tricky or time consuming.
I never realised that elon musk owned 100% of the EV industry. Silly me.
I was into battery swapping before. But later, after heading back to square one and thinking again why we humans benefit so much from electricity is because of it's ability to store and transfer energy so quickly and controllably. This means, heading back to mechanical ways of moving energy tops out at a point where time and energy required to move the battery back and forth becomes more expensive than moving electrons.
You know, in the world of big data there was a saying that fastest bandwidth for data exchange comes in shape of a truck loaded with harddrives. Plenty of my colleagues travelled across the continents with suitcases of harddrives
@@dmitripogosian5084 That is also high risk on so many levels.
@@dmitripogosian5084 What about cost. The transfer of those kWh will be extremely expensive. NIO now subsidizes(which makes them a loss) the swapping to make it look attractive. Same as Tesla did in the beginning to give away free fast charging. The thing is, all those charging stations that cost probably up to 100K or more and they currently all need an operator with a salary. Maintenance So the CAPEX is 20x+ higher than a fast chager. the OPEX cost is also extremely high because of the operator salary + maintenance. Plus the energy prices. This all combined is going to make the swap way more expensive than a fast charger. Do take in account that for example Tesla calculates the fastest way of the route + fastest way of charging so it will never charge to 100% during the route. But a Tesla charges really fast between 20 and 80% SOC. Making Swaps almost useless in most cases. The battery swap is maybe better for a very very very small group of people. But for most people its useless and extremely expensive.
@@HermanWillems Well, energy prices affect Tesla and swapping systems in the same way. Now your next statemement 'Do take in account that for example Tesla calculates the fastest way of the route + fastest way of charging so it will never charge to 100% during the route.', if I understood correctly, is for me an immediate reason to never buy Tesla. What if I change my mine and take a detour on scenic route ? Least I want taken away the freedom to go where I want. I'll take better a bus than having to tell my car where I go in advance, and not being able to change my mind enroute.
@@dmitripogosian5084 well u can change the route and then it will recalculate. To be honest. I live in the Netherlands we have so many chargers everywhere... i have never heard people with range anxiety here. I can charge: at home, at work, almost all gas stations in Netherlands on the highway have FastNed super chargers 350kW. And add to that the many Tesla chargers. Also u can charge at most shopping malls. Even with this i barely use fast chargers. You need to just experience it. Do you have an EV because if not you can't really tell if you really really need swapping. Soon there are chargers everywhere. There is little need to those expensive swap stations.
I could see battery swapping for School Buses, Mail/Post Carriers, Amazon delivery, and other industrial/private use applications where a large owner can maintain that. But that "12 minutes" he described, that could easily be eaten up going to some remote battery swapping station, waiting in line, etc. Cheaper and more efficient to just charge the thing.
You've just described everything that is wrong with car charging, not with swapping!
3 extra considerations Rory:
1. When these batteries are not in use, they can serve as connected grid storage. That is a revenue source within itself.
2. Not owning the battery has huge appeal, given that the principle depreciating component in an EV is the battery.
3. Surely you can charge these vehicles conventionally, so yes, I agree with your maths on size and time needed, and in cities, it's not viable, but maybe I start my journey in a city, charge conventionally, and then swap out at strategy positioned spots along magor motorways.
Because your analysis assumes mutual exclusivity, it's limited. Doesn't have to be!
Excellent video Rory - I have been saying battery swopping is the only way since the day I heard of an electric car - but clearly it is not so simple.
You praise supercharging and how it becomes faster and faster, but supercharging also comes with the cost of lower battery lifetime! What people don't get is that Nio for example doesn't plan to operate battery swap stations only. Nio has its Power Portfolio where you have the option to swap the battery. Sure you could use the swapping if you have no option to charge you car at home or maybe because you only want to battery swap.
The basic idea is that battery swap coexists with super- and common charging to use the matching technology for the fitting scenario. In this case you only need to build a certain ammount of swap stations and not to cover all areas. Highways are the best example.
