Battery Electric Vehicle News / Enjoying the Transportation Revolution

shinytop

Martyn1981 said:

shinytop said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61907734

I think this is just as important as news of the next gigagactory or latest 2 tonne SuV.  This is going to be the mainstay of the change  to EVs in a lot of places. 

I also think the massive rollout of BEV two wheelers in Asia is incredibly important, and the speed of adoption is great news too. But most impressive is the battery swapping that's taking place with the very simple 'wall of batteries' where folk drop off a battery and take a charged one. A really elegant solution.

I was hoping for something similar for 4 wheelers.  Obviously some sort of mechanisation would be needed because of the size/weight. But that's not the way things are going for now.

Martyn1981

shinytop said:

Martyn1981 said:

shinytop said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61907734

I think this is just as important as news of the next gigagactory or latest 2 tonne SuV.  This is going to be the mainstay of the change  to EVs in a lot of places. 

I also think the massive rollout of BEV two wheelers in Asia is incredibly important, and the speed of adoption is great news too. But most impressive is the battery swapping that's taking place with the very simple 'wall of batteries' where folk drop off a battery and take a charged one. A really elegant solution.

I was hoping for something similar for 4 wheelers.  Obviously some sort of mechanisation would be needed because of the size/weight. But that's not the way things are going for now.

NIO's been doing well in China with it's battery swop option, but most attempts by other have failed. But NIO are expanding outside of China with the battery swop option, but it adds monthly cost. I'm not the biggest fan for 'normal' cars, but did think the idea would do better.

Some of the practical issues that have made the news, is the need to settle on a battery pack size at the early development stage. You could have it half full for smaller cars, but what if it physically doesn't fit. Then there's the issue of the swop stations and their size, which look to be about the area of 5-6 parking spaces. So a 5min swop (x6 vehicles) would equal 25-30 mins of charging if the spaces had normal chargers. And perhaps a big hurdle going forward is that you have to have more battery packs than BEV's whilst resources are scarce, but I'm not sure that's too big a problem for NIO as not all BEV's they sell take part in the scheme, and of course most won't be swapping each day.

I'll keep an eye for more news stories on swappable batts for cars, but may be thin on the ground.

However, to flip things over (in my mind), I'm a huge fan of the battery swop idea for farm vehicles, and there was a news article about a small/medium sized tractor that has swappable batts (I'll try to find it, perhaps a year ago, and I recall it was blue, not that that narrows it down much). Only my thoughts, and not yet in existence (I think) but like battery tools that share batts, I wonder if you could have a range of farm vehicles with interchangeable batts, thus reducing initial purchase cost?

Combine that with large buildings / barns with PV, and on-site skilled operators with heavy plant, such as telehandlers, and a farm may be able to go mostly BEV, and 'farm' their own fuel on site. Well, one can dream!

Martyn1981

Here we go, old article I posted, then a newer article (that I think I posted) mentioning the swappable batt packs at $18k.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77712456/#Comment_77712456

Solectrac launches new 70 HP, 60 kWh electric tractor for $75,000

The Solectrac e70N costs $74,999 before the aforementioned $18k swappable battery add-on.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

shinytop said:

I was hoping for something similar for 4 wheelers.  Obviously some sort of mechanisation would be needed because of the size/weight. But that's not the way things are going for now.

NIO's been doing well in China with it's battery swop option, but most attempts by other have failed. But NIO are expanding outside of China with the battery swop option, but it adds monthly cost. I'm not the biggest fan for 'normal' cars, but did think the idea would do better.

Battery leasing might work for new cars (bought on PCP / PCP / leased as company cars) but was always a downside to used Renaults. I can see it being a hurdle for this sort of scheme too.

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

most impressive is the battery swapping that's taking place with the very simple 'wall of batteries' where folk drop off a battery and take a charged one. A really elegant solution.

At risk of my comment being "discussion" and then I get banned.

I noted something in the past week or so about swappable batteries and then the article was posted today. 
The issue for the battery lease Renaults has already been mentioned.
My personal concern with a battery swap solution would be that I could have a battery that I've taken care of to preserve the condition of the battery through best practice charge / discharge cycles then swap and get some battery that has not had the same level of care (or is just older / further degraded) so has lower capacity than my "own" battery.

I am also unsure, for a private car, where the edge cases are that would need a battery swap and cannot be met by overnight charging.

