Swapping is Coming [Discuss how it will be accomplished]

[Johan]

Remember how no-one on the factory tours could visit the battery pack assembly part of the factory?

The pack design is patented. There is probably no magic going on during assembly. A competitor can buy a car and take it apart to reverse engineer any time.

If there is a SuperSwapper and testing going on in that part of the factory however, I would understand why it has been so off limits for visitors...

 

[jcstp]

I can envision batteryswapstations in city-centers

One can buy a car, and after that opt-in into a swapping scheme
Bit as a battery-share
Monthly fee of ....$ + ...$ per swap
Tesla garanties that all batteries will be at least at ...% (85?) capacity
When you opt-out you will just retain the last used battery

I can see this a solution for people having to park at the curb, or without private parkingspace or chargepoint
For company's in city-centers that use their car nearly 24/24 7/7

If these people get out of the city-center, supercharging is available

 

[deonb]

I can see this a solution for people having to park at the curb, or without private parkingspace or chargepoint
For company's in city-centers that use their car nearly 24/24 7/7

If these people get out of the city-center, supercharging is available

That's not bad.

People would be significantly less tollerant for having to do a 20min SuperCharge for daily usage, than they would be for road trips. For road trips you're anyway going to stop. But most definitely not so for in-city use. That one isn't just a marketing & education issue - it's a real concern.

I like it.

 

[Citizen-T]

I think he just simply wants things to be on topic. So it's okay to criticize people's theories on how swapping will happen or issues with swapping itself, but the base assumption in this thread is swapping will happen.

We have plenty of other threads discussing whether the announcement will be about swapping or something else (which seems to be what you want to discuss):
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/16709-Proof-of-Tesla-s-plan-for-battery-swapping
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/17319-The-Supercharger-Announcement-10-30-PDT-May-30
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/17416-June-20th-Speculation

Yes. I welcome vetting of the ideas we put forth here. That's the whole point of the thread. It's the alternate theories that I'd prefer get discussed elsewhere. By alternate I mean ones that do not include swapping the main pack.

The thread keeps getting derailed by people saying the don't think there will be swapping, which is not a conversation that belongs in this thread.

Sent from my Droid RAZR using Tapatalk 2.

 

[JRP3]

I'll place my vote here for swapping at service centers with a call ahead reservation type of system. Least infrastructure costs since they will already need to have the tools, staff, and packs in place for general service needs.

 

[Palpatine]

"In their recent SEC filing, on page 38 outlining future plans, Tesla discusses what factors may affect the adoption of electric vehicles. Specifically, the filing says that the ability 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.”"

That is scary. The headlines comparing this to Better Place are going to stink. Hopefully this is just a demo and there are no plans to spend any serious dollars on building swap stations. The fact that in 23 pages nobody has yet come up with a viable solution for this working tells you a lot about how silly the battery swap concept is. Yes, it is technically possible with extreme logistical hoops, but it is likely not even remotely commercially viable on a financial basis.

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But you assume that customers would not be willing to pay for the value added by a swapping station that I described above. Comparing the cost of a free Supercharger to a Battery Swap Station that you have to pay for is a flawed argument. The theory that I outlined in the OP made clear that because of the higher cost of swapping stations, there will need to be a fee of some kind to use the station.

I don't think it is at all flawed. Because of the free SC vs costly battery swap, for only a few minutes savings, I think we are talking about a very small universe of owners that would ever use battery swap. Because of the small number of users, that would make battery swap even MORE expensive because the overhead would be dumped on the small number of users.

It is sort of like Obamacare. They have to force everyone to use it in order to spread the swap station overhead across all Tesla owners. No thanks. I would bail out and buy another brand of car.

Furthermore, if every station is going to have battery packs for grid storage anyway, and the batteries (as many have said) are the most expensive element of a swap station, then the additional cost to upgrade a Supercharger only station to a Supercharger/Battery Swap station is probably minimal. I would think that gap can easily be filled by charging users a fee.

I think the gap between a Supercharger only station versus a Swap station is HUGE.
Tesla gets free or extremely cheap rent for their Supercharger only stations.
However a Swap station either involves a building or digging into the parking lot to install a lot of stuff underground. That is invasive either way and involves some real estate for Tesla. I just don't see how Tesla gets that real estate for free or even cheaply.

Tesla can sell the idea of Superchargers to other businesses because high net worth customers are hanging out for 20 minutes and might buy some stuff.
However if the Swap station is so fast, there is less chance that the Tesla owner will stop to buy anything from a business that is hosting the Swap station. So the business hosting the swap station has no incentive to provide free space or cheap space. They will demand full value for the real estate.