If you rent a battery of Nio you get:
- Some kWh of free charging and some free swaps
- upgradebility of new and better batteries(Nio added a 75kWh battery to its 70kWh with better winter performence)
- no worry if the battery dies
- no you don't get a sluggy battery because as you swap the battery it runs a diagnosis on it
Yes you need a certain amount of betteries 13/swap station in Nio's case but they are charged at rates and temperature which helps expanding the lifetime of each battery.
What I didn't get was you compairson of swapping vs supercharging speed.?
A Nio swap station takes up four supercharging spaces. So you have 312 swaps a day from 0-100%.
It takes half an hour to charge a model 3 to 80% and one hour to 100%.
So lets even take the 80% ok, 4 cars to 80% in 30mins equals 8/hour.
Thats 192 cars from 0-80% in one day for the same space as one Nio swap station with 312 swaps from 0-100%.
Nio's creative accounting will soon show cracks. Then you will be left with a car that can't charge. It's trying to burn cash to gain market share. Unfortunately burn rate is faster than demand could keep up. It can blame the supply chain now, but the cars really aren't selling outside China and China's economy is falling.
@@johdo9953 Can't charge your car???
Nio isn't selling a lot of cars in Europe because they still only sell in Norway so that point of yours is total nonsense. We are potentially heading into a recession and youre talking about a failing chinese economy. China's economy is projected to be growing a lot as their GDP that is projected to exceed the GDP of the US by 2030!
@@dennista42069 Keep dreaming. Things have started turnaround. Many people already lost their jobs and had a hard time finding another one. China's GDP is left hand passing to the right hand.
@@johdo9953 Its you against the Economic market. Those aren't my projections but those of big institutions lol 😂
@@dennista42069 Projections aren't real. If projections are always right then they are all rich and don't have to write up projections 😂. These projections are history now. YOY was growing but things have turned around and heading down. July deliveries fell from June.
The company that developed the Renault Twizy also toyed with the idea of swapping batteries at stations back in the 00s. it was literally the first thing Renault scrapped when they bought the rights.
and this "swapping" concept even goes back to the 1950s when they were working on nuclear powered cars!
A Nuclear Powered car is basically a steam engine!
So, things change, today there are throw away torches, but people decide to change batteries instead.
This reminds me of mechanical TV sets (going way back here). It's kind of over-engineered to solve the basic problem of: I need to get energy from A into B.
bruh, you were mad to do these videos..you always do a fantastic job at it.
It's funny how batteries were initially pretty much universal from aaa to car batteries and ever since the smart phone, laptops and electric cars they have become proprietary. If they could make electric car batteries universal then this might just work.
Agreed. Which is where they should actually go. Make everything standard. That will reduce the stress on the environment.
Well, the Standard should be the Pack size and connector/connector location. Then the actual batteries can improve and get better.
I think the demand for battery swapping really comes from a combination of range anxiety and charging cycle anxiety. We all own smartphones these days, and we all know the fact that, at some point, it's gonna use up its charge cycles and you might need to get a new phone because of that. Since these EVs use the same kind of battery, everyone knows at the back of their head that this will eventually happen, so there is genuine concern for the longevity of the car. The thinking behind battery swapping is that, if a battery is swapped instead of charged, you never have to worry about charge cycles.
But I think what we really need is good right-to-repair legislation so that when the time comes for a battery replacement, manufacturers and dealers aren't screwing you over and forcing you to buy a new car 10 years down the road when a battery replacement would have been sufficient.
Where i work there are 20+ people or more with Electric cars. I never heard them about range anxiety. Nobody. We got chargers everywhere. We even have a 50kW DC dual charger. And many AC 11kW chargers. Even a lot do not even charge their car daily just every week or so, and if they want to go on a long travel there are many fast chargers around.
