Tesla battery swap: Post announcement discussion

[Norbert]

Sigh. Ok, I thought "miles of charge" was obvious that it means the display output, but I can rephrase that:

So if you go from 50 "display on console while set to standard that you may or may not be getting depending on actual driving style" to 200 "display on console while set to standard that you may or may not be getting depending on actual driving style" on a 120kW charger, it should take around 23.5 minutes. (The math isn't quite linear, but I've compensated for that.)

There... it's all better now.

In this case, I'm not sure what your point is. When Dennis wrote about the charge time going from :45 to :30, he implied an improvement of 50% (not just 33%). (A ratio of 2 to 3, not just a ratio of 3 to 4, going from 90 to 120 kW). Unless they are upgrading shared chargers to a total of 180 kW, the time improvement might be less than 50% when both bays are occupied, since in that situation 120 kW may already be in full use. AFAIK we don't know yet what the planned upgrade exactly includes.

 

[deonb]

I wasn't aware of that. The downside is that the Model S in the adjacent bay gets very little charging for a longer percentage of the time that they are sharing the 120kW.

True. I was just responding to this part of your message - saying that it's slightly more complicated math when it comes to that 20 mile reserve.

"reduce times by 33% to reflect 120kw Superchargers"


But yes, if 2 cars pull in at the same time at the same charger, the fact that it doesn't taper off as quickly will negatively impact the second car's charge speed. It will likely work out even for the second vehicle with or without the reduced tapering.

 

[Rla]

A point that has not been brought to the table here:
We all know TM is working on better batteries, with longer range (the 500 miles pack, the 100kWh pack, ...). One of those side-effects is that charging those takes longer, unless you can charge them faster. What if TM has the capacity research done, so more range is feasible, but faster charging is not? Perhaps they have now knowledge that faster charging will not happen any time soon. That combined with the higher volume of cars on the road, it benefits the Swapping stations program.

So Today:
Battery-Swap is a huge marketing stunt: and a clever one. I have talked with my boss about the Model S, several times, he dismissed it every time. Since the battery-swap demo, he is now going for a testdrive. It changes peoples minds about the possibilities. I have been a proponent of EV's for some time now, and I do not feel like battery-swap makes a huge difference in daily usage. As many have stated, it will be a fractional portion of the charging use cases. But still, it seems to close the chasm for so many people. Fill up faster and cleaner than an ICE.

So Tomorrow:
Battery-Swap is used for road-trips, for faster charging, city-swap/charge, possibly for picking up a bigger or newer pack.

I suspect as time goes by, people will be less concerned about the degradation of the battery-pack. As the pack is managed by the car, can be swapped any time, has full 8-years warranty on it. 'Ownership' of the pack will become less of an issue (for most). (Also you'll need to paint a big red X on the bottom of your car/pack to recognize if it really is 'your' pack, or at least make it distinguishable from any other random pack)

Future:
Battery-Lease with swap and supercharge included, allows for huge scale of cars/packs travelling across the network. Given enough incentives packs can become a sustainable 'consumable' item in the car. TM can take back old packs, upgrade for newer ones, and claim a little profit at each step. Or perhaps maybe one day you buy the car with a monthly subscription (similar as mobile phones today).

 

[Monto]

There was confirmation that 60s could be swapped out for 85s. Either you'd need to return it and get your orig pack back or you would get a big bill for the difference.

Does anyone know if this would include supercharging with the 85 pack? I have a 60 w/o supercharging. I would absolutely swap for an 85 pack on a road trip if I could then use supercharging and swap back for my pack on the way home.

 

[deonb]

Does anyone know if this would include supercharging with the 85 pack? I have a 60 w/o supercharging. I would absolutely swap for an 85 pack on a road trip if I could then use supercharging and swap back for my pack on the way home.

Was not mentioned.

I don't think we should really regard the Q/A as some sort of be-all and end-all in terms of what is actually going to be offered.

The most likely thing that's going to happen, is it's going to be like 3G in the car. It will be free for a while while Tesla is working out the technically issues. Then they will introduce and experiment with various price points, both on the charger side and battery side, with different options for returning, and stuff like you mentioned - can a 60 SuperCharge while it's on an 85 kick?