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Imagine that you worked for Tesla, and Elon asked you to come up with a strategy to make swapping work. He is dead set on swapping and there is no talking him out of it. Your job is just to figure how to make it a reality. That is what this thread is for.

If that was my job, I would update my resume, sell my stock options and find a new job. Because this turd is going to bankrupt the company.

 

[deonb]

That is scary. The headlines comparing this to Better Place are going to stink. Hopefully this is just a demo and there are no plans to spend any serious dollars on building swap stations. The fact that in 23 pages nobody has yet come up with a viable solution for this working tells you a lot about how silly the battery swap concept is. Yes, it is technically possible with extreme logistical hoops, but it is likely not even remotely commercially viable on a financial basis.

Care to share some napkin calculations for your premise that it is not commercially viable?

Here are the factors to consider in such a calculation:

1) 85kW batteries are $10'000 to $20'000 each, or at least will be soon.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/17590-Model-S-Battery-Pack-Cost-Per-kWh-Estimate
2) Batteries can last for 8 years, and will have about 3000 charge/discharge cycles.
3) The bulk of the batteries, except for the ready ones can be used for Grid Storage, and is also already needed for the functioning of the SuperCharger. The faster the battery swapper, the more stand-by batteries do you need to have that can't be connected to Grid Storage.
4) Battery swapping is allowed to have a revenue model.
5) People will SuperCharge / Battery swap around 24 times per year on avg. (With the road-trip model for battery swapping, as opposed to the apartment in-city model of battery swapping).
6) SuperCharger locations can't be rent free because they bring in revenue to the location. Battery swap stations can't be because they're explicitly there for people who can't wait for SuperChargers and thus definitely won't bring in revenue.


Here are my napkin calculations:
* Assuming a battery swapper costs $150k and you have them at the 200 SuperCharger locations (Elon: "throughout the country") == $30m
* 200 SuperCharger locations can support about 50'000 cars, charging 24 times per year. (More than that and the SuperChargers are not Solar positive anymore). 50k cars @ the $2k SuperCharger access rate also brings in $100m and 200 SuperChargers cost $60m - so 50k is ballpark correct.
* Let's say 50% of all swap/charges are swaps == 50k * 12 = 600k swaps performed per year.
* Take $30m fixed cost, over 5 years (typical capital equipment writeoff period), split over 600k swaps/year gets $10 per swap fixed cost
* Add rent per swapper @ $2000 per month == $24k per year x 200 locations = $4.8m variable cost / 600k swaps = $8 variable cost per swap
* At $20k per battery that lasts 3000 cycles, cost is $6.66 amortized over battery life
* Add $11 for cost of charge (even if Solar - this could have been sold to the grid instead).
* The grid storage from some of the batteries will bring in some revenue. However, the top few batteries can't be used for grid storage. But let's say each battery can bring in 40kWh * 5c difference (peak - nonpeak) / kWh == -$2. This is only once per day cause the system relies on the cheap charge, expensive discharge cycle. Now let's say each battery is swapped twice per day. So split, and we get $-1.00 in revenue per battery.

Thus my napkin says the base cost to provide a swapping service is $34 per swap. I would venture and say $34 per swap competing with a free SuperCharger next door is not a commercially viable product.

Does anybody else have a better napkin?

 

[JRP3]

If you're looking at an automated swap station I'd think it's going to cost a lot more than $150K. The BP stations that handled a much smaller pack were something like $500-$750K I believe. Another reason I don't think they'll be doing automated swapping.

 

[Palpatine]

deonb, I think your math is assuming that Swaps will be used to maximum potential. Therefore the swap overhead (real estate, etc) will be spread evenly. Frankly, I don't think many people would ever use the system. I find the battery trading to be highly risky and less useful solution.

Also, I don't see any employee labor in those cost estimates. I would be very hesitant to allow the swap robot to start on a battery removal for my car. If the process gets 50% done, then freezes, then I have brick in a very bad location. I would not risk using the system unless it was a 100% sure thing to work flawlessly. Any negative reports of a Tesla car getting stuck until a ranger gets there would destroy the credibility of the swap robot system.

The Superchargers are known to be Tesla employee free. No additional labor costs for Supercharger session. Any maintenance or support is buried in the $2,000 one time fee. Supercharger 24 hour on-call support (for an outage) can likely be subcontracted out to a licensed electrician in the area. No additional Tesla employees needed.

