Just saw this

[Cees Klumper]

Swapping the battery in a hybrid Escape or Fusion takes way more than 2 minutes.

That's because they are not modular. Like on your cordless drill. I think oil/gas station comoanies will advocate for this but, yes, we will need more electricity generation, whether in the home or office or elsewhere.

 

[19Walt93]

Yes, but it doesn't have to. They can easily change the design to be modular. They had an electric race truck run in either Baja or Dakar a couple years ago and they put spare battery packs in the chase truck and just swapped them out real quick on the side of the trail.

The race trucks didn't have to meet the crash standards or satisfy the style folks. We can't even have visible screw heads in interiors anymore and engines have plastic covers to hide the mechanical stuff.

 

[Dirtman]

See my edit about the practical/legal issues...

 

[DeathRanger]

I don't think charging is complicated. If anything it's easier than fueling with gas.

You take 1 second when you get home, plug in car, wake up in morning and car is full and ready to go. 300 miles would cost about me $5-$8 in electricity max, and closer to $0 because I have my own solar panels.

The only time this takes some thought is long drives, but we've taken the electric car on multiple 1000 mile roads trips starting in Kansas and been to Pennsylvania, Texas, and Nevada. never had any issues with charging or even worried.

 

[fastpakr]

It's not complicated to plug in, but it's certainly a logistical complication if you're going on longer trips. Less so with Tesla because the battery packs are smaller than the Rivian will have and their charging network is further developed.

 

[Ranger850]

I couldn't find any info on the webs, but I remember seeing on TV, that GM had a modular design for something like this. ( EV-1, ?) They showed the "car" back up to a lift, it lifted the rear of the car, the "motor" detached and was swapped out, less than 5 minutes.
but I did find this.

Startup Ample Is Working on 10-Minute Battery Swapping for Electric Vehicles

Swapping depleted battery modules for new ones can fully charge an electric vehicle in 10 minutes, as long as the vehicle is built to use Ample's own batteries.

www.caranddriver.com

 

[Dirtman]

I still wanna know how you can swap in a major component on a car like that without issues of reliability and warranty unless these "swaps" only happen by the dealer.

You go to bobs discount battery swap station and end up with a defective battery that sets the car on fire, who's paying that bill? Plus you are not swapping a $50 part. These batteries are tens of thousands of dollars. How do you know you didn't just give away your brand new 20k battery for a Chinese knock off?

While it's physically possible, just seems like a lot of grey areas in the legal, financial, and practical department when it comes to folks swapping out batteries.

 

[DeathRanger]

I think battery swaps are not useful for the US. They might make more sense for rented or leased vehicles. How would you feel if instead of charging your phone, you were given someone else's phone battery...hell no.

You lose quite a bit of useful space designing the car to be able to swap batteries, then you lose space in the battery building it in a protective case to easily slide into the car. Every inch is needed for battery space and density.
What happens if the connection pins between battery and car don't contact correctly? Who ever got their NES game catridge to fit perfect every time?

Electricity is already in just about every building in the US, adding chargers may have some complications but much easier than building battery stations everywhere.

 

[RonD]

I don't think swapping out "standardized" battery packs will catch on, because of ALL the reasons mentioned

I think we will see more on the supercapacitors(Ultracapacitors) as they are perfected
These can take a charge, basically as fast as the electrical feed can provide it, so very fast charging

I think there would be a trade off in Range
500mile range battery only 6 hour charge
200mile range battery only 4 hour charge, +200miles capacitor 10min charge, 400mile total

So you lose a bit of range but trade off is time to recharge if in a hurry
And the capacitor would recharge batteries when vehicle was parked, so quick charge to "fill up" capacitor again

I would say 80% of people(probably more) drive less than 200miles a day, so moot point for most
And you can rent a liquid fuel vehicle for longer trips

 

[DeathRanger]

I don't think swapping out "standardized" battery packs will catch on, because of ALL the reasons mentioned

I think we will see more on the supercapacitors(Ultracapacitors) as they are perfected
These can take a charge, basically as fast as the electrical feed can provide it, so very fast charging

I think there would be a trade off in Range
500mile range battery only 6 hour charge
200mile range battery only 4 hour charge, +200miles capacitor 10min charge, 400mile total

So you lose a bit of range but trade off is time to recharge if in a hurry
And the capacitor would recharge batteries when vehicle was parked, so quick charge to "fill up" capacitor again

Tesla tech on the new refreshed Model S is charging at 1000mph

so if they had a 500mile range battery (max right now is 420miles), that's only 30 minutes to charge at a supercharger.

 

[RonD]

Yes, but 10min would be more acceptable to most as that's the time they spend now at a "gas station" after going inside to get a bottle of water and a Snickers bars, lol

Seems like every month electric is getting more viable for 80% of the driving public

 

[Dirtman]

My truck only gets 300 miles per tank anyway. 200 miles with a 10 minute charge time wouldn't bother me at all even for longer trips IF the charging stations were common enough to not be spending half the trip tracking them down.

I can only do about 750 miles in one day anyway so with a 500 mile initial charge, and a 10 minute follow up charge that'd get me were I need to go for the night and then do an overnight charge.

 

[fastpakr]

I agree with all of that. And the Tesla system is definitely at the point where it would work for my needs on most trips. But the Rivian can't charge at Tesla's supercharger speeds, so you're either a) waiting on Rivian's network to build out, or b) waiting on the Supercharger to charge a bigger pack at a slower rate than a Tesla car. So that 30 minute charge on a Model S could be 2 hours on the truck.

 

[Dirtman]

Itll never happen but these companies should work together to make the charging systems universal to all EV's....

I don't go to a special gas station to get Ford gasoline, I should'nt need a special station to get Rivian electricity...

But a collaborative network of universal charging stations wouldn't be profitable.

 

[DeathRanger]

The charging network is key to any of these vehicles being viable.

Rivian is working on their own Adventure Network but that will take awhile to build out.

Otherwise the 25k+ level 2 chargers like chargepoint or electrify america will work but only add about 25 miles per hour.