I think this is true. I don't see any advantage to battery swapping if supercharging can refill in 5 mins or less without adverse impact on the pack.
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Swapping is Coming [Discuss how it will be accomplished]
- Thread starter Citizen-T
- Start date
I think this is true. I don't see any advantage to battery swapping if supercharging can refill in 5 mins or less without adverse impact on the pack.
deonb
Active Member
Ok, good. We're on the same page so far.
So now look carefully at Javier's words: "Charging technology is only going to improve with time. Charging times will decrease significantly and range will increase accordingly. In the very near future, the argument that internal combustion automobiles are more convenient than electric vehicles will be a moot point. You will be able to arrive at a charging station with an empty battery and drive off with a full charge faster than you can fill up a gas tank."
Ignore the "drive off with a full charge" meant or what Elon meant by "recharge faster than a gas station" - that's been debated to death. One can take those to mean battery swapping.
However, on the first part. Javier believes charging technology will improve and charging times will decrease significantly in the very near future. If he thinks that, what happened to his long-term hat?
"Very near future" is a relative statement. Considering we are working with an industry that hasn't seen significant technology and/or business model advances in 100 years, that doesn't give me much confidence that he means in less than 5 to 10 years. Even if he does, do we know that this new faster charging is going to be compatible with Model S? Or is it going to require a 3rd generation battery pack which we'll see in the Gen III platform?
Maybe you can make this happen only making changes on the Supercharger and software fronts, but I wouldn't be shocked to find that in order to get the charge times that low, you need advances in all three areas (Supercharger, Software, and Pack).
deonb
Active Member
Maybe... But come back to the follow-up. He did qualify "very near future" with "...faster than you can fill up a gas tank" part, which is the exact same wording Elon used regarding the June 20th announcement. Not debating what that specific statement means (who knows), but it does establish a timeframe for his overall comment.
Does it need to be Model S compatible for the announcement? I guess Elon did say 'Model S owners', so yes.
But the announcement would still be valid even if you need to buy a new battery to take advantage of it. (Or maybe TSLA will just take all the existing Li-ion batteries back and use them for the Grid storage on the SuperChargers).
For that matter, there is nothing that says this is imminent. The announcement can be about something 2 to 3 years away. They've announced the Model S 6 years early.
Mark Petersen
Model S EU P71
Well most of us dont like the idear of battery swap because me may get an old misussed battery in exchange for our brand new
Also non of us have problem with the idear if the battery is leased / rented, but we hate it if we own it
Well what is leasing, just some clever way of paying for the battery over it's lifespan
Lets say a battery cost 40.000 and it last 10 years, to leas it you need to pay 4.000 + intrest = 5.000 for 10 years
Well this is just the same as if you took a loan in the bank
If we add battery swap to the equarion you probaly have to pay an aditional ammount, say 4.000
Now leasing with swap cost 9.000 each year, (reason they replace the battery before it is 10 years old)
But what if you buy it 40.000 and then pay 4.000 for swapping, to get the customers to jump to this agrement promises Them that if they exit the battery swap agrement you get a new battery, you did pay what 1 year ware cost
Also non of us have problem with the idear if the battery is leased / rented, but we hate it if we own it
Well what is leasing, just some clever way of paying for the battery over it's lifespan
Lets say a battery cost 40.000 and it last 10 years, to leas it you need to pay 4.000 + intrest = 5.000 for 10 years
Well this is just the same as if you took a loan in the bank
If we add battery swap to the equarion you probaly have to pay an aditional ammount, say 4.000
Now leasing with swap cost 9.000 each year, (reason they replace the battery before it is 10 years old)
But what if you buy it 40.000 and then pay 4.000 for swapping, to get the customers to jump to this agrement promises Them that if they exit the battery swap agrement you get a new battery, you did pay what 1 year ware cost
For battery swapping to work, I think:
1) can't be capital intensive. So no network of robot-changing stations (that have to be supervised by humans anyway).
2) that means people have to swap the batteries so the batteries have to be light and swapping has to be trivially easy and idiot proof.
3) the batteries have to be safe to ship and store for extended periods of time. Battery has to be very safe in an accident (whether in use or being shipped).
4) the batteries have to have enough power to make this worthwhile. Don't bother for 10KwH. Have to be something like 40+ KwH.
5) the battery cost has to be low enough that these things are stolen all the time.