For a Swap station, I think the maintenance and support of the equipment is likely going to be a specialized skill set. This is probably not standardized equipment that we are talking about. So we are likely going to have to include a full time employee for each Swap station. So we need to pencil in those costs.

I was told that Tesla Service Center employees are not even allowed to open the battery packs. This is not exactly something they want the average subcontractor trying to troubleshoot. What are the connection points between the battery pack and the rest of the car? Just some bolts and a plug? Or are there also liquid cooling tubes to fasten between the coolant pump and the battery pack? Is there some coolant lost during the disconnect and reconnect? Do they refill the coolant levels after a swap? Does the robot do this or is there an employee doing those checks? Is my swap battery going to have enough coolant after 10 swaps if there was a minor loss during each swap?

 

[Larry Chanin]

I'll place my vote here for swapping at service centers with a call ahead reservation type of system. Least infrastructure costs since they will already need to have the tools, staff, and packs in place for general service needs.

My vote also goes for swapping at select service centers.

Battery swapping is probably an interim, short-term approach, and may have more to do with marketing than any serious strategic plan to build swapping stations. From Elon's recent comments he sees it as an another supplementary option to fast charging. The recent announced improvements in the battery warranties obviously support experiments in swapping approaches.

I think that on June 20th we will see an essentially manual batterying swapping operation managed by Tesla technicians at certain strategically located Service Centers. They will be assisted by a relatively inexpensive a jig/lift that will hold the battery in place while the 30 or so bolts are simultaneously untorqued and captured. The process is then reversed with the help of the jig/lift. Perhaps Tesla will make things a little more interesting by supplying say 100-120kWh battery packs for rent.

I seriously doubt that Tesla will announce plans to begin construction of automated battery swapping facilities across the county in the forseeable future, but this much less expensive manual approach could be offered at select service centers.

During the demonstration there's also a good chance that Tesla will demonstrate the new, faster Supercharger technology, and discuss how the two fast recharging approaches supplement one another.

Larry

 

[Palpatine]

If you're looking at an automated swap station I'd think it's going to cost a lot more than $150K. The BP stations that handled a much smaller pack were something like $500-$750K I believe. Another reason I don't think they'll be doing automated swapping.

I agree that $150k sounds way too low as the initial swap station capital costs. I could see $150k or more as just the fee just for the real estate that they will be tearing up in the parking lot, assuming they don't have to buy their own real estate 1/4 acre lot completely. Then add it more costs for whatever mechanical system is needed to actually perform the swap. If they actually have to buy real estate for each swap station, we could be talking several hundred thousand dollars for each swap station just for land. Then we need to add in real estate taxes, etc.

 

[DaveT]

Care to share some napkin calculations for your premise that it is not commercially viable?

Here are the factors to consider in such a calculation:

1) 85kW batteries are $10'000 to $20'000 each, or at least will be soon.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/17590-Model-S-Battery-Pack-Cost-Per-kWh-Estimate
2) Batteries can last for 8 years, and will have about 3000 charge/discharge cycles.
3) The bulk of the batteries, except for the ready ones can be used for Grid Storage, and is also already needed for the functioning of the SuperCharger. The faster the battery swapper, the more stand-by batteries do you need to have that can't be connected to Grid Storage.
4) Battery swapping is allowed to have a revenue model.
5) People will SuperCharge / Battery swap around 24 times per year on avg. (With the road-trip model for battery swapping, as opposed to the apartment in-city model of battery swapping).
6) SuperCharger locations can't be rent free because they bring in revenue to the location. Battery swap stations can't be because they're explicitly there for people who can't wait for SuperChargers and thus definitely won't bring in revenue.


Here are my napkin calculations:
* Assuming a battery swapper costs $150k and you have them at the 200 SuperCharger locations (Elon: "throughout the country") == $30m
* 200 SuperCharger locations can support about 50'000 cars, charging 24 times per year. (More than that and the SuperChargers are not Solar positive anymore). 50k cars @ the $2k SuperCharger access rate also brings in $100m and 200 SuperChargers cost $60m - so 50k is ballpark correct.
* Let's say 50% of all swap/charges are swaps == 50k * 12 = 600k swaps performed per year.
* Take $30m fixed cost, over 5 years (typical capital equipment writeoff period), split over 600k swaps/year gets $10 per swap fixed cost
* Add rent per swapper @ $2000 per month == $24k per year x 200 locations = $4.8m variable cost / 600k swaps = $8 variable cost per swap
* At $20k per battery that lasts 3000 cycles, cost is $6.66 amortized over battery life
* Add $11 for cost of charge (even if Solar - this could have been sold to the grid instead).
* The grid storage from some of the batteries will bring in some revenue. However, the top few batteries can't be used for grid storage. But let's say each battery can bring in 40kWh * 5c difference (peak - nonpeak) / kWh == -$2. This is only once per day cause the system relies on the cheap charge, expensive discharge cycle. Now let's say each battery is swapped twice per day. So split, and we get $-1.00 in revenue per battery.

