Start with a full battery, 200 miles. Recharge for 45-60 minutes. go 200 miles, charge for maybe 15-30 minutes. Go 100 miles and trip is complete.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Proof of Tesla's plan for battery swapping
- Thread starter Right_Said_Fred
- Start date
Start with a full battery, 200 miles. Recharge for 45-60 minutes. go 200 miles, charge for maybe 15-30 minutes. Go 100 miles and trip is complete.
deonb
Active Member
I stand corrected. I used the lbs per gallon of water instead. Either way, won't make much of a difference to the consumer filling up gas whether it's 1lbs per gallon or 20lbs per gallon, due to how it's delivered.
The general figure given for the Al-air is for a 500 mile extension. So 700 mile trip in total. That is because 700 miles is pretty much the max practical daily range that most people would care about (though I've driven the 1100 miles from Las Vegas to Seattle in a single day... once).
TheTalkingMule
Distributed Energy Enthusiast
I came across this pic of someone in a lab coat combining what appears to be a water-based electrolyte with aluminum in a transportation fueling application. Could this be the air metal battery process we've been hearing about? That aparatus would easily fit in the "frunk hole".
deonb
Active Member
Did Elon just solve my Supercharger announcement issue?
"Supercharger announcement pushed to next week. Something else this week."
copyhacker
Member
It always made sense to me the original way around:
Announcement 4: "We're starting to build out the coast-to-coast Supercharger route. The first stations will be ~500 miles apart and we'll fill them in ASAP."
Announcement 5: "And until we do, how about a nice range-extending battery to go in your frunk that you can swap out at the next Supercharger? So long, range anxiety!"
BTW, I have a sneaky feeling that this is the real reason the Model X has gone dark--because the range problem will be sorted first. Speaking from experience, your biggest car is your long-range family hauler. An SUV/crossover/minivan that I can't drive to Disney is a non-starter.
deonb
Active Member
And if you do it that way around, expect:
Announcement 5 - question 1: If I have a range-extending battery that can be changed "faster than you can fill a gas tank", why would I ever want to visit a supercharger again?
Announcement 5 - question 2: As a shareholder - why are you wasting my money on building SuperChargers? You already have something that works "throughout the country".
Flip it the other way around though and announcement 5 can become: "Superchargers are really just there for us to recharge our own swapping batteries. So we're not going to be building many more of them. But feel free to stop off for a charge and a chat."
(I realize of course the glaring 60kw flaw in my argument).
Isn't it obvious?
SuperChargers are easy to use, clean and use 'green energy'. You pay 2k and use them as along and whenever you wish.
You need to pay for each ange-extending battery module, time and time again, exactly the same as with gas. Only battery range extenders are more expensive.
You need to empty the frunk to replace used-up module and mount fresh one. Modules are heavy, you wife might not want to do it.
Isn't it obvious?
SuperChargers adds additional value to our cars. They are easy to use and use clean energy. They don't require any hard work, they don't take up space in the frunk.
Oh, and they are powered by the sun!
Just to remind people, the motivation for the thread started with this piece of concrete evidence:
our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future;
Some magic new metal-air frunk thing is not what they are referring to in this statement.
Edit: I also wanted to point out that this statement originated in last August's filing, when it was:
our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist;
Which in the March annual report became:
our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we may introduce sometime in 2013;
our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we plan to introduce in the near future;
Some magic new metal-air frunk thing is not what they are referring to in this statement.
Edit: I also wanted to point out that this statement originated in last August's filing, when it was:
our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist;
Which in the March annual report became:
our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such swapping, which do not currently exist but which we may introduce sometime in 2013;
Last edited:
I don't think swapping of the battery will be it. I think an upgrade of the superchargers with a much faster charge time and our cars current ability to already handle it. Plus they will reveal more locations that are either up and just waiting to be unveiled or will be built out in the very near time-frame. I don't see battery swapping as an elegant enough solution from the engineering and infrastructure standpoint of view. Plus, the only real issue with the superchargers now is that there are simply not enough of them, not that they don't charge fast enough. I see them updating both of these points (although I see one as much more critical than the other)
copyhacker
Member
No, that line of speculation comes from Elon's tweets about the Mystery Announcement (under your nose, recharging faster than a gas tank, throughout the country, etc). It's difficult to reconcile those with R&Ring a piece of the car the size of my dining-room table top. Even a NASCAR crew is going to have trouble doing that faster than I can fill up my Honda.
Which leads me to think that they have multiple solutions to the range issue in the works. Superchargers, aux battery... and replacement of the main battery? With, say, a higher-capacity one?