The only way the above will happen if someone develops cheap battery chemistry where for some reason, the battery can't be reused/recharged except at the factory. And maybe the battery doesn't work unless you add a catalyst or something so it's relatively inert while being shipped and stored. And then someone has to develop the idiot-proof packaging.
Sorry but I don't see this happening anytime soon. And if it does happen, I think the odds are good that the batteries in the car will be good enough that swapping is no longer required. We should see practical 500 mile batteries in 10 years. Less if we get a really good chemistry change. At that point, all we'll need is L2 and Supercharging and we'll be good.
1) can't be capital intensive. So no network of robot-changing stations (that have to be supervised by humans anyway).
2) that means people have to swap the batteries so the batteries have to be light and swapping has to be trivially easy and idiot proof.
3) the batteries have to be safe to ship and store for extended periods of time. Battery has to be very safe in an accident (whether in use or being shipped).
4) the batteries have to have enough power to make this worthwhile. Don't bother for 10KwH. Have to be something like 40+ KwH.
5) the battery cost has to be low enough that these things are stolen all the time.
The only way the above will happen if someone develops cheap battery chemistry where for some reason, the battery can't be reused/recharged except at the factory. And maybe the battery doesn't work unless you add a catalyst or something so it's relatively inert while being shipped and stored. And then someone has to develop the idiot-proof packaging.
Sorry but I don't see this happening anytime soon. And if it does happen, I think the odds are good that the batteries in the car will be good enough that swapping is no longer required. We should see practical 500 mile batteries in 10 years. Less if we get a really good chemistry change. At that point, all we'll need is L2 and Supercharging and we'll be good.
rcc: You seem to forget that Elon Musk talked about swapping out the battery in 2009 when he was revealing the car. Why would he open his mouth about that if it was not the intent? Why do you think the battery is along the bottom of the car in the manner it is? (apart from great handling it gives you easy removabilty)
A lot of us on there have a great deal of respect for Elon Musk, but I do not think he was shocked by some new improvement in battery-charging speeds in the last 4 years, and has now decided to abandon battery swapping in favour of simply speeding up Superchargers. I think his long term business strategy is progressing exactly as planned. The only unplanned thing that happened so far is the rapid payoff of the government loan, which was only due to a massive spike in the stock value, and no-one will call into question the decision to pay that off early when the opportunity presents itself.
A lot of us on there have a great deal of respect for Elon Musk, but I do not think he was shocked by some new improvement in battery-charging speeds in the last 4 years, and has now decided to abandon battery swapping in favour of simply speeding up Superchargers. I think his long term business strategy is progressing exactly as planned. The only unplanned thing that happened so far is the rapid payoff of the government loan, which was only due to a massive spike in the stock value, and no-one will call into question the decision to pay that off early when the opportunity presents itself.
jeff_adams
Member
Why would Tesla roll out such an aggressive supercharger network if they were going to do battery swapping? If you look at the current supercharger locations, how can they build the swapping infrastructure there? Do people expect them to lease MORE real estate for the swap stations?
Frankly I have no idea how they would do it. However, I really think the Al-Air idea is odd and there is no evidence for it (I'm not schlepping heavy batteries and adding water to my Model S, thank you), and I can't see anything else that fits. If it's battery swapping I think it's different than people imagine, and it definitely isn't parallel to the superchargers across the nation (Taxi fleets? Specific high volume corridors like SF-LA?). I hear too many people say "Battery swapping can't work" but the reasons they give assume a very specific implementation and use of the idea.
Again, this thread is not for debating whether or not Tesla is going to introduce pack swapping. It starts with the assumption that they are going to do swapping and attempts to figure out how. If you want to debate whether or not they should do swapping you are in the wrong place.
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.
Sent from my XT912 using Tapatalk 2
jeff_adams
Member
deonb
Active Member
Elon thinks bigger than us. If you constrain a thread, we're not going to match him. If Elon tells you: "Come up with an Electrical car", you'd come up with a Leaf.
Similarly, if you were asked to come up with a Battery Swapping solution in isolation, and people didn't scream and shout at you about the fact that it's too expensive to store that many batteries, I don't know if you would have come up with your grid storage theory - which is the most coherent and believable end-to-end story I've seen to date. The solution became better by making the problem worse.
We need to broaden input - and welcome critique.