Thus my napkin says the base cost to provide a swapping service is $34 per swap. I would venture and say $34 per swap competing with a free SuperCharger next door is not a commercially viable product.

Does else have a better napkin?

deonb, I like your napkin numbers. Thanks for that. I actually think $150k is plenty for a battery swapper and I think your other figures make sense as well.

The way to pay for it could be an option where you pay $2000 or $3000 extra on top of the $2000 supercharger fee. This would allow you to do unlimited battery swap for 8 years and would pay for all costs of battery swap.

For those who are comparing to Better Place: it's my understanding that Better Place stations were not just swapping stations but also showrooms for their cars and they took up a lot of real estate, thus high expenses. See Better Place Electric Car Switching Station - YouTube , you'll notice the big building they have which is a showroom and sales center for their cars. That's why it costed a lot. Elon has said in a previous interview that battery swapping is not a difficult problem and it's already been solved. He said all you need is a robot that will simulate a hand replacing the battery. He says he's architected the battery to be swapped in less than a minute. Also, it doesn't need to be manned... Better Place showed it could be completely automated. There's no need for a huge building like Better Place, you just need the underground swapping robot that would take up 1-2 parking stalls. That shouldn't cost more than $100-150k in my opinion.

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I agree that $150k sounds way too low as the initial swap station capital costs. I could see $150k or more as just the fee just for the real estate that they will be tearing up in the parking lot, assuming they don't have to buy their own real estate 1/4 acre lot completely. Then add it more costs for whatever mechanical system is needed to actually perform the swap. If they actually have to buy real estate for each swap station, we could be talking several hundred thousand dollars for each swap station just for land. Then we need to add in real estate taxes, etc.

You need to remember that the Supercharger stations are at rest stations. Land is cheap there. That's why they pay so little rent, if any, for the Supercharger station. They're basically using up several parking spaces in a remote area where real estate is super cheap. This isn't the middle of a city. It reminds me when some people were speculating that Tesla was paying $10k-20k monthly rent for each Supercharger station (this was before Elon disclosed the actual monthly rent as very little or free). There's no way several parking spaces in a remote rest station is going to cost $10-20k a month in rent.

Same thing with the battery swap station... nothing fancy is needed. You should view the YouTube video I linked to and look at just the swap mechanism (the building and everything else is extra waste that Better Place spent on showroom/sales). The actual swap space won't take more than a couple parking spots and shouldn't cost more than $150 IMO.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Care to share some napkin calculations for your premise that it is not commercially viable?

Here are the factors to consider in such a calculation:

1) 85kW batteries are $10'000 to $20'000 each, or at least will be soon.
http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/17590-Model-S-Battery-Pack-Cost-Per-kWh-Estimate
2) Batteries can last for 8 years, and will have about 3000 charge/discharge cycles.
3) The bulk of the batteries, except for the ready ones can be used for Grid Storage, and is also already needed for the functioning of the SuperCharger. The faster the battery swapper, the more stand-by batteries do you need to have that can't be connected to Grid Storage.
4) Battery swapping is allowed to have a revenue model.
5) People will SuperCharge / Battery swap around 24 times per year on avg. (With the road-trip model for battery swapping, as opposed to the apartment in-city model of battery swapping).
6) SuperCharger locations can't be rent free because they bring in revenue to the location. Battery swap stations can't be because they're explicitly there for people who can't wait for SuperChargers and thus definitely won't bring in revenue.