I believe Elon just has a vision of it being similarly priced for a gas refill. But the vision isn't all that fleshed out yet. There's still a lot of things that need to happen with that, number of gallons, what happens when you return a half-full battery etc. different battery sizes, what constitutes a battery that's "essentially the same" etc.

It just takes one high profile article saying that a Tesla is more expensive to operate than a Chevy, and you suddenly have a whole new ballgame.

So I believe Tesla will tweak the pricing structure and point until they have something sensible and competitive.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I was dead serious. Check out PriusChat and you'll find lots of us Prius owners who'd like a Gen 3 Tesla. We really don't care about performance, we're looking for pure EV at a good price and we have budgetary concerns. check out gm-volt and you'll find a good number of drivers who came from Beemers, drawn by the low running costs and the EV grin. If Tesla hits Gen 3 price targets they'll be able to draw up buyers and use up Fremont capacity, but if chargers are crowded and swapping costs twice the price of gas, a lot of those buyers on the value end are going to look elsewhere.

BMW sells 9k 3 series each month in the USA. Hybrid sales last month were a bit under 49k., and under 5k of those are cheaper than a Prius liftback. There's a good sized market waiting if they can make the system simple and keep the price down.

 

[Norbert]

I was dead serious. Check out PriusChat and you'll find lots of us Prius owners who'd like a Gen 3 Tesla. We really don't care about performance, we're looking for pure EV at a good price and we have budgetary concerns. check out gm-volt and you'll find a good number of drivers who came from Beemers, drawn by the low running costs and the EV grin. If Tesla hits Gen 3 price targets they'll be able to draw up buyers and use up Fremont capacity, but if chargers are crowded and swapping costs twice the price of gas, a lot of those buyers on the value end are going to look elsewhere.

BMW sells 9k 3 series each month in the USA. Hybrid sales last month were a bit under 49k., and under 5k of those are cheaper than a Prius liftback. There's a good sized market waiting if they can make the system simple and keep the price down.

I see no reason to doubt that there is a number of Volt owners coming from BMW. However those must be a good bit less than 20k or 30k, that being the total sales volume. The Gen III is meant to sell in the order of 200k. So whoever bought Volts, Tesla cannot expect them to be the main customers of Gen III.

The situation with the Prius is more complicated. The Prius has been the main hybrid for a long time, but currently the spectrum of available hybrids is becoming larger, so I think that in the future, with more different types of hybrids, the intersection of those who are interested in the Prius and those who are interested in the Gen III will decrease, simply because of the different "type" of car they are.

While there doesn't seem to be a reason to doubt that there is a large number of Prius owners who are interested in the Gen III, the situation here is the opposite as with the Volt, they are selling in much larger numbers (millions worldwide), and the Prius is a very different type of car, in its character. When you are saying that the main attraction for Prius owners would be the pure EV nature of Gen III, I agree that the idealistic among the Prius owners, perhaps especially those going to forums such as perhaps PriusChat, may be willing to pay the (initially) higher price of the Gen III because of this reason, the ability to drive powered by sustainable energy. And I believe that for them the budget may be important. However, aside from the question of range, the Leaf to me seems to be a more similar car, so I'm not sure how many would be waiting for the more expensive Gen III, instead of buying a Leaf. And in regard to those who do, I'm not sure how many of them would make their decision dependent on battery swapping at all (except perhaps to have it as an option for rare cases). I'd expect them to be patient enough to be fine with SuperCharging in the first place, regardless of the specific price for swapping. As some do express here on this forum.

And I don't think Tesla would consider a swap price below $30, at this point. Although I do hope it will be lower than it currently appears. So in so far as Tesla is trying to attract Prius owners, I think they will try to do so mainly by offering a combination of 200+ mile range and "free" supercharging.

In other words, I think that in so far as you are representing how a Prius owner thinks, I'd agree with you, however while Prius owners might be a reason for Tesla to offer SuperCharging for "free", I think they will be less of an argument for offering battery swapping for less than $30.

