stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I remember the time for swap had gone up from 90 seconds to 3 minutes because of the shield. Some manual removal may have something to do with that.
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Harris Ranch is getting first battery swap station
- Thread starter Lump
- Start date
I got an invite email from Tesla today to join the Battery Swap Pilot Program. I have no plans to travel south, but if something comes up I'll probably try it. I wonder why I was invited. Perhaps they've noticed I've made two trips from the Bay Area to Vegas and two to LA? This isn't a regular trip for me.
I wish TM would drop the whole battery swap thing. It has always been disingenuous. I think it was about continuing to qualify for the CARB zev credits. Then they changed the rules so that it would only count based on the number of swaps you actually did, and the interest in this dropped magically. Just shut it down
As Elon stated with regard to Battery Swapping, its good to have options. I would like to emphasize a point ItsNotAboutTheMoney made regarding extreme contention. When Tesla is selling 100's of thousands of Supercharger enabled EVs, year after year, there WILL be congestion at Supercharger Stations, particularly starting in California. Battery Swapping probably doesn't make a good business case now in comparison to free Supercharging, but when there are a half a dozen cars in front of you most of us would pay $40 to "jump the line".
It is prudent for Tesla to pursue this now along with other approaches to battle Supercharger congestion.
Larry
Agreed, and it could come to that, but what makes the most sense to me is swapping for commercial applications. This has a couple of advantages:
1. It makes a Tesla a viable commercial use vehicle.
2. Commercial requirements are more of a known quantity than are consumer requirements, so it's easier to optimize the amount of swapping capacity.
SteveS0353
Member
Also agreed. I will also add that swapping in commercial vehicles would take some load off the Supercharger network, relieving congestion which has already become a reality in Europe with Model S taxis.
I don't disagree in principle, but I would have some concerns about wear and tear on the bolts and threads holding the battery due to frequent untorquing and retorquing, as well as maintenance of the robots.
For commercial applications private Superchargers might be more viable both from a wear and tear and certainly from an economic perspective. Remember, if a commercial establishment were to install a Swapping Station they would still probably have to install Superchargers to recharge the batteries. The commercial application would have to be very time critical to justify such an added expense.
Larry
Wear and tear on bolts. If done properly it shouldnt be only minimal of such. Bolts are really not getting much tear. Work as a farmer and if handled wrong bolts get much tear.
Thanks for the response. Do you or others have any experience with robots? If so, do you think that they would handle the bolts better or worse than a careful human?
Regardless, I believe my remarks about the relative economics between buying and maintaining a Swapping Station plus Superchargers, versus just buying private Superchargers would apply to the vast majority of commercial applications and would rule out the feasibility of Swapping Stations no matter how carefully the bolts were removed and reinstalled.
Larry
The Harris Ranch Supercharger Station has had 3 failures in the last 3 weeks, and those are the ones that I personally expereinced. The first one had a Tesla-branded tent over some of Tesla's equipment, and a large PG&E line truck there. The next failure was on April 11th, as I was heading to Las Vegas as my father-in-law passed away the day before. 1A and 1B were down, and there were 3 Tesla's ahead of me in the queue. As I got enough of a charge to head to Mojave, I pulled away, just as a PG&E truck was pulling up. The 3rd instance was on
April 16th, and 3A & 3B were down. As I was slowly charging, the Tesla technician arrived, and a few minutes later, the Tesla Area Service Manager. While the tech worked on the charger stack, I talked with the Service Manager, and told him I didn't see much use for the battery swap station, but that I had received an invite. To get a fully charged battery pack in less than 3 minutes is good, but you're paying $60 for it, and you'll have to come back for your original battery pack. He stated it was a hit, and that people were happy. When I stated that with 3 outages in the previous 2 weeks might have swayed me to consider a swap, when I was trying to get to Las Vegas due to the death, he did reiterate that the battery swap is by appointment only, and that it wouldn't have helped in my situation I also don't see the economics of a $60 swap fee; Tesla will be paying for the full charge whether by SC, or swapped battery pack. I think that the $60 swap fee is excessive, and wonder who really wants to schedule an appointment far enough in advance as to then time your arrival to coincide with that appointment. OTOH, if this was San Francisco, and I didn't have a level-2 or SC close by, a scheduled $60 battery swap might be much more pallatible. I don't think that the Harris Ranch problems in any way correlate with the battery swap station, but I sure hope they can fix these problems there. 6 stalls really limit the I-5 corridor, and while I'd like to see more, they must address the power issues first, and make the existing 6 more reliable.