Here are my napkin calculations:
* Assuming a battery swapper costs $150k and you have them at the 200 SuperCharger locations (Elon: "throughout the country") == $30m
* 200 SuperCharger locations can support about 50'000 cars, charging 24 times per year. (More than that and the SuperChargers are not Solar positive anymore). 50k cars @ the $2k SuperCharger access rate also brings in $100m and 200 SuperChargers cost $60m - so 50k is ballpark correct.
* Let's say 50% of all swap/charges are swaps == 50k * 12 = 600k swaps performed per year.
* Take $30m fixed cost, over 5 years (typical capital equipment writeoff period), split over 600k swaps/year gets $10 per swap fixed cost
* Add rent per swapper @ $2000 per month == $24k per year x 200 locations = $4.8m variable cost / 600k swaps = $8 variable cost per swap
* At $20k per battery that lasts 3000 cycles, cost is $6.66 amortized over battery life
* Add $11 for cost of charge (even if Solar - this could have been sold to the grid instead).
* The grid storage from some of the batteries will bring in some revenue. However, the top few batteries can't be used for grid storage. But let's say each battery can bring in 40kWh * 5c difference (peak - nonpeak) / kWh == -$2. This is only once per day cause the system relies on the cheap charge, expensive discharge cycle. Now let's say each battery is swapped twice per day. So split, and we get $-1.00 in revenue per battery.

Thus my napkin says the base cost to provide a swapping service is $34 per swap. I would venture and say $34 per swap competing with a free SuperCharger next door is not a commercially viable product.

Does else have a better napkin?

The big mistake I see is that you are not accounting for the fact that the battery storage requirements and "charging" costs for SuperCharging are virtually identical to SuperSwapping. If anything the "charging" costs of the SuperCharger are drastically reduced because you are not forced to pay demand charges to support your high throughput. In addition, even "demand" charges only get you so far, because the electrical grid has real limitations to it's throughput.

It is essentially impossible for the grid to support SuperCharging at any reasonable scale without a very large power source right at the point of charge. The most economical way to accomplish that is grid storage. So the only difference between SuperChargers and SuperSwappers is that if you are only supporting SuperChargers the batteries need not be mobile.

And that saves you virtually nothing, because while there is no requirement to build a light pack (thus allowing you to use cheaper steel), or a space saving pack (thus allowing you to increase the volume of the box), the cost of the Model S pack (which is mass produced on an automated assembly line) is likely going to be cheaper anyways because you aren't going to build an efficient assembly line just to produce a few bigger and bulkier packs.

The main potential savings is the Aluminum cost, which is ~$0.50/lb more expensive than steel, so you are just talking around $100-150/pack. The steel weighs more than the Aluminum, but you can save weight by using a smaller amount of steel to enclose a larger volume, while not needing automotive grade structural components that are in the regular pack. The ability to manufacture the packs on the existing line is almost certainly saving you much more than that. Fundamentally, the cost of the cells dominates the calculation, and the cells that Tesla is already using are the least expensive and most capable anyways.

So even using your napkin instead of mine, you need to reduce your "costs" to around $18 per swap. That is not far enough off from what I expect Tesla to charge for the service for me to compare your model to mine. Personally, I expect a lot of customers to pay ~$20 in order to save the 50+ minute charge time that is required to get an equivalent charge using SuperChargers.

In my opinion, the folks purchasing luxury cars like the Model S and Gen III are unlikely to value their time so low as to choose, en mass, to SuperCharge their vehicle. Especially since it is still going to be only around 1/3rd of the cost (on a per mile basis) as using gasoline in a car that gets 25mpg. And to the extent that they do, it simply results in additional CES revenues because you have more uptime for the packs.

Remember also, this is about advertising as much as it is about the swapping business. The costs of this system are low enough that the additional sales it can make by being more convenient than gas far outweigh the costs of the system, even aside from otherwise attractive economics. Seriously, how many additional sales are you going to get with a $100 million dollar advertising campaign compared to sticking a shiv into the "slow charge time" meme?

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Let me also note the simple fact that SuperSwapping scales extremely well once you recognize that the storage costs are virtually identical to SuperCharging. You still need to pay rent on the storage area for the batteries. So the marginal cost of a SuperSwapper is the cost of the robotic swapping equipment, and rent on the area of that portion of the facility, plus additional maintenance costs, which are higher than is required to simply support a SuperCharger/CES facility.

And it scales even better when you consider the charging "throughput" of a SuperSwapper is far higher. A SuperCharging station will need acres of parking spaces to charge cars during the peak season. If a SuperSwapper can do a swap every 2 minutes (vs a 50 minute charge time for 85kWh of storage) that is 1/25th of the land area required. How is that not a huge win for SuperSwapping?

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Furthermore, the idea that SuperCharging is more "economical" rest solely on the idea that it has zero cost compared to setting up a SuperSwapper. The capital costs for a parking lot full of SuperChargers, with each space having SuperCharging hardware capable of providing 120kW of throughput is immense.

