June 20th Speculation

[stopcrazypp]

That said, (to my knowledge) the plan for Superchargers is not to run them "for profit" but rather "for customer value". I don't see how swapping would be different, or why this would be a bad thing.

Bingo. That's what most of the swap naysayers are missing. The goal is not to make a profit on this network but for the network to make the car that much more attractive.

Once Tesla demonstrates swapping as a way to refuel faster than a gas vehicle, that addresses the last weak point of the EV.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

This idea is just retarded to even consider.

You should work harder on that.

 

[ShortSlaver]

Bingo. That's what most of the swap naysayers are missing. The goal is not to make a profit on this network but for the network to make the car that much more attractive.

Once Tesla demonstrates swapping as a way to refuel faster than a gas vehicle, that addresses the last weak point of the EV.

The car is already so unbelievably attractive though. The only hurdle now is to make a mass production vehicle - the Gen 3.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

That is completely useless. Why would I schedule a battery swap in a service center? I can recharge faster than that process.

A call ahead and reservation system is retarded compared to a 20 minute Supercharger.

And the service centers are not where someone would hypotheticaly need a battery swap. Someone with a 200+ mile battery pack does not need a battery swap in Seattle or LA or San Francisco. The potential case for a fast 5 minute swap would be between cities.

Even discussing this scenario is stupid. Someone would have to be financially illiterate to think that a battery swap makes any financial sense. The capital required to build hundreds of battery swap stations, and stock them with enough battery packs (for multiple different models and sizes) ready to go, will bankrupt Tesla Motors.

If they announce battery swap stations, short the stock.

It's retarded to consider the current SuperCharger to be a 20 minute charge. The equivalent charge you can deliver with a SuperSwapper is a fully charged 85kWh pack. Good luck doing that in 20 minutes.

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Thieves are smart. They would figure it out and disable GPS as step one.
Forget it. There will never be unmanned robot swap stations because of the theft risk of the battery packs. As soon as the thieves hear that each pack has $20,000+ in cells, they will be figuring out how to steal them. 5 battery packs waiting at a swap station? Yeah, crack that and steal $100,000 of inventory in one shot.

Oh, they actually have 30 battery packs at a station to account for the different models and sizes and various years that have differences? You mean there is $600,000 of cell inventory at that unmanned battery swap station? Oh yeah !!!! Bring a 20 foot truck and 5 of my boys from my crew. We can make that score and be gone in 120 seconds.

So a swap station will require a bricks and mortar manned building with locks. That means buying land instead of the current system with Superchargers where they get to install them for free or very small rent. Do you really think Tesla is going to spend the money to build hundreds of battery swap stations with real estate and building costs? I don't.

This debate is stupid. That is how bad this idea is.

This cost is required for SuperChargers as well. Yet you think that concept is peachy.

 

[brianstorms]

Maybe there is a machine that can unscrew your battery in less than a minute, and then a 1 MW charger pops out that connects directly to the battery (thereby bypassing the car's cables that are limited to 120 KW); that woudl recharge half the battery in 2 minutes or virtually whole battery in 4 minutes. Then the machine puts that battery back to the car.
This way you could recharge the entire battery in about 5 minutes.

+1 I like this!

 

[austinEV]

Well, I am convinced now from evidence that june 20 is battery swapping. The 2012 stockholder comments dovetailing into the recent EM comments is compelling.

I think the division on this thread (and lets face it, its a minor division between fanboys ) is between these groups:

group 1) The announcemnt is battery swapping. hooray. Elon will show an elegant clever way to do it that everyone will love (after perhaps a day or two to absorb it.

group 2) The announcement is battery swapping. oh boy. its just so *inelegant*. There are a thousand ways to really foul up battery swapping for the business, and like 1 way to get it right maybe.

Count me in the second group. By the way, there is a distinction between the value of battery swapping for a CAR OWNER and a STOCK OWNER. The swapping could be a terrific deal for a car owner and be lousy for a stock owner and vice versa. This is an investors forum so commenting on the (possibly dumb) market reaction is perfectly in bounds.

 

[DaveT]

Great, so assume substantial risk and have no opportunity to profit from it?

