battery swapping confirmed - no more "mystery" announcement

[Discoducky]

That's fairly wild speculation...

If Tesla wanted you to carry unused cells in the car for some reason, they don't need to put it in the battery. They could just hand you a bag of cells that you can throw in the trunk.


I anyway always carry 2 18650's in the car to show people what they look like .

I'll clarify. Every cell is not used/filled/charged to 100% at any given time. There is a buffer and I would imagine you could engineer a pack that didn't set aside as much buffer so you could garner a longer range per max range charge.

 

[deonb]

I'll clarify. Every cell is not used/filled/charged to 100% at any given time. There is a buffer and I would imagine you could engineer a pack that didn't set aside as much buffer so you could garner a longer range per max range charge.

That gets back to the point JRP3 was making:

Don't know where that came from, Tesla uses all of the cells, they just limit the amount of charge and discharge percentage used of each cell.

But yes, you can do that in theory. The buffer isn't that big though. It's between 5kWh and 10kWh in total. It won't extend it to a 400 mile range.

 

[JRP3]

All cells need to be used a similar amount all the time or you create imbalances. There is no logical reason to have cells in the vehicle that are not being used, or that are being used differently. The BMS is there to make sure all cells behave the same.

 

[NigelM]

Mod Note: we have so many threads speculating on this subject, we would like to keep the post-announcement discussion in one place. For all discussion/comment on the actual announcement please go to the following link...

Charging Standards and Infrastructure/-Tesla-battery-swap-Post-announcement-discussion

Thanks!

 

[yobigd20]

I wouldn't be surprised if the swap only takes 10-20 seconds and that the 45 second timer is just a tease to trick us into thinking that's how long it'll take.

 

[UMD86]

It's funny how No One is saying how much it will cost? Musk said you can get "FREE" supercharging or FASTER battery swap......
How much is the SWAP???? Once people find out the cost they will OPT for FREE and wait the 20-30 minutes.

I can't imagine this is a cheap option. Also doesn't this effect the battery warranty on the car?

Also the "changing" station will require additional manpower which will add cost to Tesla......

 

[NigelM]

There's discussion on cost and other aspects over here: Tesla-battery-swap-Post-announcement-discussion

 

[deonb]

How much is the SWAP????

The price of 15 gallons of gas.

Also the "changing" station will require additional manpower which will add cost to Tesla......

Oh, I must have missed that. Can you point out the additional manpower that was required inside the video?

 

[4SUPER9]

Oh, I must have missed that. Can you point out the additional manpower that was required inside the video?

Maybe he is referring to the cost of building this new system?

 

[NigelM]

Mod Note: The fun police moved the icky jokes over here.

 

[Electric Machete]

I don't see Tesla swapping batteries for the Model S. At least not for a long time. Building swapping stations for the Model S doesn't make sense from a financial perspective. I think the goal was to demonstrate the technology. Model S and Model X owners and reservation holders are a tiny fraction of car owners, all of whom are sacrificing the ease of which ICE vehicles can travel long distances. I believe that battery swapping will be quite useful once the 3rd gen model is released. It will ease everyone's range anxiety. If they have some stations in place before rolling out the 3rd gen model I believe that the masses in the US will feel like they won't have to give anything up to drive an electric car.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't want to take a random battery pack for my Model S. Unless there was some assurance from Tesla that degraded packs would be removed from the rotation. Plus, Telsa wouldn't be able to sell any new battery packs. If mine was degraded, I could simply swap it for a new one and drive that one around until it crapped out and then grab another one from the swapping station. Endless battery life. Not financially sustainable.

If the 3rd gen model is sold with a leased battery, then I think the swapping strategy would be a success. Lower the initial cost of the vehicle, maintain flexibility for long distance road travel, eliminate range anxiety. Tesla seems to be hacking away at every objection American's have to electric vehicles.

 

[ohmslaw]

I don't see Tesla swapping batteries for the Model S. At least not for a long time. Building swapping stations for the Model S doesn't make sense from a financial perspective. I think the goal was to demonstrate the technology. Model S and Model X owners and reservation holders are a tiny fraction of car owners, all of whom are sacrificing the ease of which ICE vehicles can travel long distances. I believe that battery swapping will be quite useful once the 3rd gen model is released. It will ease everyone's range anxiety. If they have some stations in place before rolling out the 3rd gen model I believe that the masses in the US will feel like they won't have to give anything up to drive an electric car.

Speaking for myself, I wouldn't want to take a random battery pack for my Model S. Unless there was some assurance from Tesla that degraded packs would be removed from the rotation. Plus, Telsa wouldn't be able to sell any new battery packs. If mine was degraded, I could simply swap it for a new one and drive that one around until it crapped out and then grab another one from the swapping station. Endless battery life. Not financially sustainable.

If the 3rd gen model is sold with a leased battery, then I think the swapping strategy would be a success. Lower the initial cost of the vehicle, maintain flexibility for long distance road travel, eliminate range anxiety. Tesla seems to be hacking away at every objection American's have to electric vehicles.

Given that what little information we have included a statement that you would be charged for the difference in value between your own battery and the one you keep if you don't return it, I'm not sure I understand your objections. If you "simply swap [your degraded battery] for a new one" you indeed could get endless battery life, but it would be financially sustainable to the extent they charged you for the privilege (which they seem to be indicating they will).

 

[JRP3]

It seems as if he didn't see any of the videos or read any of the actual discussions about how swapping works.