A SuperSwapper is far more economical, because you are effectively able to trickle charge a large number of batteries until they are full (which you then swap into a car), instead of paying for expensive, high throughput, charging hardware at each charging stall (and the wiring and support structures). We know that existing SuperCharging stations are costing ~$150k each, and its a simple fact that those stations are able to support only a limited number of charging stalls. To scale up to additional charging stalls, you need to invest more capital. Period.

In SuperSwapper, most of your additional capital costs as you scale are the costs to store additional batteries (which each take up less than 18cu feet of space). Space which you need to pay for regardless, because the storage requirements for the two systems are virtually identical.

 

[Palpatine]

You need to remember that the Supercharger stations are at rest stations. Land is cheap there. That's why they pay so little rent, if any, for the Supercharger station. They're basically using up several parking spaces in a remote area where real estate is super cheap. This isn't the middle of a city. It reminds me when some people were speculating that Tesla was paying $10k-20k monthly rent for each Supercharger station (this was before Elon disclosed the actual monthly rent as very little or free). There's no way several parking spaces in a remote rest station is going to cost $10-20k a month in rent.

The difference is that Supercharger station equals customer for 20-30 minutes. So the business owner has an incentive to let Tesla have a few parking spots for free or cheaply.

For a Swap Station there is no customer potential. It is designed for a fast swap and run in 5 minutes. If the Swap customer is getting out to stretch, use restroom and buy drinks, then there was no point in using an invasive and expensive Swap. There is no synergy business case to be made to a business owner to allow a Swap Station. Therefore the business owner is going to demand a much higher fee or rent for a Swap Station. The Swap Station, if fully robotic underground, is also likely high damage to the parking lot. Yeah, I am going to want some cash for that before I allow Tesla to do something that invasive. If Tesla is building any sort of building for an indoors swap, that will certainly be a high fee and rent.

Same thing with the battery swap station... nothing fancy is needed. The actual swap space won't take more than a couple parking spots and shouldn't cost more than $150 IMO.

You have not really thought this through. That is not even remotely plausible.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

You have not really thought this through. That is not even remotely plausible.

I suspect that you have not thought through what is necessary to scale SuperCharging past a few tens of thousands of vehicles. It just doesn't scale at all. The grid issues are simple physics, setting aside the economics of the two systems.

 

[deonb]

deonb, I think your math is assuming that Swaps will be used to maximum potential. Therefore the swap overhead (real estate, etc) will be spread evenly. Frankly, I don't think many people would ever use the system. I find the battery trading to be highly risky and less useful solution.

I'm not. I'm assuming that for the vast majority of time the system is unused and is fastly over-capacity. That's the only way SuperChargers can possibly work (i.e. is Solar Positive), and I've used the same number for the swappers. Specifically 50'000 cars charging 24 times per year = 1.2 million charges. Now divide that by 2000 charge ports (Elon's number is 2000 to 3000) you get 600 charges per port per year. That's less than 2 per day, or an overall usage of 3.5%.

Moving that same usage count to swappers, I've just divided it by 2 so that there would be 600k charges per year, or 3000 per swapper/year, which is around 8 swaps per day per swapper. Given a 5 minute swap (high-end), that is < 3% usage (for time). I don't think this is unreasonable.

I agree that $150k sounds way too low as the initial swap station capital costs. I could see $150k or more as just the fee just for the real estate that they will be tearing up in the parking lot, assuming they don't have to buy their own real estate 1/4 acre lot completely. Then add it more costs for whatever mechanical system is needed to actually perform the swap. If they actually have to buy real estate for each swap station, we could be talking several hundred thousand dollars for each swap station just for land. Then we need to add in real estate taxes, etc.

Ok. I'll up to $200k, but I've initially compensated this inside rent. So upping to $200k and reducing rent to $1k.

You need to remember that the Supercharger stations are at rest stations. Land is cheap there. That's why they pay so little rent, if any, for the Supercharger station.

It is currently free/cheap because the SuperChargers draw in business. And it's great business - you are drawing in a bunch of high-income people that are by necessity bored for 20 to 30 minutes - can't get any better than that. Battery swapper does the exact opposite. It draws people who are in such a hurry that they will rather pay money than waiting for 20 minutes. To the businesses surrounding the parking lot that has no incentive. Hence the rent won't be free. But I've dropped it to $1000.