My latest issue is this:
But my issue doesn't mean I'm rooting for your idea to fail. But I still demand that you address it. Why? Because Elon had to address it. So by addressing these seeming distractions to the problem, it could again force people to come up with an even larger and better solution that more closely tracks the real thing.
And just to show I'm not biased against battery-swapping-theorists, even though I'm obviously a fast-charger-theorist myself (honestly, it is mostly because few other people on here took that position), here is something in strong support against fast-charge-theory:
Elon, Jim Cramer interview, May 31:
@retrowallstt: Given the downtime (20+min) at recharging stations, is there any plan to create a "customer experience" during that time?
Elon: Well, we're aiming to keep improving the charge speed, and then we got some other ideas for minimizing people's time at charge stations.
Elon Musk: Self-Driving Cars, Hyperloops and a Cheaper Tesla - 13:40 min
Faster charging is definitely not "some other idea" to "improving the charge speed".
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stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
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
As I said in my previous massive post, Supercharging will be FREE... and battery swaapping will cost you money. That will be THE simple difference that regular people will be able to understand.
Imagine a world with Tesla cars that are priced all the way down into the $30,000+ price range, or even lower, and also where gasoline has been $5 per gallon or more for some time in all parts of the USA. (it is already there in Europe, where the Tesla is going to look really good)
1) wealthy people who don't mind paying, will probably opt for the battery exchange. Tesla warrants the quality of the batteries you get in a battery-swapping station... and you will only have it a few days before you get another one. The amount of money that it costs may not remain the same... may change to react to market conditions e.g. price of gasoline and/or the company's financial health. May differ due to the amount of charge you had in the battery you're dropping off... or if you are accepting a half-full or totally-full battery when you drive out... age of the battery... etc..
2) people who find they have time on their hands will use superchargers if they really want to save money.
3) people will charge at home, see the increase in their electricity bill (much less than gasoline bill), and accept it. They will use superchargers when they get the chance.
4) people for whom saving money is paramount will only ever use the superchargers!
DeonB said: "at each of these [Supercharger] locations you would have already had to plan for installing the battery swapper." You're right that secrets are hard to keep a lid on... but there are only a small number of Supercharger sites at present and I think they will remain Supercharger-only. It'll become normal for combo stations to proliferate, but it will always be OK for Superchargers to stand alone, and I just think the existing ones fall into that category.
I believe the Tesla company has devoted a corner of its factory (or perhaps some other location) to secret long-term testing of the battery swapper, constantly swapping batteries over and over with one or more dummy cars. It will be crucial for Tesla to test these things out and make sure there is robustness to the swapper design. They will have one almighty hell of a problem if there are battery swappers blocked by stranded cars and people unable to drive out of them! It has taken them until now to come out with the announcement due to the rigorous testing.
MG
Imagine a world with Tesla cars that are priced all the way down into the $30,000+ price range, or even lower, and also where gasoline has been $5 per gallon or more for some time in all parts of the USA. (it is already there in Europe, where the Tesla is going to look really good)
1) wealthy people who don't mind paying, will probably opt for the battery exchange. Tesla warrants the quality of the batteries you get in a battery-swapping station... and you will only have it a few days before you get another one. The amount of money that it costs may not remain the same... may change to react to market conditions e.g. price of gasoline and/or the company's financial health. May differ due to the amount of charge you had in the battery you're dropping off... or if you are accepting a half-full or totally-full battery when you drive out... age of the battery... etc..
2) people who find they have time on their hands will use superchargers if they really want to save money.
3) people will charge at home, see the increase in their electricity bill (much less than gasoline bill), and accept it. They will use superchargers when they get the chance.
4) people for whom saving money is paramount will only ever use the superchargers!
DeonB said: "at each of these [Supercharger] locations you would have already had to plan for installing the battery swapper." You're right that secrets are hard to keep a lid on... but there are only a small number of Supercharger sites at present and I think they will remain Supercharger-only. It'll become normal for combo stations to proliferate, but it will always be OK for Superchargers to stand alone, and I just think the existing ones fall into that category.
I believe the Tesla company has devoted a corner of its factory (or perhaps some other location) to secret long-term testing of the battery swapper, constantly swapping batteries over and over with one or more dummy cars. It will be crucial for Tesla to test these things out and make sure there is robustness to the swapper design. They will have one almighty hell of a problem if there are battery swappers blocked by stranded cars and people unable to drive out of them! It has taken them until now to come out with the announcement due to the rigorous testing.
