FAO EV owners
- Thread starter SmallTown
- Start date
SmallTown
Well-known member
Yeah I was thinking that. I look after my battery, but no guarantee others will. Especially if you know you're going to swap it out. I wonder if Nio analyse the batteries often? It seems to work in China but I guess, massive population and equally massive country has different needs than small European nations. It definitely needs to improve as well. The video shows loads of problems for a single car doing a single journey. However. I know some people are worried about charging times (unnecessarily in my experience but that's another matter) and having a battery swap option might alleviate those fears and help adoption.
Laughing
Well-known member
The batteries need to become a rented item, so don't comprise a cost of the car. Then it doesn't matter if you get a duff one, just change it back out at the next battery bank.
This was how I thought EVs would work long before EVs were really a thing but I can't see how it could work now. Surely it would only be feasible if batteries were the size of a mobile phone or similar otherwise a motorway service station needing to store them would need to be massive and if they were the size of a mobile phone we'd just have more of them in the car in the first place. These small scale tests are fine when they might get used a couple of times a day but in the future when every car is an EV it wouldn't work.
The only time I can see it being useful is for jobs that require multiple charges a day so maybe delivery vans, buses, taxis etc but not for typical personal journeys.
I did a 180m each way journey last week and took the ICE because the wife needed the EV while I was gone. I had no stops on the way there, no option to charge at destination and a 15 min stop on the way back. I was aware of how much less convenient that would have been in the EV.
The only time I can see it being useful is for jobs that require multiple charges a day so maybe delivery vans, buses, taxis etc but not for typical personal journeys.
I did a 180m each way journey last week and took the ICE because the wife needed the EV while I was gone. I had no stops on the way there, no option to charge at destination and a 15 min stop on the way back. I was aware of how much less convenient that would have been in the EV.
SmallTown
Well-known member
I think they tried that with the original Zoe. I don't know why it didn't take off. TBH I think, with Tesla saying how much they are trying to get the cost of their batteries down, and with the fact EV batteries are lasting much longer than anticipated I guess it's not that big an issue. The interesting thing in the video is the fact he was given the option of a 75KwH battery. That would be a bit dodgy., if you had paid a premium for the long rang version of the car.
SmallTown
Well-known member
I'm confused, surely if you fully charged before setting off that journey could have been done in an EV?
Good points made otherwise. The battery swap stall isn't too big but that's only for 1 car at a time, which isn't sustainable long term.
As per the van thing: I was always amazed fleet owners didn't adopt EV WAY before private owners. Have charging or a battery swap at a depot and the cost savings over fuel would be ridiculous. They have even started to do it with heavy plant. I know they are trying to make mining equipment electric now with swappable batteries.
For private vehicles though: it seems to take longer to swap than it would if you were doing a quick top up to get to destination.
Blf
Well-known member
Saw this on 5th Gear about a year ago. They were driving a quite good looking Chinese SUV .They pulled at a station that looked like the size of 2 containers stuck together. They pulled up and reversed up until they were a couple of feet away. The station then took over the cars operation and reversed it in. Robot under the car unbolted the battery slid it out and slid a new fully charged one in.
They then took control back and drove out. I can't remember how long it took but it was a quick action.
The presenters were amazed by the speed of it all and the quality of the car.
It was being used in Norway and other places with a view to rolling it out world wide. Not sure how that is going.
They then took control back and drove out. I can't remember how long it took but it was a quick action.
The presenters were amazed by the speed of it all and the quality of the car.
It was being used in Norway and other places with a view to rolling it out world wide. Not sure how that is going.
Boro_Interlinked
Well-known member
This wouldn't work for me as I get very unlucky on vending machines. Countless times the item is stuck on the spiral or the edge. Can see this happening here with me and waiting a day for a team of servicers to come out and sort it and say ah sorry mate the alignment was 2mm out, have u been here long ?
SmallTown
Well-known member
I t will have been a Nio, I was in their Oslo showroom last year. They have some really good cars. They even had an ET9: which is insane
There are 10 stations in Europe so it's still trial only but they are doing millions of battery swaps in China.
I'm still to be convinced though. With charging curves improving all the time and people quickly learning how to plan routes most times it'll be slower to swap then to actually "splash and dash" charge
Acklam_Lad
Well-known member
Not for me this… I’m quite happy waiting 30 mins on a fast charger
SmallTown
Well-known member
Yeah, same. I do think it might help uptake though. From the conversations we've had with none EV drivers, they THINK charging times are an issue. Understandably so, new things are always daunting at first
I could've done but it would have been a lot more stressful due to the circumstances. I was never planning to do it in the EV so never planned it. If I had I would have set off earlier, stopped close to the destination, recharged while I had some food and then done the same on the way home for a top-up. As it happens there was very heavy snow which made the journey longer so even though I set off early I was cutting it close (flights don't wait) so I wouldn't have been able to stick to my plan. Getting there would have been no problem. I had no plan to stop coming back but I would've been forced into stopping to charge as soon as I set off basically.
I don't have a problem doing that journey in an EV usually but in the ICE I didn't even have to think about it when the plans were forced to change.
I would think up scaling would be a problem , assuming in the future we are all driving electric vehicles the storage area would be incredible to hold replacement batteries for potentially thousands of cars in one spot then you have compatibility issues, would a VW battery fit a Tesla etc I mean we cant even get mobile phone companies to use the same batteries and chargers.
Laughing
Well-known member
You wouldn't have to have a store of batteries for every car wanting a swap. You charge the returned batteries as they come in ready for reuse.
The correct answer is getting batteries is that charge from empty in 10 minutes to full charge. Battery tech is improving but not quick enough. Charging tech is where its at for eV ownership.
More accurately, cheap self drive eV cabs that cost pennies to use. This gets cars off the road, which is the correct, correct answer. Then tax the **** outta vehicle ownership on a per mile basis.
If you can charge a battery fully in 10 mins why would you bother swapping them? If swapping was going to be a thing it would be because full batteries are still taking an hour to charge.
A motorway services can do what, 2k ice fills per day? If so, you'd need to have (conservatively if they are spaced out evenly) a fully charged battery available every minute. If it takes 60 mins to fully charge a battery that's at least capacity for 60 batteries which seems fairly sizable.
Seems like a non starter at scale although admittedly that maths is super rough.
Laughing
Well-known member
If you can charge a battery in 10 minutes you wouldn't need swapsie. That's why I said it was the correct answer. That will come
The real answer to climate change, where cars are concerned is cheap self driving taxis that cost peanuts so nobody needs to own one.
SmallTown
Well-known member
Agree with all of this. From the video it looks like that's what Nio do, you can see from the second swap he gets a list of batteries to choose from but only a 75kwh fully charged
SmallTown
Well-known member
To be fair we aren't actually far from 10 minutes charging stops on long journeys, with a mid range car. In England you can pretty much get anywhere on the country from anywhere with only a short stop. I can drive from family on south coast to family in north east, for example and only have to charge for 15 mins in good circumstances. My bladder has much shorter range than my battery! I think that's the biggest bit of EV ownership I'd like to get across. You don't fill up on a journey so seeing that a car takes an hour to fully charge isn't relevant.
You're absolutely correct though, charge times still need to fall, and luckily are falling. If you can afford them (and most can't) prosche Taycans and Merc EQS' can charge at around 340kw so hopefully those speeds will trickle down to normal cars.
I agree that cars themselves aren't the answer. For day to day journeys they are too wasteful. Although I hope this means we don't lose the car at all, leave it for enthusiasts. Like horses. The car replaced horses and we still have horses. I'm hoping cars to the same way. Because I still haven't been able to buy the TVR I really want