@@HermanWillems unfortunately this scenario works in your environment. I live in South Africa, there are some electric cars now but I have not actually seen an electric charger in person, and I own ICE cars so do drive around a bit. This means for us here, owning one of them BEVs is not an easy decision to make as chargers are not ubiquitous like where you are, range anxiety is a big thing here.
It would be helped enormously by having standards i.e. battery packs must be in specific configurations and accessed using an ISO standard panel. Really, it would take the EU to enforce a standard to give it a chance. Then you'd have cross-brand usage. Another reason why they might be needed is that they would help smooth out grid demand. More batteries can be charged off-peak, rather than commuters all charging at the same time e.g. Friday evening travelling home. Seems to me 70/30 that super-fast 18 minute charging will win out.
Great explanation. I like this guy!
It was always a misguided idea. The cost, infrastructure, and collaboration required make this inefficient. Not to mention if it can only do 1-2 cars at a time the wait time selling point is completely defeated.
The cost actually works out to less then 15, 000 usd As of now a 2nd gen swap station is 250000 usd and can do 15 cars per hour with the present 3 min per car , now a tesla supercharger cost 47,000 per unit and the average time is aprox 25 to 30 minutes per car so for the same out put you would need the equivalent of 5 chargers to do the same amount of cars so the cost is only aprox 15,000 usd more . Now this gives you a option as you can charge like normal or swap , now as technology for batteries change and get better all you would do is swap units but for non swappable cars you would need a whole new car. And it's funny to mention geely as geely is huge being the 2nd largest ev company in the world and sells a suv that gets 400km per charge and cost only 14,000 usd and is coming to North America soon so pretty sure they will sell alot to the average joe
@@rdeh1678 Im in the industry, and we build in Europe converters that do AC to DC far more powerful and way cheaper. The Tesla Supercharger mass produced, would be able to be made under 10K easily. You are talking here about CAPEX. But lets talk OPEX. The operational cost of a fast charger is extremely low. Almost no moving parts, no salary of the operator. And no maintenance. The battery swap station will have both a high CAPEX and a high OPEX. Which the customer in the end has to pay, and therefore it will be a lot more expensive.
@Aerism it has nothing to do with speed or cost at no point can a battery charge in less time from a low state to 100 percent in less time then a swappable batteries , also please keep in mind that over time a battery will become less capable and range will degrade over time but if a unit from a car can be changed it allows the end user to always have the ability to have a new battery and or a battery with better technology . Case in point many older ev cars will need a battery swap but as high as 30 thousand usd or more if you consider the huge battery in the new bwm 7 series . Instead of just scrapping the car do to cost of the service it allows them a peace of mind .
@@rdeh1678 in general sense. You always need to take in account 10% degradation if any lithium battery. At a certain point the NIO swap stations will give you a 90% degradated battery pack only giving you 90kWh instead of 100. Those are just lithium batteries like anyone elses. If NIO would replace those batteries which are just a couple years old with new ones would be bad for enviornment. Agree? Lithium batteries degrade fairly quick to 90% then super slowly to 80%. Even at 80% my current Tesla Model 3 would be enough for me. Every buyer should substract 10 to 20% of the max range and ask themselves if that range is ok. The problem is for example the LFP battery can do 1 million to 2 million kilometers on the battery. Since when was the list time YOU driven a car with 1 or 2 million kilometers on it? Be honest. The battery will outlast the car. The battery then will be used for storage. And then later on recycled. People think batteries need to be replaced. This will not be the case. No need. And after 1 million kilometers u think that NIO car is still on the road? Or 2 million? No.
Battery swapping makes perfect sense for densely populated areas .. especially is large cities. It makes a lot of sense to take the battery out of the car since battery can be maintained or repaired outside of the car. Also, swappable batteries also means continuity for battery evolution. Car owners also don't have to worry about battery failures or battery life cycle. All EVs should have charging and how swap capabilities .. best of both worlds. A lot gas station can be retrofitted to include battery swap service. Need to think outside the box.
