MASSIVE POST ALERT!!!
Oddly, I had thought up the idea of battery-swapping a few weeks ago when I was describing the Tesla Model S to a relative of mine who wasn’t at all familiar with the brand, based on the basic placement of the battery. (I did not know they had already mentioned it in 2009, or that there was all this speculation on this forum!!!) Obviously the car is designed for battery-swapping… they have simply been working on a way to make it happen and that’s why there haven’t been any announcements… but to me, it is 100% guaranteed there will be an attempt by Tesla to make battery swapping become normal. To those people hijacking this thread with claims that Musk’s tweet isn’t referring to battery swapping at all… just stay out of this thread and create your own, OK? :smile: Who cares what Musk’s upcoming tweet refers to… it'll be cool no matter what. This thread is about battery swapping. (Thank you Citizen-T)
As we know, Elon Musk doesn’t just create an electric car and then notice there aren’t any chargers around the country. He thinks through the entire plan ahead of time. Everything has been considered… and here we are guessing what his future vision is.
For the entire battery swapping experience, here is my conjecture:
*** Battery Swapping Stations will be set up around the country in much the same way as Superchargers. Since they charge batteries using solar power, it is possible that dual-purpose stations will be built, since then Tesla can amortize the solar panels across both uses and only have to hassle with one land purchase/permit.
*** Battery Swapping Stations will be stocked with ten batteries. (if they cost $40,000 each this would require $400,000 capital investment) If they spend $1 million on each station and its batteries, they can put 1,000 of them around the country for a capital expenditure of $1 billion – a gigantic sum, but we will look back in the years following and agree that battery swapping was what made electric cars acceptable to the masses.
*** Battery Swapping Stations will have a similar appearance from the outside as an automated car wash. Just like today’s gas stations, there would be significant machinery/infrastructure buried beneath ground level and not discernible to the casual eye.
*** Owners will have to “sign up” for battery swapping. This would be rather like having a tag in your windshield for driving on toll roads. Once you’re part of the program, you have a $30/month charge which is associated with the cost of running the stations, and you are allowed to swap the battery as many times as you like each month. Tesla would warrant that any batteries supplied by their Stations are “fit for purpose” so perhaps there would be a certain small rate of attrition of the batteries. Also, owners signing up to be part of the battery swapping program inherently agree to surrender forever the battery they came in their car when they bought it. They also agree to not abuse the battery that is in their car, as they eventually may (and probably will) surrender it into a future Battery Swapping Station. Finally, it’s my belief that the current Tesla Model S is not configured for battery swapping just yet. To get your car into the program will involve a visit to a Tesla service center, where they will put in the “clamps” and other parts allowing a quick machine-driven swap. The visit may involve waving bye-bye to your current battery and getting a new one that is configured for swapping. Once you’re part of the battery-swapping program, you can drive from the West Coast to the East Coast using batteries you’ve never seen before and may never see again, by dropping them off at the Battery Swapping Stations as you go.
*** The process of swapping your battery involves driving into the automated Battery Swapping Station and waiting there while the robotic machinery swaps out the battery. Your car’s identity will be verified as part of the battery-swap program.
*** I believe Tesla will put significant effort into automating the battery swap, so that they don’t have to pay human workers to carry out the swapping (and also pay them when they’re sitting around waiting for Tesla drivers to come in).
*** the goal of the Battery Swapping Station will be to enable you to emerge from it with a full battery in less time than it takes to get out of your car at a gasoline station, run your credit card etc. fill it up and get back in. I’m estimating this to be 4 minutes for the average vehicle, and I’m estimating that Tesla will set themselves a goal of 2 minutes for the machinery to charge the battery. Naturally, they will want at least one fully-charged battery to be inside the Battery Swapping Station waiting for the next driver to pull up.
*** It is possible you’ll have to wait in line at a Battery Swapping Station if there is only one “portal.” Large cities may end up with dual-portal or larger Battery Swapping Stations that can service multiple cars at the same time.
*** If you have to line up, a large single-digit sign above the door to the Battery Swapping Station will be of particular importance, especially at rush-hour times: this shows how many fully-charged batteries the Battery Swapping Station has in its store. Every time a car leaves the station, the number will drop by one. In this way, you will know if you’ll have to wait a long time or if you should just drive on.
*** Tesla drivers that have signed up for the battery-swap program can still use a Supercharger or any kind of “slow” charger that they want.
