"But he surely must mean something different!"
No he doesn't. Sometimes a swap is a swap. If this thread had a "vote-to-close-this-thread" button I'd have pressed it by now.
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"But he surely must mean something different!"
No he doesn't. Sometimes a swap is a swap. If this thread had a "vote-to-close-this-thread" button I'd have pressed it by now.
NigelM
Recovering Member
Don't worry, there's at least 4 others just like this one..... :wink:
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Probably because it's tough to see how Tesla could pull off the logistics and make it worthwhile. As I keep saying, we've been surprised before and if there's something we don't get why not wait till it's actually presented tomorrow night?
Taking out a battery to charge it in a few minutes time and then putting it back, is not swapping. That is charging.
strider
Active Member
He paraphrased a quote attributed to Henry Ford. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse."
yes you can. metal air range extender or super cap in the frunk. pop it in, drive off. car recharges while you're driving.
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Now if only you could easily battery swap an iphone...then you wouldn't need to buy a new one every year when the damn thing goes dead on you.
Raffy.Roma
Rome (Italy)
This would be the perfect solution. I also always think to charging an EV while driving.
^^^ this. I highly doubt there will be any faster charging. It's already dangerous to charge a li-ion battery as fast as Tesla is already doing. While they can mitigate some risks with cooling etc, they are still present. IMO (as a non-battery guru) anything faster would probably risk permanent damage to the batteries or worse.
As I get it, SWAP is not only the word for exchange of something, but also exchange of a stream. When you look swap up in Wikipedia, you find the following definitions for computers; and in my opinion Tesla Model S is closer to a computer than to the old fashioned fuel car
Swap (computer science)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search
In computer programming, the act of swapping two variables refers to mutually exchanging the values of the variables. Usually, this is done with the data in memory. For example, in a program, two variables may be defined thus (in pseudocode):
Not super fast swapping, but straightforward: iPhone battery replacement videos:
iPhone 4 Repair - iFixit
EarlyAdopter
Active Member
Speculation over the event tomorrow aside, do we have anyone signed up to live blog/post about it here? Elon tweeted that the demo is at 8pm, but the video won't be posted until 9:30pm. I'm gonna want to know how it went down before then.
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jeff_adams
Member
My thoughts exactly regarding BP's problem not being with their technology.
$50m to $100m overall means $250k to $500k per swapper. It's a bit cheaper than BP, but not by a lot.
BP however had no other use for the batteries being swapped. Tesla does. So maybe the technology part Elon was referring to is the better overall integration in the entire model, and not so much the act of swapping.
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So you would need specialized flatbed with a swapper to go and pick up a battery for you (potentially 65 miles away) and bring it to you?
As opposed to just taking any existing flatbed that's already out in the wild to the next charger?
So it's less convenient and more expensive. Not a great combination.
The other thing being missed is that Better Place relied heavily on the swapping - much more than Tesla will. They needed lots of stations and lots of availability because their cars were short range.
The Model S is two notches above that. The Model S has a 200+ mile range, so a great many of the trips ( probably the vast majority ) that a BP car would need swapping or charging - the Model S does not.
The second notch is supercharging. If a swapper isn't near you, maybe a supercharger is. If superchargers are cheaper than swappers, you can have more of those. If there is a location that doesn't get enough traffic for a swapper, it might get enough for a couple of superchargers.
Lastly, Tesla can roll out swappers to improve the convenience of the Model S as demand requires, BP needed to bootstrap an area with them or their cars were crippled. You can happily drive a Model S for 8+ months without a swapper or supercharger anywhere nearby - most of us have.
Those things combined will let Tesla get away with a couple orders of magnitude fewer swappers than Better Place needed.
So if it is free or cheap to swap out my battery, can I do it right before I sell the car?
That would save me a ton compared to the $12,000 battery replacement cost.
If I was at a point where the car is 5 or 6 years old and I am ready for something new, I would just swap a few times till I get a really good battery in there, then sell my car.
That would save me a ton compared to the $12,000 battery replacement cost.
If I was at a point where the car is 5 or 6 years old and I am ready for something new, I would just swap a few times till I get a really good battery in there, then sell my car.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Tesla will likely structure their scheme to account for this. There's been multiple proposals:
-Battery rental (you get your pack back)
-Battery monthly lease
-Minimum quality guarantee (you get a pack back with similar condition or there is a set standard in which case your car might not qualify)
-Pay $12k fee (or other) first to get access to swap
At any rate, one simple way Tesla can prevent "gaming" the system this way is to not tell you the quality of the battery you are getting back during swapping. Plus it'll be tough to certify the quality of your battery to a potential buyer and the buyer can always go and swap for another one afterwards (so not sure this will help resale much compared to not swapping and just selling the car).
I think I'm going to start using XorXorXor as shorthand for super-swapping just for a modicum of entertainment.
EarlyAdopter
Active Member
<chuckle> Yes, I meant tomorrow. Will edit post. Rest of content remains - anyone planning on attending who can live blog/post from it?
Check with Jalopnik...
OK, just kidding, but I'm sure there will be some repo... ehrm, bloggers attending that will have something up before the video posts.
I doubt they'll structure it so you get your own pack back. I also have a hard time believing it's going to be something that's costly either. I would put my money on the "don't worry about your battery pack" comments Elon's made in the past, which leads me to believe it's along the lines of a minimum quality guarantee. It's also possible that they could do something like 'x number of swaps per x amount of miles (or days) are free, anything above that there will be a small fee'. That would at least make it available to everyone to use, not just someone whose taking advantage of it on a daily basis or someone who is uber rich and can afford to spend another one-time cost of $12k etc.
Lots of gems here in this exclusive Reuters interview with Elon... much of the interview is on dealer issues, but, there is a good portion devoted to pack swap... it sounds as if he'll be slowly rolling these pack swaps out at Supercharger locations where they see sufficient "demand" at first -- investment should be $50-100 million, and, to the question: how fast will the swap be? Elon chuckles, "Quickly... really quickly" -- makes me think tonight's live demo will be impressive
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