1. What battery pack sizes did you consider? What about GenIII smaller packs? What about Gen4 packs?
2. What about costs to build a station and run it?
2. What about costs to build a station and run it?
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Proof of Tesla's plan for battery swapping
- Thread starter Right_Said_Fred
- Start date
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
I considered a 85kWh pack at $400/kWh (retail price Tesla is charging). Future packs will likely be less expensive (as $/kWh decreases). The lower $12k per 85kWh pack I got from Tesla's replacement pack policy.
In my original post, I was comparing two different schemes (rental vs no-contract). The sunk cost I assume to be $500k per station (same as Better Place) and that it would apply in both cases (independent of battery inventory). If you amortize it over 15 years (as typical for gas stations) you need $91 per day to pay for the station. That's assuming Tesla doesn't just use the advertising budget for it (like what they are doing with the superchargers).
Duckjybe
Member
I dont see battery swap as a scaleable solution for millions of cars with a multitude of car models with different shapes and sizes of batteries. Elon is out to affect the move of all vehicles to electric. He and Tesla can't do that alone. If he wants to change the industry the long distance solution must be scaleable for the entire market. I don't think battery swap is the answer.
That is because it isn't scalable nor sustainable. Heck, from the big perspective it is an awful and stupid idea.
If BetterPlace wasn't started by a guy like Agassi with his track record it would never got funding. And it still failed. Longtime economics just isn't there. One size doesn't fit all.
RangeExtenderModule swapping on the other hand does make a tone of sense. The tech just isn't there yet.
If BetterPlace wasn't started by a guy like Agassi with his track record it would never got funding. And it still failed. Longtime economics just isn't there. One size doesn't fit all.
RangeExtenderModule swapping on the other hand does make a tone of sense. The tech just isn't there yet.
ChadS
Last tank of gas: March 2009
That's one way to make density high enough to make it work financially. But you can also have high density in a fleet based around a single location.
It can also work if what you swap in is different and more valuable than what you swap out. Imagine Gen3 being sold with a 200-mile pack, but a 1,000-mile pack rentable for road trips.
Making swapping economically feasible is very difficult, but I don't think impossible - and in fact I think gets easier as pack capacity grows. Technically it's easy enough to implement (not easy, but easy enough - clearly possible).
It can also work if what you swap in is different and more valuable than what you swap out. Imagine Gen3 being sold with a 200-mile pack, but a 1,000-mile pack rentable for road trips.
Making swapping economically feasible is very difficult, but I don't think impossible - and in fact I think gets easier as pack capacity grows. Technically it's easy enough to implement (not easy, but easy enough - clearly possible).
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Infrastructure-wise Elon isn't trying to create solutions that the rest of the industry can use. Case in point: Tesla's proprietary connector and supercharger stations. I'm seeing Tesla's swap plans to be similar. All Elon needs to be concerned about is it working for a subset of Tesla vehicles (mainly to attract people to buy a Tesla).
Creating an industry-wide battery swap scheme is a whole other ball game and I believe no one is saying Tesla is trying to do that.
Analysts at Goldman Sachs hosted a field visit to Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA)’s manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, that included a plant tour and a meeting with Elon Musk (CEO and Product Architect). The key takeaways of the tour and meeting are as follows:
http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/05/tesla-motors-inc-tsla-envisions-selling...
"They will continue to build charging infrastructure based on their customers’ geographic profile. Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is expected to make another announcement regarding the charging infrastructure next week. Longer term, Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) envisions a technology that would reduce the time spent at a charging station to be less than the time it takes to fill up a gas tank of a standard internal combustion vehicle."
It sure would have been nice to hear exactly what Elon said instead of a summary from Goldman but by referring to a charging station and not a battery swap station makes one wonder exactly what to make of this.
http://www.valuewalk.com/2013/05/tesla-motors-inc-tsla-envisions-selling...
"They will continue to build charging infrastructure based on their customers’ geographic profile. Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) is expected to make another announcement regarding the charging infrastructure next week. Longer term, Tesla Motors Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) envisions a technology that would reduce the time spent at a charging station to be less than the time it takes to fill up a gas tank of a standard internal combustion vehicle."
It sure would have been nice to hear exactly what Elon said instead of a summary from Goldman but by referring to a charging station and not a battery swap station makes one wonder exactly what to make of this.
Agree completely. I'm just still floored by people who simply don't get how expensive running a network of swapping stations is and that it REQUIRES scale (sufficient # of users at all times), esp. if it has to cover a large area.
Duckjybe
Member
Not yet. But at some point he should share for the benefit of all and profit for Tesla. I am sure Tesla would like the industry to follow their connector and down the road other companies could easily adopt supercharger technology. Could they utilize battery swapping stations from Tesla? Maybe not so much.
Then it is a waste of time, effort and money. It's short term thinking. If it can't scale then it's not worth even starting it IMHO.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Actually they can if they decide to adopt the same battery footprint and mounting/connecting method. And for supercharging, I'm talking more about letting non-Tesla cars using it, which I expect to never happen. I see the same thing for any battery swap network Tesla builds. I'm not looking at this as Tesla trying to make a battery swap network that will be for all EVs.
I dispute that it can't scale. The math is that the max number of batteries needed to handle peak demand (for the lease and no contract swap) is the charging time divided by swap time. So for a 5 minute swap and 1 hour charging, only 12 packs per station are needed (adjust as necessary for different swap times and charging speeds). This is completely independent of the number of cars it serves (it can serve 1 million, even 1 billion cars). The rental scheme will add packs for rental (similar to rental cars).
The hard part of an industry wide solution is working with other automakers to come up with standard batteries (Better Place failed to get anyone other than Renault/Nissan on board). This is not a problem if it's Tesla only.
Hehe...lol.
I first heard it at my hospital where we literally have some COW's that we can just wheel into the patients room!!! Now (of course....only a few years later...all the rooms have computers built in!).
I got a real kick out of the abbreviation as well
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I actually have a dual role and work intimately with both the Battery Swapping (BS) and Computer On Wheels (COW) departments.
I can see by the many posts that battery swapping is apparently doable in about 1 minute which means the team of monkeys we trained (wearing great NASCAR t-shirts such as: NAPCAR, REDNECK, and BORING) aren't cutting it. Guess we could send out some job offers to the better place employees to come work for our fine Best Place and Best Car on the Planet company.
As for the 30 minute diagnostics...of course it shouldn't take that long...but I'm afraid that it does. This is not a small AAA battery that you pop out and swap and you are good to go! The software is interfacing with the hardware (battery) and does indeed need to do complex diagnostics for battery management (remember battery packs are heated (and ? Cooled?) to ideal operating temperature, regen settings adjusted, etc, etc.
we are spoiled living in this day and age of LTE and want everything to be lightening quick! I'm SURE that number could (and will) come down quite a bit but for the FIRST ever COW I think a 30 minute reboot ain't bad!!! (Remember how frickin' long it used to take for your laptop computer to reboot 7 years ago?!?!?!?).
Johan
Ex got M3 in the divorce, waiting for EU Model Y!
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