MG
I agree that the grid storage collocated with Superchargers runs afoul of the serious objection that the parking lot locations of superchargers don't lend themselves to battery swapping stations. What about a few separate solar farm/battery swap locations. Say two on I-5 that would allow "two swap" travel between LA and SF (and they store your owned battery at the first station for when you return). It generates a lot of power to offset the supercharger network in a state where power is expensive and allows fast travel in what is probably the busiest Tesla travel corridor. The rest of the nation uses Superchargers.
deonb
Active Member
You're basing it on that there will be a segment of the population willing to pay money to wait 10 minutes less.
Keep in mind, with Battery swapping you can't leave your car - it's sequential and they need to keep it moving. So you'd be waiting 5 mins for the swap, and then you're going to pull over in a parking spot, get out, stretch & go to the bathroom - you were just driving for 2.5 hours, and about to drive for another 2.5 hours. Yeah... you'll get out. So we're talking about a 10 minute swap-stop vs. a 20 mins charge-stop. And if there is as little as 2 cars in front of you at the Battery Swapper, you're dead even. More than that, and I'm heading for the SuperCharger.
Not only that, you're also making a bet that charge time won't double by the time you are done with your deployment in 3 years. Otherwise you've just bought yourself a nice juicy white elephant.
I can't see this being a coherent plan by itself. There maybe some ultra-niche market (much more elite than the Model S market) where some people may be willing to pay $some amount a day to wait that 10 mins less, but I don't see that.
Look at the following scenario:
* I'm driving from Seattle to Los Angeles to go catch some sun.
* I swap my own battery out at Centralia, then keep swapping another 8 times until I get to Los Angeles.
* Then I hang around for 15 days over there, visiting DisneyLand, Catalina, Sea World etc.
* Then I head back to Seattle, swapping around another 8 times until I'm back in Centralia, 20 days later. So you've had my battery for 20 days (which you couldn't lend out), and I've had some of yours.
How much are you going to charge me for that? Here's a hint: Those $40k batteries that you lent to me (and were now out of action to lend to other people for 20 days), amortized over a 5 year life (nobody is going to be happy with an 8-year old 200 mile range battery), cost you $438 over that time.
So either you're going to eat the cost, or you're going to pass it on to me, which even at cost, I'm going to tell you - no thanks, I'm not going to pay $438 to save 4 hours. I don't make $109 per hour after taxes! (Well... this year. Go TSLA!). But we're literally talking about the difference at the stops between finishing a coffee inside StarBucks, vs. having it in the car on the way.
So I don't think the time vs. cost argument holds up by itself. There are people who would pay that, but can you build a $100m business on it? If there was a standalone company that gives you the above as a business plan, would you invest even $500 in them?
However, there are definitely other possible aspects that will push me over:
a) It's in a location where there is no SuperCharger. Absolutely will pay $21 per day to be able to take the 101 through the Avenue of the Giants (No SuperChargers on 101 there). No question.
b) You rent to me a 500 mile battery - even if I have to return it. Now I can get through the Avenue of the Giants, so I'm a happy camper.
c) It's faster and near-free (So you eat the cost. But then... why do we have SuperChargers?)
Battery swapping is too weak to stand by itself. Citizen-T made it stronger, but I still don't think it's strong enough yet. There has to be another aspect to it other than just time to make it truly compelling.
Elon did the reveal in 2009. The car shipped in 2012. That's a lot of time for engineering designs to change/evolve.
Battery swapping can work well if the right battery chemistry shows up. As I said in a previous post: lightweight, reasonably compact, safe to store/ship, idiot-proof connection and not incredibly valuable.
The current battery fails on a number of those counts. And as long as the batteries are liquid-cooled, it's likely that they'll continue to fail.
The SC network will never cover everyone's needs so there will be a need and therefore a market for swappable add-on batteries that augment but don't replace the primary.
I just think that barring a revolutionary battery chemistry, SC charging with Tesla auto batteries that uses electricity transmission infrastructure to move power will be the primary source of roadtrip power. And as the EV battery pack capacity gets bigger, I think that will reduce the amount of time it takes to charge 200 miles of range and reduce the number of charging stops required per day of travel - both which makes the # of SC's per car ratio better.