And you'l pay more than having to buy a new battery once if thats even needed because companies are not charity. your logic is flawed and unrealistic for a capitalistic world.
Honestly think the combo is best. Charge at home and swap on road-trips / if you don’t have a place to charge.
Very erudite explanation Sir. 100% agreement from me. Thank you.
Is this a subtle dig at the Fifth Gear Nio video
He's employed by both. Or was anyway. Who knows?
You make the point about "charge rates are only going to get even better with each new improvement". This just emphasises the fact that purchasing an EV now is money down the drain. Who will want to buy your second hand EV with a charge time sometime between 30 and 60 minutes, the low used price will reflect that. There are way too many known not knowns, let alone the unknown not knows, with EVs at the moment. Many people are going to get their fingers well and truly burnt!
Not necessarily. Most people charge their cars overnight at home. And average commutes are only a couple of dozen miles. There’s not an enormous need (on a regular basis) to charge a car fully in one quick blast.
Exactly, Hybrid power is more appealing. Rory forgot to mention NIO is leading the pack in R&D into new battery tech. We'll all be using their products soon. When the tesla new battery bills start to come in 5 years time they'll be sorry.
@@AutoTraderTV Why this emphasis on 'commuters' all the time? There are many who earn their living on the road every day and would need fast charging to be available for them to do their jobs effectively. These people drive diesels for a reason.....long range and ease of restoring that range quickly. Their livelihoods rely on not sitting around doing nothing during their working day!
since many of us still use ICE car, let's just talk about. swapping fuel tank.. that would be cool and dangerous
@@malph9216 like my DPD delivery driver. Got the email with an hour delivery slot, proudly proclaiming my parcel would be delivered by an EV van with the usual pictures of sunshine and leaves plastered all over it… because y’know… environment. One missed delivery window and a ten hour delay later and my parcel turns up in a diesel van because the electric one ran out of charge. The ICE ain’t dead yet, no matter how many people say otherwise.
Good presentation - agree with everything you say here.
Fascinating. I've long thought the charging issue to be the strongest deterrent to EV adoption and felt battery swapping to be the best solution. I agree that development and adoption of a standard is necessary. Though auto manufacturers are in competition with each other, and hesitant to collaborate, there are many aspects to every vehicle which are standardized. Think light bulbs, radio dimensions, gas tank fillers, tires etc. I am still bullish on battery swapping.
For sure, it will be necessary for regulations to enforce a universal standard. Look how it took the eu to make apple piss off with their proprietary phone chargers
When I first heard about 'range anxiety' my first thought was to introduce battery swapping, it made a lot of sense a the time... but today the EV industry is too diverse in Ev implementation, the design, the kwhrs.. charging systems...
Cars should get their stuff together like bikes and motorcycles makers have. E-Bikes today have standard and you can swap out batteries between brands. Piaggio (who also own Vespa) are following a new standard for motorcycles and scooters and have vehicles out now that you can swap and charge at home. Honda/Yamaha and others planning on supporting that standard and putting out vehicles vary soon that you can interchange batteries with.
The main issue is each EV uses different sized batteries to be optimal for it's weight and size. For this to work we'd need standard sizes much like AA or AAA batteries. We also can't have water cooled batteries either as we can't have the cooling lines hook to the car without making removal a much harder task. Considering water cooling is basically required to maintain the batteries, it would mean burning through batteries faster.
Then the stations themselves while faster for the user are mechanical nightmares. It's already unreliable enough getting to an EV charger that works on a roadtrip, and those are literally just a box with a relay on it. These things are giant machines that remove screws have hydraulic lines everywhere, and then still need to have fast chargers built in so the old batteries are fully charged in time. It's just not viable.
THE. FINAL. FORM.
Your home battery pack can be shared with your car. It’s installed in the floor of your garage. If you’re commuting, you only carry a small pack while you’re out and about that can quickly fast charge. If you need to go for a longer drive (which is usually planned) slap in some more kw before leaving the house and go. While you’re not using the batteries in the car, they function as a battery backup for the house.