The way to pay for it could be an option where you pay $2000 or $3000 extra on top of the $2000 supercharger fee.

That would not be enough. At the equivalent of $22 per swap, 24 times per year, over 8 years, the upfront cost would have to be around $4224 just to break even. The SuperChargers at $2000 work out MUCH better than even. Cost is around $1200 per car.

The big mistake I see is that you are not accounting for the fact that the battery storage requirements and "charging" costs for SuperCharging are virtually identical to SuperSwapping.

True. The swapper would have otherwised used the SuperCharger. The energy is spent anyway.

And that saves you virtually nothing, because while there is no requirement to build a light pack (thus allowing you to use cheaper steel), or a space saving pack (thus allowing you to increase the volume of the box), the cost of the Model S pack (which is mass produced on an automated assembly line) is likely going to be cheaper anyways because you aren't going to build an efficient assembly line just to produce a few bigger and bulkier packs.

The big difference is that when you have batteries dedicated to grid storage and support of the SuperCharger, you can actually run those batteries for those purposes. So you can have the batteries down to a 30% SOC at any point, and nothing bad happens.

In the case of the swapper, you need to have a number of batteries ready to be swapped. At least the top one need to be ready and kept in a fully charged state. Now if the swapper takes 1 minute (like Elon said), so does the one after that. And the one after that... The faster the swapper is, the more stand-by batteries you need that are fully charged and can't be used for grid storage at all.

This is about advertising as much as it is about the swapping business.

Absolutely. If there is any way to 5-minute charge that measly 25% conversion rate will go bye-bye.


So coming back to my napkin after the top adjustments.:

* Assuming a battery swapper costs $200k and you have them at the 200 SuperCharger locations (Elon: "throughout the country") == $40m
* 200 SuperCharger locations can support about 50'000 cars, charging 24 times per year. (More than that and the SuperChargers are not Solar positive anymore). 50k cars @ the $2k SuperCharger access rate also brings in $100m and 200 SuperChargers cost $60m - so 50k is ballpark correct.
* Let's say 50% of all swap/charges are swaps == 50k * 12 = 600k swaps performed per year.
* Take $40m fixed cost, over 5 years (typical capital equipment writeoff period), split over 600k swaps/year gets $13 per swap fixed cost
* Add rent per swapper @ $1000 per month == $24k per year x 200 locations = $4.8m variable cost / 600k swaps = $4 variable cost per swap
* At $20k per battery that lasts 3000 cycles, cost is $6.66 amortized over battery life
* No cost for charge (person would have SuperCharged otherwise).
* The grid storage from some of the batteries will bring in some revenue. However, the top few batteries can't be used for grid storage. But let's say each battery can bring in 40kWh * 5c difference (peak - nonpeak) / kWh == -$2. This is only once per day cause the system relies on the cheap charge, expensive discharge cycle. Now let's say each battery is swapped twice per day. So split, and we get $-1.00 in revenue per battery.

So now I'm at: $22 per swap. It starts being viable... But not to the point that if this was a startup that a VC would give it any money though. I would think the magic numbers are $12.00 cost, $24 revenue.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

The Swap Station, if fully robotic underground, is also likely high damage to the parking lot. Yeah, I am going to want some cash for that before I allow Tesla to do something that invasive. If Tesla is building any sort of building for an indoors swap, that will certainly be a high fee and rent.

How do you think Tesla manages to get the power to each parking stall? Wireless transmission? No, they tear up the parking lot. You need to think harder about this.

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The big difference is that when you have batteries dedicated to grid storage and support of the SuperCharger, you can actually run those batteries for those purposes. So you can have the batteries down to a 30% SOC at any point, and nothing bad happens.

Yes, actually bad stuff does happen. The amount of electricity required to travel "x" distance is the same, regardless of whether you provide it by swapping or charging. If you do not have enough storage capacity to handle your peak loads (like on Memorial Day weekend) you need to pull that power from the grid. Since that is effectively impossible, you are no more able to discharge your stationary sources than you are your non-stationary sources.

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Again, I can't emphasize this point enough, the storage/charging requirements for SuperSwapping and SuperCharging are virtually identical. The only difference between the systems is that SuperCharging requires much more land area, and much more electrical infrastructure in order to support high throughput charging.

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Sorry, with the additional requirements that you purchase and maintain the robotic swap hardware, which only takes up a few hundred square feet of space.

 

[Palpatine]

I suspect that you have not thought through what is necessary to scale SuperCharging past a few tens of thousands of vehicles. It just doesn't scale at all. The grid issues are simple physics, setting aside the economics of the two systems.

