Battery swapping is a technology that could solve one key barrier for EV adoption: consumers’ range anxiety and the long waiting time for battery charging. Wouldn’t you feel more assured on a weekend trip if you knew you could stop at a swap station and replace depleted battery packs with fully charged ones in five minutes? But this isn’t easy to do, as Tesla and Better Place’s past failures. In China, however, battery swapping has been a reality for a couple of years. How did Chinese companies like Nio make it work with 2,300 swapping stations nationwide? What can companies outside China learn from the Chinese experience?
“Battery Station” vs. “Gas Station” should’ve been a no brainer from day one.
Next best plan should be “electric roads” that are powered by green tech.
Of course it all would be massively expensive. Sadly, it’s clear that the powers that be to protect Earth’s climate do not give a shit.
Highways could totally have power lines overhead…the problem is just finding the best way of getting it to the car safely (I don’t like the trolley-style solution).
Not sure what the “trolley style” is.
My exposure to electric roads are electro-magnetic rails under the road that provide a constant electric field that cars drive over.
Honestly, I think it may be possible to build entire roads with enough crushed metal elements in the asphalt/concrete and a slight low power charge throughout the entire surface would be able to keep any vehicle battery at a steady charge.
But, I’m not a scientist/engineer/electrical specialist, etc …
You might be underestimating how much power a car consumes while driving. For example, a Tesla model 3 has an efficiency of about 130 Wh/km in mild weather at highway speeds. Assuming that on the highway you’ll travel 100 km/h, that means you’ll use 130*100 = 13.000 Wh/h, a constant power draw of 13kW. That’s enough to power perhaps 8-12 houses on average.
A km of road could have, let’s say, 200 cars on it (4 lanes, 20m per car). That means you’d need to pump about 2.6 megawatts of power into every kilometer of road to keep them all topped up.
EDIT: fucked up math
And that doesn’t seem to take into account transmission losses. Even the best wireless phone chargers are maybe 70% efficient. This may hit 40% if you’re lucky. So double that figure.
Does using a period in your number not cause confusion? 13.000 vs 13,000. I first read it is 13 since the zeros mean nothing following a period where im from. No shade, just curious.
Apologies. I’m from a country where the meaning of the period and comma is reversed compared to the US, so I did it this way out of habit.
No need to apologize. I didn’t know they were reversed. Do yall do periods for three digits? 1.000.000,00?
Yup, just like that
Trolly style = hooking on to an over-road power line.
Yes, I should’ve known. It was a popular thing in my area with a bus line that stopped just within the past 3 years.
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It’s a no brainier, until you deal with standardizing the battery and attachment mechanisms across many manufacturers. Then figuring out the machines necessary to automate the process of removing the battery and swapping in a new one. Then dealing with people who abuse their battery and bringing them to EOL early. Then deploying all of that nationwide.
Oh, and it limits where you can place the battery. You can’t integrate it into the frame, which has some big advantages in reducing weight.
Conversely, charging stations are relatively easy. You need to standardize the plug, which ain’t nothing, but it’s far easier than an entire battery release mechanism. The charge stations themselves aren’t much more than a transformer, some high voltage electronics, and some controls. Again, not nothing, but way easier than an automated garage for battery replacement.
Charge stations were always going to be able to race way ahead in deployment timelines, and we still don’t have enough of them. If we had focused on battery swap stations, we’d be even further behind.