The latter is consistent with the filings and with Tesla's moves toward treating the battery as a commodity.
The metal-air frunk module could also be described as a Model S battery pack. Swapping the existing battery pack seems to be fraught with problems. One not mentioned previously is that the underside of the car is dirty and may be dinged. So even if Elon has a robotic system that requires no people, it's liable to have difficulty with quite a few cars. It also won't be world-wide in any reasonable amount of time.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
Better Place was able to do it in under a minute, so I don't see why Tesla can't do it in 5 minutes (even manually). Even dirty or dinged, all you need is a flat tray to hold it while it comes down. It's not like the pack is in some kind of weird shape that makes it hard to support the pack if there are dents in it.
The engineering issues are not that tough, it's mainly the financial side.
As for the metal-air I'm kind of skeptical of it. The safety and specs of it are still in the experimental stage. They are not really commercially ready yet.
Last edited:
Tesla always maintained the battery could be swapped "in minutes". And as far as the extent and the speed with which this will be rolled out, well we haven't had the announcement yet. Obviously this isn't a substitute for the superchargers, or they wouldn't be having a supercharger announcement. This could very well be positioned for more of a special purpose thing. I will leave this final tidbit of an Elon quote from 2 years ago (I haven't seen it quoted here):
“We’re designing the Model S to have switchable batteries,” said Musk, who has a solution to the problem of consumers not wanting to end up with an unknown pack in their expensive EV. “When people take an occasional two-way long distance trip, they’ll get a replacement pack and then pick up their original one on the way back. The issue of giving up your one-year-old pack for a three-old-one goes away.”
I suppose I find it interesting that they have always said they were going to support battery swapping, and yet people claim that Tesla doesn't know what they're talking about and it's impossible. I'm going with Elon knowing what he's talking about and it is possible, we just don't yet know how it's going to work.
“We’re designing the Model S to have switchable batteries,” said Musk, who has a solution to the problem of consumers not wanting to end up with an unknown pack in their expensive EV. “When people take an occasional two-way long distance trip, they’ll get a replacement pack and then pick up their original one on the way back. The issue of giving up your one-year-old pack for a three-old-one goes away.”
I suppose I find it interesting that they have always said they were going to support battery swapping, and yet people claim that Tesla doesn't know what they're talking about and it's impossible. I'm going with Elon knowing what he's talking about and it is possible, we just don't yet know how it's going to work.
Last edited:
Interesting article regarding Lithium Air technology:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/green-tech/advanced-cars/nanoscale-peak-at-lithiumair-batteries-promise-better-electric-vehicles
http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/green-tech/advanced-cars/nanoscale-peak-at-lithiumair-batteries-promise-better-electric-vehicles
Could be shared with other EVs, but as ToddRLockwood notes, Tesla owns the technology.
Patent US20120041627 - Efficient Dual Source Battery Pack System for an Electric Vehicle - Google Patents
YoungStranger
Member
May I be the first to suggest that a swappable metal air battery cartridge that can be inserted in the Frunk (and possibly be used by other marques in the future) be trademarked as the TESLA BRICK. That would be one in the eye for the naysayers:tongue:
Last edited:
No one is saying it is impossible. Just costly, and at a marginal benefit above supercharging, at increased cost. I am not sure how the 'business case' works out. You spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a battery swap station, that people will use Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas weekends. And have them pay for this when they could wait another 45 minutes and get the same thing for free.
And doing the battery swap unmanned is probably doable. But you still need a person at the station while it is open, that cost alone seems like a barrier for these things to start popping up. Maybe on a highly traveled route that is between 300 and 400 miles. But it isn't going to get you long distances, because the stations wont get the traffic to pay for staffing, much less construction and operation.
Elon said many times his main interest is in electrifying transport.
Developing swappable battery range extenders and offering them to other manufacturers suits this idea very nicely. It would mean orders of magnitude larger market for modules that could be much cheaper than if they are limited to ~100k Tesla vehicles in 5 years time. And of those 100k vehicles only about 10% using swapping from time to time. 10k drivers just can't pay for all the infrastructure and everything needed. Millions of EV users worldwide could.
Developing swappable battery range extenders and offering them to other manufacturers suits this idea very nicely. It would mean orders of magnitude larger market for modules that could be much cheaper than if they are limited to ~100k Tesla vehicles in 5 years time. And of those 100k vehicles only about 10% using swapping from time to time. 10k drivers just can't pay for all the infrastructure and everything needed. Millions of EV users worldwide could.
deonb
Active Member
Similar threads