Cordless drills became massively popular after they introduced swappable battery packs, and cars should do the same; they should have some percentage of their range in a removable cartridge pack. A 5.3 kWh Tesla module is only 55 pounds, and a healthy adult can lift that one ar a time if they were like plug in cartridges. Standardize a cartridge and get all manufacturers to build a few battery slots in the trunk.
It would make sense for fleet vehicles like UPS trucks or even Semis where swap is faster than recharge.
Works better for scooters
WAIT! do you have a robot to swap your scooter battery?!?!
Very timely video! Battery swapping was a topic of conversation in the pub yesterday. Looks like it's not going to be an alternative for big cars any time soon. My mate is getting a Polestar and intends to drive it from London to Madrid and back, on a long route via various other towns. Good luck with that, Ryan. He's going to need military levels of planning and timing all the way through France and Spain.
I am doing similar in an eC4, Midlands to spa 24hr. Charger availability is much better on the continent and likely only need 2/3 charge stops to make it.
Planning is literally as simple as entering "Madrid" into ABRP Nav... Takes a grand total of what, 15 seconds?
Good video, but there are "simple" solutions to some of your strongest points: 1) Government standardized batteries so batteries are interchangeable across manufacturers. 2) EV makers retain ownership of the batteries (dramatically reducing car costs) so you aren't giving up the brand-new battery you paid for in exchange for an older used battery. 3) Partner with existing Gas/petrol companies to install "battery swap kiosks" at every gas station (instead of dedicated facilities) so gas stations continue to make money as people move to EVs. 4) Rapid-chargers can charge dead batteries in roughly 20-minutes now, so stations can bulk-charge their swapped dead batteries quick enough to always have a supply of charged batteries ready. 5) A kiosk at every gas station eliminates "range anxiety" as getting a full charge is as easy as getting a full tank of gas (and in less time.)
Great video, Sir.
with the latest fast chargers you usually only need 5 to 10 minutes to charge anyway on road trip stops. I was a bit worried about it before buying an EV but since having one it has been a total non issue. plus even if your road trip routes take a long stop or two, you save time the rest of your life charging at home and never going to gas stations.
I feel there is one aspect heavily overlooked here. EV's really only make sense if you can produce the electricity using renewable energy. And like Elon Musk said himself, producing that energy isn't the problem; it's getting it when you need it, where you need it (paraphrasing...). 360kW chargers make no sense if that peak load forces us to spin up a generator that runs on fossil fuel. We need to find ways to match up energy demand with the availability of renewable energy. That means changing our behaviour or changing our renewable energy production. Audi is a good example of how NOT to do it: if you need a 100kWh battery to hardly get to 300 miles and to compensate, you put a very fast charger in there, you completely missed the point of driving an EV. If we can't get that renewable energy producted at the level at which we need it, we need to change our charging behaviour to match the production we can meet.
That's why I think, swappable batteries deserve another consideration. You can continue driving, while your used battery will charge when the renewable energy is available. They can be charged fast during the day or during heavy winds and slow during calm nights. And all the while, you still get to your destination, without even thinking of the weather.
'' EVs really only make sense if you can produce the electricity using renewable energy ''
Except that statement is strictly false which makes everything else you wrote after it incorrect. Due to the extreme inefficiency of combustion engines in cars, EVs still make sense even without renewable energy because they still produce less emissions since powerplants are more efficient than engines (even while taking distribution losses into account) and a portion of energy produced by the grid is renewable even if it's not entirely clean.
In simple term (using made up numbers), gas cars produce 100% emissions and 40% energy while powerplants produce 90% emissions and 80% energy. Even if your country runs on oil powerplants, you're better off.
@@dzello Even coal powered EVs are better in grand schema. Coal power plants produce electricity but also heated water for city. And electric car requires about 2-3 kg of coal for every 100km driven.