I did enjoy talking with both the technician and the service manager.... no real info to pass on, but I'd love to hear from any who have swapped battery packs there. Finally, I also would be concerned about the wear and tear on the bolt hardware system, if the battery pack went through several swaps.
April 16th, and 3A & 3B were down. As I was slowly charging, the Tesla technician arrived, and a few minutes later, the Tesla Area Service Manager. While the tech worked on the charger stack, I talked with the Service Manager, and told him I didn't see much use for the battery swap station, but that I had received an invite. To get a fully charged battery pack in less than 3 minutes is good, but you're paying $60 for it, and you'll have to come back for your original battery pack. He stated it was a hit, and that people were happy. When I stated that with 3 outages in the previous 2 weeks might have swayed me to consider a swap, when I was trying to get to Las Vegas due to the death, he did reiterate that the battery swap is by appointment only, and that it wouldn't have helped in my situation I also don't see the economics of a $60 swap fee; Tesla will be paying for the full charge whether by SC, or swapped battery pack. I think that the $60 swap fee is excessive, and wonder who really wants to schedule an appointment far enough in advance as to then time your arrival to coincide with that appointment. OTOH, if this was San Francisco, and I didn't have a level-2 or SC close by, a scheduled $60 battery swap might be much more pallatible. I don't think that the Harris Ranch problems in any way correlate with the battery swap station, but I sure hope they can fix these problems there. 6 stalls really limit the I-5 corridor, and while I'd like to see more, they must address the power issues first, and make the existing 6 more reliable.
I did enjoy talking with both the technician and the service manager.... no real info to pass on, but I'd love to hear from any who have swapped battery packs there. Finally, I also would be concerned about the wear and tear on the bolt hardware system, if the battery pack went through several swaps.
Harris Ranch has been notorious for offline / unreliable SuperCharging for over two years now. I'm not sure why (prob mostly PG&E's fault?). But if I was invited to use a swap here on my next SF/LA trip I would happily pay for the simple peace of mind that I won't potentially be spending hours there for a charge....
As we know this by appointment only, prescheduled battery swap for $60 is merely a beta test. I find it difficult to take the Service Manager's remark seriously that the process is a "hit" as long as there is uncongested, free Supercharging available. More than likely what he is seeing is merely curiosity.
I am definitely in favor of pursuing Battery Swapping, but it will only make business sense for unscheduled visits as an alternative to congested Superchargers.
Larry
I didn't see eye to eye on the service managers comment either, but I didn't have anything to contest it. I will admit that I don't have any information about beta users of the swapping station. I don't see me ever using it, as long as it's required to be scheduled in advance, and I think the $60 fee is a bit high. If changing out the battery pack would get me into LA, it might be worth it, but you do have to come back for your original pack. There was mention of arranging for your pack to be forwarded to your nearest SC, but the service manager said the ONLY option was to return for your pack (obviously with another scheduled appointment).
And yes, the Harris Ranch 6 stalls have been problematic for quite some time. With PG&E trucks there for 2 of the 3 times I was there when 2 of the 6 stalls were down, I hope that whatever the problem is, it's corrected, and they need to add other stalls for additional capacity. The I-5 corridor will only get busier, and there's still nary a single Supercharger on CA-99 Hwy.
I find it hard to believe it's "a hit" for a different reason. I have been reading the forums at TMC and at TeslaMotors.com daily, and NO ONE has reported on their experience with getting a battery swap, despite people excitedly asking if anyone had gotten it done. So unless they are having EVERYONE who does it sign an NDA, apparently there's not much going on with it.
palmer_md
Member
Read posts from Mite46 as quoted above from Apacheguy. He has a couple of posts describing the experience. But I agree, there has been a lot of silence from those who are participating. It seems Tesla would want to create a bit of buzz about the program, but so far they have kept things pretty quiet. I spoke with the guys working at the station and they seem to want to keep things on the hush for now. I'm sure once they've had some experience and they've made adjustments to get the kinks worked out, they will start to make some news about the swap station. You'll know they are ready when they invite Broder to make a trip from LA to SF using the station. haha.
Assuming SuperCharging will be available with the lower priced Model 3, it would seem there would be future scale/congestion issues at SC stations? Is there a market for those who own/rent/live in condos, apartments etc where charging over night is and likely will never be an option? It might seem strategically placed Swap stations located in high density populations (e.g. Santa Monica, San Francisco, etc) would appeal to those who would like an EV, but don't want to spend hours a week 'charging' up. Subscription Packs (4/30 announcement)?
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