Battery Swapping/Rental for the Model S

[richkae]

To examine the fleet scenario in particular:

If you have multiple locations that you need to stock with batteries, how many do you keep at each?
If you have several empty batteries dropped off in a very short period you have centralized your charging bottleneck - now you need a big power source or the batteries will wait in a long queue to charge.

The battery in the 85kWh Model S is about 50% of the cost. I think this works against battery swapping instead of arguing for it because that means for every 2 spare batteries you have sitting around you could instead have another car.
An additional car in the fleet can be more easily sent to where it is needed and can go to where a charger is free.

The ideal situation for battery swapping would be two locations - separated by a distance of one charge - and cars that constantly cycle between the two locations.
I think if you have a fleet of cars, battery swapping is very likely to be the least cost effective approach - unless the situation was very close to that ideal.

 

[daniel]

Could be quite an investment in hardware, the costs for which need to be amortized, for something that doesn't happen frequently.

I've been saying this for a long time. Most charging will be done at home, where it will be much cheaper. Public charging or battery swapping will only happen when people make long trips. And some will choose fast charging rather than swapping, reducing the demand for swapping further. Big investment for a small amount of business.

Who carries the capital investment involved in the spare battery packs? It's probably fair to say this is the single most expensive component of the car - $20k cost? 30k, 40k?

The owner of the swap station carries the capital cost of both the swap station and the battery inventory, and passes that cost along to the customer. And the cost for batteries will be huge, because they need to have adequate inventory to assure that they can service every car that comes in. And since different cars have different battery types, they need to have an excess inventory of every type.

I'm buying my Model S and I intend to look after it and charge appropriately, limited range mode charging etc. Now, I'm going on a long trip and want to swap batteries along the way. Well it's probably faster to just use a supercharger. But if I do swap batteries how do I know that the one I'm getting has been treated as carefully as the one I'm giving up - how old would it be?

This is another issue I've talked about for a long time. I don't want to replace my brand-new battery with someone else's old, abused battery. And since most people will charge at home most of the time, there will, indeed, be much-abused batteries in the system. In fact, the availability of swap stations will encourage people to abuse their batteries, because all they have to do is go to a swap station to get a different one.

Theory was fine, but I don't think battery swapping/rental is going to happen.

Agreed. Though it's great that the Model S battery is easily swappable, for service or eventual replacement or upgrades, if available.

... battery swap only really make sense if you lease the battery
witch is where Better Place come in, as there hole business model is bild up around battery leasing...

This creates a whole new problem: If you lease your battery, and the leasing/swapping company goes bankrupt, the creditors can take back the batteries. Now you have a car with no battery. And if the battery is proprietary, patent protection may prevent you from being able to buy a replacement. Your car will be worthless. The only way around that is to lease the whole car.

 

[Robert.Boston]

I agree with ElSupreme that there are only a few instances where swapping would make sense, and I'll add one: Jurisdictions where installing superchargers would be very costly or prohibited by some odd regulation.

Such regulations are common, but how strictly they will be interpreted is another matter: if you buy power for resale, you are an electric distribution company (=utility) in many states. So far, though, regulators in every state with such restrictions have waived the rule for EVSEs.

Further, we know that there is at least one charger in every state, thanks to Nissan.

So, I think I'll agree with everyone here: battery swapping doesn't make a lot of sense commercially. Which is too bad, really, because the batteries would be much more useful to support the power grid if they were all conveniently located in centers that could be connected to the transmission system.

 

[Zextraterrestrial]

I have some plans for a fleet with potential for battery swapping and I hope to be able to get 10-20 spare batteries. Of course after they sell the curent res line and I get some things together :wink:

 

[WhiteKnight]

The nice thing for Tesla is they're hedging their bets. If Better Place takes off and is very successful then Tesla can be their immediate luxury tier supplier. Tesla can sell them the cars and the packs and Better Place can worry about the rest.

 

[KBF]

One place that would benefit from quick swaps is the racetrack. I know that for dirtbike racing, Zero motorcycles have made their battery packs easily accessible for those long days at the track for their racing models (but in my DS the battery pack is more hidden). But I think you'd need some wealthy sponsors to provide multiple Tesla packs!

 

[daniel]

As a postscript to my last post, I think that fleets are the one place where battery swapping might (maybe, not necessarily) be feasible, since a corporation with a fleet (or multiple fleets) could schedule swapping and charging, and manage battery inventory based on knowing in advance the precise usage, route, location, and charging needs of each car, thus maximizing both spare battery inventory and swap-station usage, as well as battery time on the chargers and electric supply service to the swap/charge station.