*** Tesla drivers that do not sign up for the battery-swap program won’t have to pay $30/month, and can still get free Supercharging forever (per Elon’s remarks at the launch).
***It is conceivable that drivers will enter a Battery Swapping Station with a battery that is not completely discharged – and hardly discharged at all, for example. (this might be because your current battery is 75% full but you want a little extra juice before a long trip, or your showing your friends what it’s like to go through a battery swap, or whatever) You will exit the Battery Swapping Station with a full battery, and the old battery you left behind won’t take as long to charge up as would a completely empty battery ‘cos it still had some charge left.
*** One of the beautiful things about the Battery Swapping Station is that the charging of the spare batteries is done at a slower speed for each battery. Multiple batteries inside the store can even be charged at the same time, if there is sufficient current available. Batteries do not need to be “slammed” with charge, which is usually bad for them and frankly dangerous. Contrast this with the plight of the single battery owner (the driver who has not signed up for the program) – they face Supercharging and other methods of charging their batteries as fast as they possibly can – so it takes as little time as possible… because they have to wait while it is charged. This can only be bad for the battery in the longer term (not to mention more dangerous with more current flying around) It’s also bad for the Supercharger, which has to empty out its electrical store at a high rate. (I admit, it’s possible I have misguessed how Superchargers work here) The Battery Swapping Station charges all of the batteries at a gentler rate, sorta like comparing mass-produced beef vs. grass fed cows allowed to roam in the fields J The Battery Swapping Station charges its batteries when no-one is at the station – versus the Supercharger, which slams charge into batteries only at the moment a driver is there.
*** Owners of 85KWh, 60KWh and 40KWh battery cars can all get their batteries swapped at these Battery Swapping Stations. No station can predict what kind of car is about to drive in, so there’s no point keeping a set of smaller batteries around, or 85KWh batteries that are only charged up to 60KWh, for example. They will all be 85KWh batteries and will all be fully charged. The batteries will be inherently limited to replicate the initial capacity the owner paid for. Seems pretty tragic for a 40KWh owner to have an 85KWh battery slung under his ass but only get less than half of it before it’s running out of juice… I wish this could change! What would happen if a 40KWh driver was stranded in a snowstorm after running out of charge, and froze to death, and later investigators found that the battery was actually a swapped 85KWh unit? Would Tesla look bad? Perhaps 40KWh drivers can “upgrade” their battery capacity for a significant one-time fee – which might have all sorts of financial packages available to ease the purchase. It could be quite compelling if you’re stuck in a snowstorm and a phone call gets you the extra 45KWh your car was always carrying.
*** Batteries would be charged at the ideal temperature for charging, and kept at the ideal temperature for storing fully-charged batteries. Finally, when a car drives in, a process would immediately begin to bring the replacement battery’s temperature to that required for driving with it. This would be nice for changing batteries on a freezing cold day – you’d get a nicely warmed-up battery right away.
*** These Battery Swapping Stations will work out of the gate for Model X and Model S cars, which have the same batteries. And, Model X will be configured to immediately enjoy battery swapping, without any sign-up visit to a service center. I’m going to conject here that the Generation3 won’t take those same batteries, since it’s physically smaller. It is possible that Tesla will build their Battery Swapping Stations to accommodate two physical sizes of battery, the smaller one going into Generation3 cars, and these two sizes could last the company decades.
*** Battery Swapping Stations will be more commonplace in the kinds of places in the world where larger distances are traveled – for example, USA and Africa. In places where shorter distances are the norm, and the car can make it more easily on slow-charges, owners will be able to stick with the battery they got in the car and not bother signing up. Europe would be an example.
*** Don’t laugh or balk at the concept, but there might be “combo gasoline and electric” service stations for many years – because they still want you to buy orange juice, sandwiches and napkins etc. while preparing your car for a long journey (which is what we are often doing when we visit a gas station today). These probably wouldn’t be run by the major oil brands, but independent operators that feel like both is best.
*** If other car manufacturers license the tech/patents/IP from Tesla that allow them to use Tesla batteries, other car manufacturers could use Tesla’s network of battery swapping stations around the country without developing their own massive infrastructure. It could be said that if all the various manufacturers develop their own battery swapping stations, that’s an awful amount of risk for everyone to take… using someone else’s existing grid of ready-built swapping stations might prove a more attractive plan, even if you’re tacitly admitting that the other guys’ stations are competitive.