I expect Tesla will position battery swapping more for those might otherwise buy a more average ICE (in a slightly higher price range), and try for it to be profitable, so as not to lose money on a feature that is not so essential for electric cars. (And thereby avoid the situation where for example Prius owners, who are switching to Gen III, would have to implicitly pay for a feature that is not as important to them).

That doesn't mean it's just marketing. It just means that it is a feature which has a different importance to different customers (like other optional features). While having a certain usefulness to (almost) all customers. (Speaking aside from that they may be helping with peak demand and reducing the need for reserved parking in walking distance.)

 

[hans]

Does anyone know if this would include supercharging with the 85 pack? I have a 60 w/o supercharging. I would absolutely swap for an 85 pack on a road trip if I could then use supercharging and swap back for my pack on the way home.

For this to work, Tesla would have to remotely enable (and disable) the supercharger function when the packs are swapped. While this might be possible, it also makes it easier to snoop the over the air commands and figure out how to turn supercharging on for free all the time.

My bet would be that cars w/o supercharging stay that way even after a swap. They want you to buy that upgrade separately and they probably require a visit to the service center to turn it on.

 

[Volker.Berlin]

For this to work, Tesla would have to remotely enable (and disable) the supercharger function when the packs are swapped.

It all depends on details that we don't know. You presume that Supercharger capability is a feature of the car. It might as well be a feature of the battery pack that travels with the pack when packs are swapped.

 

[WarpedOne]

All MS cars are able to supercharge - HW is there.
All batteries are able to supercharge.

To access SC one needs to pay SC membership - this is bound to car/customer ID. If you paid for SC you can use it even with swapped battery.
If you haven't payed for it, you won't be able to use it even with 85kWh battery until it is yours i.e. you payed for the difference.
Tesla may choose to offer option of not paying for SC with 85kWh swappeded packs as they are all about optionality...

I bet my farm that SC won't be accessible to MS60 owners without SC membership.

 

[K5ING]

The smart way would be to charge existing 85 owners a nominal fee (say, $15) to swap for another 85 pack, but charge the 60 owners without the SC fee the $80 (or whatever it turns out to be) to use the 85's pack.

 

[strider]

IMO I would probably never use it unless it was free. if anything maybe $10 or $20 but only charged for the "swap out" i.e. the swap on the way back to get your own battery back should be free. Anything more and I doubt many people are going to use it unless you're dirt rich.

Dirt rich? Seriously? MILLIONS of people take road trips in America every year in ICE vehicles that get terrible mileage (think SUVs) and buy fuel for every mile they drive. So if you swap at every station on every long trip (once or twice per year) your cost of operation is still less than an ICE since you're playing less for your daily charges than gas would cost. And as they say, time is money. So if I roll into a charge station and there's a huge line for SC's I could see paying $80 to be out of there in a few minutes vs 2 hours.

As others have said, this isn't aimed at us - it's aimed at prospective buyers who are currently literally burning their money driving their ICE's around. So Tesla can say that by spending the same amount as they would spend driving to Disneyland in their ICE, they can drive an MS and get their in the same amount of time and the rest of the year save a ton of time by never going to a gas station and saving money by charging at home.

$60 to $80 is what I read, so I used $80. The Prius' average fill is 9 gallons and unless it's cold I typically get 600-650 miles.

You're killing me with the Prius comparisons. An MS is NOT a Prius (thank your favorite deity here). Prii are terrible cars to drive. They take an hour to accelerate, an hour to stop, and can't turn for anything. And even if you don't care about driving dynamics they're still quite small vehicles. There's no way I could take 4 adults and a kid in a car seat on a long trip in a Prius but I've done it in our MS. So STOP comparing Model S to a Prius! Compare it to an Audi A7 or equivalent. In which case the cost to purchase is the same and the cost to operate dramatically lower, even if you use battery swap instead of SC'ing.

 

[Lyon]

All MS cars are able to supercharge - HW is there.
All batteries are able to supercharge.

To access SC one needs to pay SC membership - this is bound to car/customer ID. If you paid for SC you can use it even with swapped battery.
If you haven't payed for it, you won't be able to use it even with 85kWh battery until it is yours i.e. you payed for the difference.
Tesla may choose to offer option of not paying for SC with 85kWh swappeded packs as they are all about optionality...