Amazing presenter , funny informal and honest
I recently went from the coast in the south of France to Paris in an MG4, so not a Tesla and this was really no trouble at all. Each time we stopped the battery was charged pretty much to the max in the time it took to get a coffee and go to the bathroom!
One trick, if you travel on France, look for Lidl stores, a lot of them offer 130 kWh rapid chargers priced at €0.40 per kW
Maybe swapping can also get faster, cheaper, and more standardized as the engineering advances. No need for a complete halt to the idea, there may be room for It as a better solution in certain situations.
It might only work if land and batteries are cheap.
@@johdo9953 exactly, the more they are adopted the cheaper they can get.
Battery swapping is a GREAT idea. As a share holder of NIO, I can tell you a lot of arguments in your video is wrong. First of all, swapping is a feature on top of regular charging. It is designed mainly for long trip. Just imagine spending an hour to charge a EV every few hours of driving, swapping that in few minutes is a great idea. Secondly each station only need to keep 12 battery inside, compare to the amount of cars NIO made, battery in station is a very small amount.
This works for Nio now because they are not as big as Tesla. As Nio expands, they will abandon battery swapping
@@pownder Are you the CEO or what? :D You're wrong.
@@Drgnrt brother, superchargers need about 1 hour or so to charge a battery to 100%. To make battery swapping viable, a station will need to have about 20-30 batteries at every instance. All those stations will also have to be managed by Nio. This may be sustainable if you are making 10k cars every year. But when you start making 200k cars or more, it stops being viable. Batteries will not be available. Also consider that the battery is the most expensive and difficult part of the car to make, wouldn't Nio rather focus on making batteries for cars rather than spares? Battery swapping can only be sustainable if every other EV OEM uses the same batteries and also swaps
@@pownder You make it sound like they make 10k cars a year, while in fact they are aiming for almost 200k this year already and they recently confirmed battery swap will be available for their mass market brand that's supposed to come next year. I'm not trying to argue here, as I don't have a crystal ball, but you'll be able to review your statement soon enough.
@@pownder It's not like the battery swap station needs almost 3-4 times as long to charge that pack. Battery swap station only has a 50KW charger. If You leave a fully flat 100KWh battery, it will take at least 2 hours to charge it. I know there are more batteries inside. But after 11th battery swap You have a station with all packs that are empty except one that will be half charge. Also swap stations will be degrading batteries because they will be constantly "fast charged". They will be a target for hackers/thieves. Cars with swappable battery packs will be more expensive than their non-swappable competitors. Each battery pack without a car, is a wasted resource.
1. Optimization. A large fast-charging station can sustain 12-24-100 vehicles. A swap station has one. Do the math.
2. Limitation. You will have to either wait in line for the swap, and sit inside the car while its doing its thing. Time that you can use to go to the bathroom, or watch a swallow. Generally you rarely wait for a 100%charge on a road trip. 20-80% is very fast.
3. Degradation. Swaps still fast charge as they use maybe 10-20 batteries for each station. If they wouldn’t, it would be a huge fail.
4. Accessibility. Get a plug anywhere, not depend on 1000 stations. Millions vs a few thousands. Logistic costs to have swap are probably too high for such a niche type of driver. Also, swap cars are extra expensive due its design for this feature.
5. All the other things Rory mentioned, like companies might fail, who owns the battery, etc
6. Since swaps are mostly, if not entirely, made by China, I for one would NEVER depend on the CPP. No thank you!
PS: I own a Highland, I charge at work with slow charging and its SC infrastructure is superb, at least here in Europe.
Battery swap is the only viable paradigm for dense urban areas and high-rise communities in which individual charging setups are not possible. There are some compelling advantages for the swap stations replacing petrol stations. First, regional recharging, checkout and distribution centers would be located adjacent to power generating stations or renewal harvesting sites, thus reduce the threat of neighborhood distribution grides being overloaded. Assuming that national and international standards for geometry, size and connectivity be created, a substantial degree of protection from technological obsolescence as breakthrough improvements in battery technology for density, safety and cost comes forth. Also, eighteen wheelers for back-and-forth transfer to the stations from the power generating setup would replace tank wagons, with their inherently empty back hauls.