The service thing makes sense - EV's have a fraction of the possibly issues an ICE car have. It isn't much of a risk making that statement as the cars won't breakdown. However, creating these extra batteries ( expensive ), creating the ability to do it ( expensive ) and actually installing it ( expensive) and not make a profit from it isn't good.

From an investors standpoint, as this is stated, I say nay.

Tesla doesn't need to make money from Supercharging stations, battery swap or service.

They'll make enough gross margin off the cars they sell.

Supercharging, battery swap, service... it's all to make the experience of owning an EV better than owning a ICE car. The last hurdle is making it more convenient than a gas station to recharge. This was the only complaint from the Consumer Reports review of the Model S.

It's also interesting to note that Elon's initial tweet about There's a way to recharge the Model S faster than filling a gas tank... was a reply to Consumer Reports. He tweeted that right after the Consumer Reports review came out. And then he tweeted that it was the 5th announcement (or hinted at it). In other words, battery swap IMO is about defeating the last hurdle to make EVs even more convenient than gas cars and gas stations.

Elon also mentioned twice that he wonders if Consumer Reports would have given them a 100/100 if they could have showed them they could recharge faster than filling a gas tank (ie., 5th announcement).

Battery swap is about upping the antee... and making the Model S a 100/100 car that's better than the ICE car in every way. If battery swap makes the Model S a 100/100 Consumer Reports car, then that'll be good for demand and investors will like it (at least eventually). If battery swap doesn't do anything to the attractiveness of the Model S and doesn't increase demand, then investors won't like it.

I'm in the camp where I think it's a big announcement (huge event at night with customers and media) and I think this is what Elon wanted to show Consumer Reports to get a perfect score.

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Lot of people posted the Betterplace comparison and said Batteryswapping would be a horrible Idea mainly because Betterplace went broke with that Idea.

While I see the challenges with a Battery swapping infrastructure, I find the comparison to Betterplace sounds like the anti-Tesla gibberish from the Bears, that compare Coda, Fisker, Volt sales, Leaf Sales, etc. to Tesla.
So if Tesla can solve the problems that Betterplace did and do it much better it could be a good solution.
E.g. If Tesla is partnering their swapping infrastructure with Daimler and other manufacturers (Elon: "Join us or copy us"), that would make it totally feasible and would put Tesla in an incredible strong position.

I'm really starting to see the picture, also the reason why they delayed the introduction of the swapping technology so long, so they could get more people to buy the 85kw version.
Maybe the figure out an easy, inexpensive and space saving way to deploy the swapping stations.
Two regular Parking space would be enough, the first on would have container like box with the batteries in it and the robotic change mechanism and the second one would have a flatbed like 10inch above the ground, the driver would have to drive on that "flatbed" to get the battery exchanged. That way the Swapping station could be placed nearly anywhere and require no additional space and no construction work, think of it as a portable but full automatic swapping station. That would drive the cost down by a big factor.


Such a Container could store up to 40 Batteries for real high traffic spots in the future.
Hmm maybe I should have patented it, but whatever
here it is my Paintskills

TD1, awesome drawing. The idea is really smart as well. Well done.

 

[Andrew]

Can we please not use the word "retarded" in the pejorative sense? Thanks.

 

[Palpatine]

Bingo. That's what most of the swap naysayers are missing. The goal is not to make a profit on this network but for the network to make the car that much more attractive.

Most people are not going to find this option to be more attractive. I find the concept to be hugely risky and a big negative overall for the company. I purchased a $10,000 product from a company that later went out of business. It sucks to have no support. If Tesla is spending any significant CAPEX on a bunch of battery swap stations, then Tesla Motors will likely need to have a "going concern" warning added by the auditors to their next SEC filings. Potential customers don't want to get stuck with a product where the company is going out of business.

After Better Place, the burden of proof will be on Tesla Motors to prove this won't take the company under. As if Tesla Motors needs to give others more ammunition about EVs. Adding a huge battery swap business expense to the balance sheet just a few weeks after Better Place went under, that would be monumentally retarded of the brain trust at Tesla. That is why I don't think there is any chance of a battery swap network being announced June 20th. I think at best Tesla might demo a battery swap. Then they might announce one location they are going to run a trial test at to see if customers use it. If there is no customer interest in the concept, they will let the idea die as it deserves to die.