Think of all of the moving parts of an automated battery swap system. That is a serious piece of robotic machinery. Do you really think a system for moving around 10-50 battery packs is a simple mechanical process that would be installed and then left unattended? Do you really think Tesla Motors is going to leave an automated system with hundreds of thousands of dollars of battery inventory somewhere on a highway exit? Do you think that is all going to be put underground? That all makes sense to you? Seriously?

I think that sounds like a multi-million dollar system for one battery swap station. And with all of the moving parts that are moving battery packs into and out of cars, then plugging the packs in to recharge them, then unplugging them to get them in line for the next car, then also planning for a slightly different Gen III battery pack, etc. Wow. That is insane to even seriously consider.

Then when you realize that only a small number of Tesla owners will ever use the system, it makes even less sense. The first incident where a Model S owner gets stuck with a battery taken out, then the system freezes up.... it's over. Nobody is going to risk getting stuck between major cities with an automated system that has an error.
in
Tesla has abandoned bad ideas before. The cancelled the PHEV idea for the Model S. They cancelled the 40 kwh battery pack. They did this because (in Elon's words), "It wasn't a compelling product".

Battery Swaps are simply not a compelling product. It is highly complex, invasive to the car, risky of error in the middle of the process, expensive to maintain automated equipment, and many other reasons.
It is taking you guys 24 pages of mental gymnastics to justify a reason for this and it still doesn't even remotely make sense to do. Tesla is not going to build out a battery swap network if only 4% of the owners ever use it.

 

[deonb]

If you do not have enough storage capacity to handle your peak loads (like on Memorial Day weekend) you need to pull that power from the grid. Since that is effectively impossible, you are no more able to discharge your stationary sources than you are your non-stationary sources.

Ok, but the same applies. At the memorial day weekend, you can plan to have an utter worse case of having your grid storage batteries drain down to e.g. 30%. And that would be fine. You start the weekend at 100%, and draw the batteries down to 30%, so you just need the capacity for that. If you are going to do swaps at the same time, you can't just go and rent out batteries that are at 30% towards the end of the weekend. Or even at 50%. Or even at 80%. They need to be fully charged (e.g. 91%) if you are going to ask money for them.

So the swapper batteries are completely out of the equation for any kind of other usage during the memorial day weekend.


PS: I agree you can't support the SuperChargers without grid storage. At all. It was inevitable.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Ok, but the same applies. At the memorial day weekend, you can plan to have an utter worse case of having your grid storage batteries drain down to e.g. 30%. And that would be fine. You start the weekend at 100%, and draw the batteries down to 30%, so you just need the capacity for that. If you are going to do swaps at the same time, you can't just go and rent out batteries that are at 30% towards the end of the weekend. Or even at 50%. Or even at 80%. They need to be fully charged (e.g. 91%) if you are going to ask money for them.

So the swapper batteries are completely out of the equation for any kind of other usage during the memorial day weekend.


PS: I agree you can't support the SuperChargers without grid storage. At all. It was inevitable.

You need to remember that your battery capacity doesn't fall very much at all with SuperSwapping. You get back the customer battery, which is operated as a part of the CES system until they swap it back.

Again, the requirements are identical. You can either take "x" amount of charge out of a battery (and then start refilling it from the grid/solar panels) or you can physically remove "x" amount of battery storage and swap it with another battery that is very close to having "x" amount of storage (on average), which you then refill from the grid/solar. There is virtually no difference between the systems, except for whether you physically move a battery.

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Think of all of the moving parts of an automated battery swap system. That is a serious piece of robotic machinery. Do you really think a system for moving around 10-50 battery packs is a simple mechanical process that would be installed and then left unattended? Do you really think Tesla Motors is going to leave an automated system with hundreds of thousands of dollars of battery inventory somewhere on a highway exit? Do you think that is all going to be put underground? That all makes sense to you? Seriously?

I think that sounds like a multi-million dollar system for one battery swap station. And with all of the moving parts that are moving battery packs into and out of cars, then plugging the packs in to recharge them, then unplugging them to get them in line for the next car, then also planning for a slightly different Gen III battery pack, etc. Wow. That is insane to even seriously consider.

Personally, I think its insane not to consider it because it's insane to think that SuperCharging is capable of scaling in any economically significant way.

As to the robotics, it is a trivial task from an engineering standpoint. However, I agree that reliability is the big issue.