Battery swapping would reduce lithium usage. It would allow cars to be shipped with much smaller batteries you could then swap to a bigger battery when you need to do a long distance drive.
no, you would need to produce multiple batteries per vehicle as the use-limiting factor, charge time, is removed. In your example you would need dozens of batteries of varying sizes sat idle/charging in swap stations waiting for someone to come along and take them. the battery swapped would then be useless for several hours while it charges. swap station providers would not fast charge these batteries because that increases costs and decreases longevity
I agree 100%. Battery swapping is a stupid dream, with no purpose, economic case, or technical ability.
What you gain:
- During the occasional road trip, "charging" now takes 5 minutes instead of 20
What you lose:
- You no longer own your battery, it has to be leased with a monthly fee
- Stations are now almost 10 times more expensive (600,000€ for a swapping station vs an average of 70,000€ for an Ionity hypercharger)
- That means they're 10 times less abundant
- Not to mention, chargers serve all brands, swappers only your own, so it will be even LESS common to find a working station
- Also, since there's fewer of them, there WILL be queues
- Not to mention that during rush hour, batteries may just simply run out
- The battery needs more robust casing, so weight goes up, efficiency goes down
- Cars have to be built around the shape of the battery, so interior packaging suffers
- And all of that will be more expensive than if you just simply charged for 15 minutes longer
And at the end of it all, the truth is, you can leave your car while it's charging and go do other things you do on a typical stop, food, bathroom, etc., no such option with a swap, so total time stopped will be the same anyway.
Battery swapping is idiotic.
Possibilities
-Collective ownership of batteries at a co-op
-Sufficiently universal standards
-Economy of scale continues trending positively
Its actually a great idea. One of the issues with the 2nd hand market is the big unknown over battery condition. It also means that day to day you can carry a smaller lighter battery, and when you go on a long trip you swap for a long range heavy battery.
Battery swapping is great for EV owners in China because a lot of them live in apartment buildings that do not have private garages that can provide overnight charging in their own homes. Besides, the swapping of batteries is just an added feature on top of charging stations. I’m all for it.
Ev altogether is a bad idea.
Don't say that. The locals will be out with their pitch forks
Says the man who has never owned one.....
And here they come 😅
@@Brian-om2hh yes, I'm not a monkey to drive a car that needs hours to charge in a country where fuel is cheaper then the electric bill the car would require. Charging the car 1 time is as much electricity as we use in a whole month and we don't even try to save energy, we simply don't require much.
Battery swapping would take more of my time than charging. I have to sit in the car while the swap happens. For charging I park, plug in, go off to pee/eat/etc, unplug, leave. That's a few seconds charging for me.
This is what people don't get. My car spends time charging. I do not.
nice one mate
I think you need to revisit this topic again after a year has passed.
What I think? I agree with you. Makes no sense. Especially not for cars with fast charging like Hyundai, Kia, Porsche, etc.
What about if I own an e-Fartmobile, live in a flat in the middle of the town, with no parking? (like the majority of the people...?
Battery swapping is a very old idea, going back to the early 1990's. Before the advent of powerful lithium batteries and modern 'skateboard' platforms, it was thought that automotive EV batteries would be far more modular and universal, allowing most gas stations to act as battery charge & swap stations as well. The reality however is that such a system would be horribly impractical and inefficient with the 90's lead-acid battery technology of the time. It looks as if these Chinese companies have the problem somewhat streamlined with their automated swapping stations, but it still appears more gimmicky than practical.