But since this is a thread for talking about how to make battery swapping happen (which I didn't realize), I'll apologize for diverting the conversation and sign off.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
$438/20days means $22/day, which is still cheaper than a rental car and likely cheaper than what you would spend on gas alone on a similar trip. I think most people will find that acceptable.
Also, I'm not quite sure your supercharger vs swapping math is correct. 20 minutes supercharging gives you a 2/3 charge on the 60kWh pack, so basically 40kWh of energy, which given ~360Wh/mi (may be optimistic if traveling higher speeds) gives you 110 miles of range, which is not enough to make it in between stops (assuming 8 stops in between). You need at least 130-140 miles of range between stops, which would add another 4-5 minutes to your charging time.
5 minute swapping (or 10 minutes total) gives you a fully charged 85kWh pack (this number will be grow as battery technology improves), so you have 200+ miles of range on tap and you can freely travel higher speeds (alternatively you might be able to skip a stop). So the amount of time you save with battery swapping is likely higher than indicated.
(ultra-niche market)???
Business users who are not emotionally attached to ownership of the battery and need high uptime
ie Taxis, limo, ambulance
notice these all stay within city confines and don't get to use superchargers anyway.
( There has to be another aspect to it)
Swap stations are an asset for Tesla service centers anyway.
Battery swapping is a complimentary extension to fastcharging, some business simply wont operate a vehicle fleet with the limits of supercharging, for them it either has an combustion engine or batteryswap
deonb
Active Member
It's because of the alternatives. With a rental car, $22/day sounds like a great deal because the alternative is taking planes & taxis - all of which are way more expensive.
Create a free 24-hour unlimited distance taxi service, which is guaranteed to arrive within 10 minutes and can take you anywhere within 150 miles (and then you can call another one - free again), and you'll relegate rental cars to the niche corners of the universe.
That's pretty much the relationship between SuperChargers and SuperSwappers as well.
Yeah, ok. But that's only if you complicated things with facts
. But we're trying to guess at a Tesla announcement here. So we can should Tesla math instead of Edison math. So instead of 360Wh/mi, use 300Wh/mi. Then you're at the 133 mile range in 20 mins.
But speaking of Tesla math. Maybe we've been looking at the problem wrong so far...
Tesla likes to compare themselves to a S-Class Mercedes. So let's use a Mercedes S-600. It has a fuel tank capacity of 23.8 gallons. And let's say you'll refuel when you hit a quarter tank. So that means you refuel every 17.85 galons. It also has a 19 MPG EPA Highway range. So that gives you 339 miles of traveling capacity per stop. The average gas refill time is 4 mins. With payment it's 5 mins. So this means 339 miles for a 5 min gas stop.
I'd think we're safe to say Elon fullfills his "faster than a gas station" promise even if he gets multiples or fractions of that. E.g.
169 miles for a 2.5 min stop.
678 miles for a 10 min stop.
1017 miles for a 15 min stop.
And he'll still get a passing grade for slightly smaller. E.g. 500 miles for a 10 min stop.
So, e.g. if you'd have to go to a Tesla Service station, and they put in a 500 mile pack for you within 10 mins, they'd be conforming to the announcement.
FWIW: I don't think this is it. But maybe someone else can do something with this math.
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Taxis are easier to just have 15% additional cars in the fleet and rotate them out while charging. (The price of gas far exceed 15% of the price of a Taxi). That's even faster than Battery swapping. But Limo and Ambulance I can see.
Except I don't see how you can correlate that with "throughout the country". I think "throughout the country" has to have at least match the SuperCharger coverage to be believable.
No, they're not. Apparently it takes 15 minutes for mechanics by hand to occasionally swap a bad battery. If there are so many batteries going bad that we need more frequent swapping than 32 per day at a Service Center location, then we've all got other problems.
Business owners are easier to convince with usage models, math and finances than general population.
The big problem that Battery swapping addresses is the perception of the Hoi Palloi that their lives will suck if they have to wait for 15 mins longer than what they think they are waiting right now (but in reality don't). They're the ones with the most checkbooks, so it's not bad to address that.
But you don't quite have the same problem with a fleet owner that you can sit down and look at the actual fleet usage, and where you can make a business case to build rotating redundancy into the fleet.
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