 

[brianman]

Can we please not use the word "retarded" in the pejorative sense? Thanks.

I was wondering how many posts it would take for that to pop up.
(I agree with you.)

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Count me in the second group. By the way, there is a distinction between the value of battery swapping for a CAR OWNER and a STOCK OWNER. The swapping could be a terrific deal for a car owner and be lousy for a stock owner and vice versa. This is an investors forum so commenting on the (possibly dumb) market reaction is perfectly in bounds.

I think you've found a reason for many folks on TMC (especially this sub-forum) to applaud battery swapping: Buying opportunity while the market FUDs itself.

 

[Yggdrasill]

Such a Container could store up to 40 Batteries for real high traffic spots in the future.
Hmm maybe I should have patented it, but whatever
here it is my Paintskills

You probably wouldn't circulate the packs. You'd probably just stuff in a (more or less) off-the-shelf storage system (Vertical Lift Module) to place the batteries in X number of bays. Then the battery is hooked up, and the charging circuitry flags each pack as good to go when it is full. When a customer then arrives, the pack that has been flagged as good to go the longest is removed and installed into the customers car.

 

[aznt1217]

Tesla Vehicle Engineering - Part 3 - YouTube

34 second mark. I think that's pretty much the answer from the departed Peter Rawlinson.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

The Problem I see with swapping that its mid-term business.
With the continuous improvement of Wh/lb and kwh/$ the batterys will get cheaper and cheaper and the ranges longer and longer, so its introducing an very expensive infrastructure that will be obsolete in 10years.
.

I don't think it does become obsolete. At the moment Tesla has a single form factor for their battery. They will have a second form factor when they release Gen III. I don't see the need for more than a third form factor (for compact cars). And once batteries increase in density enough (say 2025) you only really need to have a single form factor, and you just load that cartridge into an adapter for one of the previous generation batteries, and then swap the adapter/battery combo into the car.

You can even get away with having say 140kWh in all of the swap batteries because that is sufficient to support any vehicle type (so you would get a 300 mile range in your Model S, vs 600 miles in your Model "Camry"). Once you standardize on a form factor and some kind of use fee it probably doesn't matter that one car gets more range than another with the cartridge.

That said, I expect it more likely that in the medium term there will just be 3 form factors, with 3 capacities, and a typical swap station will support all 3 into the indefinite future. It doesn't drastically increase costs to do that.

 

[brianman]

Tesla Vehicle Engineering - Part 3 - YouTube
34 second mark. I think that's pretty much the answer from the departed Peter Rawlinson.

What aznt1217 is referring to:

The battery pack is also extraordinary because it augments the structure. Let me tell you that this unit in itself has the tortional rigidity of many conventional sports cars. But when it combines with the body structure of Model S, I doesn't just add its own tortional rigidity. It adds nearly three times.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Better Place spent $800 million on real estate, building expenses and R&D trying to make battery swapping work. They went bankrupt due to lack of demand.

Better Place had many problems, the biggest probably being the lack of support from manufacturers. But one huge problem was that it was not easily scalable. Better Place cars had a tiny range and could not recharge at home, which would have required 10's of thousands of swapping stations to support in a country like the U.S.

Each BP station would have had a CapEx comparable to what Tesla will have to pay. Except Tesla doesn't require swap stations in cities at all. Only in a few hundred highways locations to enable long distance travel. There simply is no point to comparing Tesla's battery swap with that of BP. The BP concept was stupid, while Tesla's is relatively inexpensive and solves real problems with a pure SuperCharging concept.

 

[c041v]

I don't think it does become obsolete. At the moment Tesla has a single form factor for their battery. They will have a second form factor when they release Gen III. I don't see the need for more than a third form factor (for compact cars). And once batteries increase in density enough (say 2025) you only really need to have a single form factor, and you just load that cartridge into an adapter for one of the previous generation batteries, and then swap the adapter/battery combo into the car.

You can even get away with having say 140kWh in all of the swap batteries because that is sufficient to support any vehicle type (so you would get a 300 mile range in your Model S, vs 600 miles in your Model "Camry"). Once you standardize on a form factor and some kind of use fee it probably doesn't matter that one car gets more range than another with the cartridge.