A public swap station will lose business if the customers cannot count on availability of a pack when and where they need one on very short notice, and the customers will worry about the condition of the pack they receive. But an in-company fleet system manages all packs and keeps possession of them, and can schedule swaps to coincide with availability.

 

[CyberDutchie]

Battery swap option coming for Model S?

And tellingly, both Tesla and Better Place are hedging their platform bets. Tesla designed the Model S to have a swappable battery and in the coming months will roll out a battery-switch option at its service stations, though the company declined to provide details on how it will work or the cost.

From today's article in Forbes:

How Two Billionaires Are Supercharging The Electric Car To Upend Big Oil - Forbes

 

[JohnQ]

While Tesla may have used the word "swappable" in the past in relation to their battery packs, I think "replaceable" is a better one. It's nice to know I likely can upgrade my pack in the future.

 

[CyberDutchie]

That's news, isn't it?

The bigger news in the article that has me scratching my head is this:

And tellingly, both Tesla and Better Place are hedging their platform bets. Tesla designed the Model S to have a swappable battery and in the coming months will roll out a battery-switch option at its service stations, though the company declined to provide details on how it will work or the cost.

Battery swap option coming for Model S?

 

[Babylonfive]

The bigger news in the article that has me scratching my head is this:

Battery swap option coming for Model S?

This sounds like rumors dredged from forums or very old newspaper/blog stories.

 

[CyberDutchie]

This sounds like rumors dredged from forums or very old newspaper/blog stories.

From Forbes, you'd expect a little better than rehashing rumors.

 

[Babylonfive]

Yea, agreed. Didn't meant to say it was, only that it sounds like it. Interesting, if it's true...

 

[CyberDutchie]

Yea, agreed. Didn't meant to say it was, only that it sounds like it. Interesting, if it's true...

Pure speculation, but a battery switch option at service locations may be offered by Tesla to those customers who have 40kWh packs but need to make the occasional road trip. Similar idea to Nissan dealers offering a limited number of free rentals to Leaf owners for longer road trips.

 

[Adm]

This sounds like rumors dredged from forums or very old newspaper/blog stories.

Maybe not. A Dutch political/business delegation visited the Tesla Factory for a factory visit and I am pretty sure I read they were demonstrated a quick swap. So maybe there is something to that story.

 

[dhrivnak]

Yes the model S battery is designed to be swapped in just a few minutes. I think Tesla was hedging their bets during design and decided on the supercharger route.

 

[JRP3]

I think it's a few more minutes than some might think. You've got cooling lines that need to connect and disconnect without introducing air bubbles in the system, and 20-40(?) bolts, plus connections. I've heard everything from 10 minutes to 40 minutes.

 

[CyberDutchie]

I think it's a few more minutes than some might think. You've got cooling lines that need to connect and disconnect without introducing air bubbles in the system, and 20-40(?) bolts, plus connections. I've heard everything from 10 minutes to 40 minutes.

That's why I'm thinking battery switch option at service locations could be offered by Tesla to 40kWh owners who make the occasional long road trip. I'd be willing to wait more than a few minutes, for example, to visit friends in Southern California over the holidays. I'd even be willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars for that, if I could avoid having to fork out an extra $20K for the 85kWh pack, just for one or two road trips a year.

Too late now, because I'm already getting the 60kWh pack with Super Charging support.

 

[brianman]

I've heard everything from 10 minutes to 40 minutes.

For the record, at some point they touted doing it in 1 minute:
Tesla Motors - Model S
Click on the "Range" button. Observe the 4th bullet.

 

[JRP3]

That's why I'm thinking battery switch option at service locations could be offered by Tesla to 40kWh owners who make the occasional long road trip. I'd be willing to wait more than a few minutes, for example, to visit friends in Southern California over the holidays. I'd even be willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars for that, if I could avoid having to fork out an extra $20K for the 85kWh pack, just for one or two road trips a year.

I recently read somewhere, can't find it now, that a Tesla rep said that would not be possible because of the different parameters of the different packs, i.e. you can't just drop a 40kWh pack and stick in an 85kWh pack.

For the record, at some point they touted doing it in 1 minute:
Tesla Motors - Model S
Click on the "Range" button. Observe the 4th bullet.

Yeah I never believed that would happen.