• 100 kWh at 4 miles / kWh is 400 mile range
• 400 mile is 8 hours driving, having due allowance for not every mile being on free-flowing dual carriageway.
• Within that 8 hours, there must be some stops and top-up charging can be done.
• Overnight, can charge the 100 kWh battery from zero to 100% in 14 hours on single phase electricity

It seems I'd only need a swappable battery on those occasions where I was doing consecutive days in a row of back-to back driving all day without watering.

I'll stop now as I must not say too much.  BEV's are wonderful
To validate my post, here is some news about Hyundai / Kia challenging Tesla in USA:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-25/these-electric-cars-are-quietly-dominating-the-ev-market

JKenH

I wonder with battery swaps how many extra batteries would be needed. Battery manufacturing is very CO2 intensive so would we end up manufacturing, say, 25% more batteries than we really need to keep a stick if charged batteries available for swapping out. 

Some of the new battery technologies are projecting around 5-10mins for 10-80% charge so would there be much time saving anyway? I am talking about cars here where the batteries are too heavy for DiY swaps. I see the attraction for motorbikes where the user can unplug and plug in a new one themselves in seconds. I just don’t see it transferring across to cars. Just my opinion. 

Martyn1981

US review article for Grumpy as I think he said his brother has ordered a Toyota. It seems there are issues with fast charging speed, so if the vehicle is expected to use fast charging regularly, then it may be worth reading. Perhaps Toyota are playing it safe at first and will revise charging limits if all goes well, but that's entirely a guess by me, can't back it up at all.

TOYOTA BZ4X ELECTRIC SUV REVIEW: MEDIOCRE AT BEST

Exiled_Tyke

JKenH said:

I wonder with battery swaps how many extra batteries would be needed. Battery manufacturing is very CO2 intensive so would we end up manufacturing, say, 25% more batteries than we really need to keep a stick if charged batteries available for swapping out. 

Some of the new battery technologies are projecting around 5-10mins for 10-80% charge so would there be much time saving anyway? I am talking about cars here where the batteries are too heavy for DiY swaps. I see the attraction for motorbikes where the user can unplug and plug in a new one themselves in seconds. I just don’t see it transferring across to cars. Just my opinion. 

I'm not concerned about the production of extra batteries. In theory they would all get used up in time. Indeed, such a scheme may add to the useful life of the vehicles themselves thus creating a net saving. 

However, I do agree with you that on balance this just doesn't seem feasible for cars, given the necessary bulk. 

I do wonder whether it could lead to an industry of small lightweight Vehicles with exchangeable batteries? something between a Sinclair C5 and a smart car? 

It will be interesting to see which way this plays out. 

Grumpy_chap

Martyn1981 said:

US review article for Grumpy as I think he said his brother has ordered a Toyota. 

Yes, he has. 
Due some time in 2023 apparently.
A horrendous lead time but by then Toyota may have fixed the wheel-falling-off issue and it will give time for others to experience real-world fast charging and what the challenges are.
AIUI, fast charging is detrimental to all batteries and best considered as a "when necessary" option rather than default first choice option of possible.

shinytop

Exiled_Tyke said:

JKenH said:

I wonder with battery swaps how many extra batteries would be needed. Battery manufacturing is very CO2 intensive so would we end up manufacturing, say, 25% more batteries than we really need to keep a stick if charged batteries available for swapping out. 

Some of the new battery technologies are projecting around 5-10mins for 10-80% charge so would there be much time saving anyway? I am talking about cars here where the batteries are too heavy for DiY swaps. I see the attraction for motorbikes where the user can unplug and plug in a new one themselves in seconds. I just don’t see it transferring across to cars. Just my opinion. 

I'm not concerned about the production of extra batteries. In theory they would all get used up in time. Indeed, such a scheme may add to the useful life of the vehicles themselves thus creating a net saving. 

However, I do agree with you that on balance this just doesn't seem feasible for cars, given the necessary bulk. 

I do wonder whether it could lead to an industry of small lightweight Vehicles with exchangeable batteries? something between a Sinclair C5 and a smart car? 

It will be interesting to see which way this plays out. 

Yup thinking about it maybe not for the current crop of large EVs.  But I think these sorts of smaller vehicles are going to be needed.  There may not be enough people who can afford £40k plus EVs, either new or 5 years on second hand, to replace the current ICE private car fleet.  Or raw materials to make them for that matter.