However the idea of a more replaceable and modular battery pack in EVs is very practical, since one of the greatest expenses in EV repair is in replacing dead and worn out battery packs, as dozens of TH-cam videos can testify to. Until replacing battery packs is made simpler, I would never recommend purchasing a used Tesla or any other EV for that matter.
swap stations have several benefits over fast charge stations: 1) you can select the range of your battery for long trips, and you can buy a cheaper car without the battery, unlimited swaps per station, as the first empty batter gets full, every 10th swap and so on. i think its briliant
It’s a great solution for towing options or for service matters
To get charged from 10 to 80% you need 250kwh charging station and precondition battery for it. Most charging places are 50 or 100kw.
yes, now BUT most new ones will be faster so once you have rolled out a massive battery swap network taking years all the current vehicles will charge fast anyway. Also most people will charge slower in the 90% of the time the vehicle isn't being used like when you are asleep or at work!
Hydrogen powered vehicles makes a lot more sense for a large majority of the transportation sector, imo. Personal EVs need further battery development so they can charge much faster and offer a reliable range estimate.
Hydrogen is merely terrible variant of battery…
Expensive, hard to handle, hard to keep safe, with massive losses to produce from electricity…
Basically usable only for off-grid aplications and ships, maybe heavy trucks.
Hmmm...
I not sure I would agree that battery swapping stations necessarily are a bad idea - though, I'm absolutely on-board with you on the need to get our current charging network more reliable and more available.
Car company financial costs aside - that's for them to decide if they can afford it - in the same way that sole-access to the Tesla Supercharger network has always been a MASSIVE factor in buyers choosing Tesla models, I could absolutely imagine that having sole-access to a network of battery swapping stations will help sell more and more Nio products.
For them, it's a marketing USP, just as the Supercharger network has always been for Tesla.
As long as Nio's efforts are in addition to other charge-point providers upgrading the current provisions, them surely that's got to be worth having.
£600000 is nothing for construction. Manufacturers could agree together upon a standard to get this working. The standard would only need to be on the form factor not on the cell technology as you could select the cell tech at the station depending on your requirements.
Cell swapping could also be done by hand in banks of batteries, service station staff could do this and during afterhours people could rely on charging instead
At last …. someone is being realistic about this subject. Never catching on.
Well he mentions that battery tech will evolve, but in fact the swapping technology gets faster over time as well. Having a battery swap capable car is just one extra method of battery replenishment, one extra option if you own the car, not everyone can charge overnight at home.
@@Drgnrt sorry but this will never catch on. It will never become a standard across manufacturers and will just never happen. Just think of all those spare batteries lying about not in cars. There’s a shortage of minerals already and so you think they’ll waste it on spares?
@@richardblayney5898 It may it may not become a standard. Either way let's do a quick math, they have sold 215k cars and operate 1000 swap stations each with around 11 batteries, there's only 5% of extra batteries compared to the number of cars and their concept works. I believe this is a point that many people miss or think that a crazy number of batteries is required. Battery swap is not a must, it's a premium feature that allows you to spend more time behind the wheel. Even during the swap you don't have to leave the car, you just press the touch screen, let the car & swap station do their thing and drive off, no matter if it's scorching hot or thunderstorm outside.
@@Drgnrt this is only working in one company in china where the state dictates what happens regardless of what the manufacturers or people actually want. At the end of the day it just wont catch on. Battery tech is advancing beyond the capabilities of this system. This fixes what is quickly becoming an old problem. It’s already out of date.
Pointless, especially with solid state hopefully becoming more of a reality.
Pointless without a solid state battery
When solid state battery comes, you can simply just swap out your old lithium battery. Also, when solid state battery improves, you can upgrade it too.
Maybe things are significantly different in Europe, but in North America, it seems like about 1 in 3 (non-Tesla) chargers is broken or otherwise "offline" at any given time. Then there is the shocking rarity of fast charge stations or the even more shocking price to use a fast charge station when you find one that is available and functional. This video makes some good points, but it still seems like an idea with a future.
This make sense, Thanks Rory.