 

[Johan]

Wow we had so much discussion in these threads and then a week after the demo we had nothing more to discus... Since Tesla never gave us any more info!

So, we've seen the technology demonstrated. Next week is the Q2 earnings call. Will we get info on rollout plans, pricing, rental/leasing of batteries, 60/85 swapping issues etc???

 

[deonb]

Well, I can add one little bit to this...

I ran into one of the SuperCharger Engineers a few weeks ago, and had a long conversation about this. He is of the opinion that Tesla isn't serious about battery swap, and that he cannot personally see the point of it - especially after the upgrade to 120kW. He thinks that it is purely for marketing. He also said that battery swappers actually requires full-time staffing.

Now apparently the battery swap demo was created by a team of 3 Engineers (not their fulltime job to work on battery swapping) and that they've been working nights and weekends to get this done in time, including doing an all-nighter the night before the demo. So it sounded when Elon originally tweeted about "right under your nose" and "there is a way to recharge a Model S faster than a gas station" - it seems that the technology didn't actually even exist at that point. At least the demo didn't. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a conversation just after the Consumer Reports article came out that went something like this:

"You know that battery swap thing we've been talking about for years, do you think you can put something together that we can demonstrate to the press?".
"Sure thing, Elon!"

"So can I tweet about it? You can actually build this?"
"Absolutely! It will be ready in 2 weeks"

"That sounds a bit fast. Are you sure about that? I don't want to tweet but then having to keep pushing out the demo multiple times using some artificial excuse like a stock offering."
"No problem! Just bring the Red Bull."


As an engineer myself, I actually have nothing against a pre-announcement before something is ready. There is no more powerful design inspiration to an engineer as a hard deadline. But what I do read from this is that there isn't a section of the company that's truly dedicated to battery swapping. It's something that teams do on the side when they have time and when it's ready one day they will try it out and see if people would want to use it, and what the effect is on sales.

This is actually not unlike what Elon said about it, but if anybody has an opinion that he was just sandbagging it, and that this is actually a full-steam-ahead plan with some grand plan behind it - it's not. This is just a test balloon. And as a shareholder, this pleases me.

But alas, I don't think Tesla will give any significant more detail about the program in Q2, other than answering financial questions from analysts.


PS: I know the timing of the imaginary conversation above is wrong - it was added for dramatic effect.

 

[bollar]

I wouldn't be shocked if there was a conversation just after the Consumer Reports article came out that went something like this:

Heh. Except it more likely went like this:

"I tweeted about that battery swap thing we've been talking about for years. You need to get something together in two weeks so that we can demonstrate to the press."
"Sure thing, Elon!"

{later} "Crap, how are we going to do this?"
This would be more consistent with other announcements, like the "end of the month" Superchargers.

 

[Johan]

Very interesting deonb! This has been kind of what I've been thinking in the back of my head all along. My preference would be to have them keep working on supercharging and have it approach its theoretical limits in real-life.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Very interesting deonb! This has been kind of what I've been thinking in the back of my head all along. My preference would be to have them keep working on supercharging and have it approach its theoretical limits in real-life.

When JB Straubel said that he thought they could charge a battery in 5 minutes he was talking about several years time and that it would be hard to do. They will continue to work on Supercharging as the preferred solution to the fast charging problem because it's simple and low cost.

However, as I and others have written, for reasons of volume, 20 to 40 minute Supercharging simply won't scale to Gen 3 levels, so swapping capability is important from the perspective of future-proofing.

However, thinking about handling volume, I really think Tesla needs to be working on self-driving cars and either fast wireless charging or automated plug-in. There's a significant benefit from the ability to plug in and walk away from the car and that would be lost at volume without automation or the additional cost burden of an attendant.

 

[richkae]

If I were at Tesla I would want to get some data on usage of superchargers before making any decisions on battery swapping.
There are only 17 stations right now. Before July there were only a couple of stations outside of California.
Hopefully ( according to the map on TeslaMotors.com ) there will be 70+ by the end of "winter 2013", including 20+ in California. I'd want to see long term data on those stations including some busy holiday weekends.

There is also room for improvement with remote monitoring and helping you choose which station to go to.
Really valuable data about the supercharger visits will be to know how many are necessary. The next time I drive from Seattle to Portland I will stop to supercharge. The stop will not be necessary, but I will do it anyway. If my option was to battery swap, I wouldn't do it. If I knew from the highway that the supercharger was busy, I would just drive on by. When the novelty of supercharging wears off, I will probably drive by more.

Mid 2014 might be a good time to think about whether or not deploying swap stations is necessary and where they would go.

 

[brianman]

I ran into one of the SuperCharger Engineers a few weeks ago, and had a long conversation about this. He is of the opinion that Tesla isn't serious about battery swap, and that he cannot personally see the point of it - especially after the upgrade to 120kW. He thinks that it is purely for marketing. He also said that battery swappers actually requires full-time staffing.

I agree with your general premise, and it matches what I've heard off-record as well. That said...

It's easy to spin this as "marketing hoopla" with "no substance", and see it in a negative light. But I think there's more to it than that.

I think this is one of those "you have to give people what they asked for so they can realize they don't really want it" moments. And once you've given them that technology, they will recognize they don't want it -- and you won't actually have to deliver it (at significant volume).

Some might see the 40 kWh Model S in a similar light in retrospect. "Everybody says EVs are so expensive, so you should offer a lower range one that's cheaper. We did. Not many wanted it, so we canceled it and provided a better option for the small segment of customers that were extremely price-sensitive."