That said, I expect it more likely that in the medium term there will just be 3 form factors, with 3 capacities, and a typical swap station will support all 3 into the indefinite future. It doesn't drastically increase costs to do that.

If I'm honest, your threads and articles have been getting a lot of my attention lately. I thought long and hard back on page 4 or so about how Gen III+ would make use of a swappable battery. It didn't take long for me to realize that a universal form factor and adaptable battery is the only thing that makes sense. I suppose this would eventually mean that there is potential for the Performance of the Model S to actually increase over time. Now that's more like Elon.

I understand a lot of people are attached to their batteries, so I'm curious to see what sort of plan Tesla has in store as far as upgrades are concerned. Will they just offer the option to buy the latest in battery technology after the warranty is up? Could you get a 140 kwh+ car for the price of the battery?

I guess the next question is, in the distant future, what is Tesla going to do with Million's of depleted battery packs? CES comes to mind, but I wonder how recyclable these things are, or at least how easy is it to dissassemble, change the batteries to the latest and greatest and have a refurbished pack ready.

I think I need to buy a few more shares...

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Because the battery can easily be mechanically removed, it could be removed and charged outside the car. I'd expect that a nice nitrogen bath would allow faster charging. Remove, lower, connect, bathe, blast, raise, install. Put two "Nitrochargers" in at congested locations (to allow for one failing), alleviate congestion problems, sell lots and lots of cars, keep working on faster Supercharging and hope that one day you can eliminate the Nitrochargers.

This possibility is the only one that I modeled that makes sense besides just swapping batteries. Though for simplicity, I would circulate the stock coolant, but have it be super-cooled. This dramatically simplifies the system.

You still need to pay for the same amount of grid storage as you do for any of these systems, but you simplify the logistics a ton. The only down side is that I don't know if it would work without burning out the batteries. But in every other way it would be a win.

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DC fast charging can refuel in 10-15 min. Existing Superchargers and cars can now do 20 min with 120 kW. GM's Spark EV will also offer 20 min refuel when GM gets around to shipping cars with J1772-DC charging.

Two existing supercharger stations with 240 kW combined can refuel in 10 min with a high, but realistic, rate of 2.5-3.0C.

Battery swapping is much more expensive. Also, more things can go wrong with a swap. Cross-threaded bolts, leaking coolant connections, etc. Battery installation in the factory is not always flawless on first attempt (see video of Tesla engineer responsible for the battery's high power electrical connection system). If you do lots of battery swaps there will be more incidents than for lots of 240 kW charging sessions.

GSP

The system you describe doesn't "refuel" you in 10 minutes. It gives you only ~40kWh of fuel, and it does so in more time than it takes to go to a gas station.

 

[Adm]

Better Place cars .... could not recharge at home, ...

Not true... BP cars could charge at home or at any other charging station, but only 3.7kW max.

The BP car, the Renault Fluence, was just another boring car with a block of concrete (battery) in the trunk giving it horrible handling unless you drive it like a granny.

The battery in the trunk also meant there is very little storage room left.

My conclusion: BP and Renault rushed to a very small market with a limited use EV conversion. Never had a chance...

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Not true... BP cars could charge at home or at any other charging station, but only 3.7kW max.

The BP car, the Renault Fluence, was just another boring car with a block of concrete (battery) in the trunk giving it horrible handling unless you drive it like a granny.

The battery in the trunk also meant there is very little storage room left.

My conclusion: BP and Renault rushed to a very small market with a limited use EV conversion. Never had a chance...

The lease agreement that I looked at (I think it was in Great Britain) said that you couldn't recharge at home. Though if they did end up allowing that, it doesn't change the requirements as much.

Better Place was going to have to build these every 25 miles or so, while Tesla can get away with every 150. And the number required is not linear, but based instead on the inverse square rule, so with small coverage areas you need a tremendous number of BP swap stations, and they all have basically the same cost as what Tesla will need to pay.

 

[30seconds]

I still mainly struggle with the utility of routine swapping if I have a 350 or 400 mile pack (like in 3-5 years). There are a lot of good points for the swap concept, but seriously how often do you drive 400miles and will need swap capability to save the extra 30mins to hour needed for supercharging (assuming 85 pack and 120kwh charging)?