I bet my farm that SC won't be accessible to MS60 owners without SC membership.

During the recent conference call regarding the SC network expansion in the US, Elon was asked about allowing vehicles by other manufacturers use the system. His response was pretty much what you've just said. He has no problem with it on the conceptual level but there will have to be a financial commitment to the network by those owners or manufacturers as Model S owners have already supported the network through their vehicle purchase. Frankly, that seems like a relatively modest hurdle when compared to the fact that other manufacturers seem to be 5-10 years behind in the tech department with it comes to EVs.

 

[WolfgangG]

Haven't seen this mentionned anywhere: Battery swaps have another far more important potential besides non-stop road trips. People living in appartments without dedicated parking have no chance of "charging at home". This situation is certainly typical of most European metropoles. Might also be the main reason why EVs are not yet taking much hold in China (as Jack Rickard pointed out some while ago). A supercharger is no option as no-one whould spend half an hour for filling up in between errands. A normal slow public charge port is also out of the question as the owner would need to remove his car at the completion of the charge. Also I can't image peppering city streets with numerous charge points Better Place style. Yet it's quite conceivable to have one or two swap stations. A weekly visit to one of those will keep a Tesla car on the go, given it's generous battery capacity. So the logical place for swap stations is not in between cities, but right in the middle of them. In my mind, swapping would open up significant markets to Tesla. It enables city dwellers to support an EV even without their own dedicated parking/charging spot.

 

[WarpedOne]

Haven't seen this mentionned anywhere:

It was mentioned and discussed thoroughly. It boils down to costs.
Tesla's proposed swapping currently costs twice as much as gas per driven mile. And even this doubled $/mile is not an economic but 'marketing' price - same price as a full tank of gas sounds cool.
What is not said out loud is that it only drives you half the distance.

Tesla has problems building enough supercharger locations to enable hassle-free long distance travel, don't dream they will ever build enough swapping stations to make it a viable option.

 

[twinklejet]

Does anybody have any update or the slightest hint / clue as to where the first battery swap station will open in California? (Yes it's definitely in California, they've announced that much)

I'm thinking perhaps the Fremont Supercharger opening is related to this somehow... Hopefully we'll see some hints on the ground...

 

[wraithnot]

Does anybody have any update or the slightest hint / clue as to where the first battery swap station will open in California? (Yes it's definitely in California, they've announced that much)

I'm thinking perhaps the Fremont Supercharger opening is related to this somehow... Hopefully we'll see some hints on the ground...

I remember seeing somewhere that the first swap station(s) would allow rapid travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Harris Ranch seems like the most obvious spot since it's almost exactly halfway between LA and SF and just a single swap station would allow Tesla to claim victory on going between these two cities faster than with a standard car. They might also put in a swap station at Tejon Ranch for people who want to go from San Diego to San Francisco or for people that want to drive really fast between LA and SF.

 

[tdiggity]

Cross your fingers for something to show up at the Fremont supercharger ceremony tomorrow.

 

[evmile]

At the Crissy Field Supercharger Event I detected a distinct back pedaling regarding battery swapping. I got the impression Tesla will focus on reducing the charge time by continuing to increase the power of the Supercharging stations. The general statement was why would you pay (e.g. $60) for a five minute swap when you could have a free 20 minute charge. All the Superchargers are up to 120 kW and I believe Europe is already at 135 kW.

 

[Discoducky]

At the Crissy Field Supercharger Event I detected a distinct back pedaling regarding battery swapping. I got the impression Tesla will focus on reducing the charge time by continuing to increase the power of the Supercharging stations. The general statement was why would you pay (e.g. $60) for a five minute swap when you could have a free 20 minute charge. All the Superchargers are up to 120 kW and I believe Europe is already at 135 kW.

"I don't drink coffee and live in Seattle so I can't imagine that Starbucks will do well" is what I was thinking. If TM can price it right, make money and make people that are in a hurry happy, then skies the limit. I personally think that a well placed swapper that could do an average of 100 swaps a day max, or 20 in an hour peak or 500 a week could be profitable at $50/swap over a year for operating costs.