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The recharge station makes so much more sense than battery swapping. The recharge station has very few, if any, moving parts, can easily be adapted to any size vehicle with any type battery architecture and perfectly functional with future improvements in energy storage. Battery swapping offers none of the flexibility, demands industry collusion...er, cooperation, and would be prohibitively expensive to implement and maintain.
Am I missing something here?

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It does look interesting. I'm wondering if the swap station would be able to take multiple battery types.

Finally got to watch the presentation and it's extremely encouraging that they're only considering renewable energy sources of energy. EVs driving fast renewables growth is an intriguing possibility.

As you said, definitely one to watch.

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Battery exchange is a very expensive ploy, because you inherently have to have a large number of fully charged batteries lying around just waiting for someone to come by and pick them up. How does the parties know they are trading like for like in terms of product quality and condition? You'd basically have to buy the car without a battery pack and then sign a contract with a service provider - whose solution will, by design, be incompatible with that of his competition.

Inductive recharging makes more sense because no heave battery packs need to be swapped out. Indeed, the EV1 program included inductive coupling recharge stations at the homes of lessees. However, you do need to bring the coils into very close proximity: the full ground clearance of a vehicle is probably far too large a gap.

Both of Mr. Agassi's ideas are based on the premise that BEV owners will want to use them exactly as they use their ICE-based vehicle today.

Yet that is not how technological change works. Consumers' expectations can and do adapt to what is possible, last not least because advertising does influence their priorities. Perhaps BEV owners won't be all that worried about range on a single charge if it's not their only vehicle. Instead, they may put a premium on long service intervals and very quiet operation. Or on acceleration performance. Or any of the other things that BEVs are supposedly much better at than ICE-based vehicles.

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@rgseidl: It's like he wants the entire market to conform to his idea instead of conforming to the entire market. Anyway.....what do you think about this idea of electricity transmission?
http://www.physorg.com/news100445957.html

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1: Yup, you're missing one. Don't forget that the batteries have to be a standard shape and size across all cars. And since battery voltage basically determines the amount of power your car has in horsepower, it means that everyone has a car with the exact same power output.

Better yet, especially with robotic changings, you can arrive with a 48 volt battery (plus maybe some scrap metal and whatever else you need to fool the robot) and leave with a 196 volt battery. Sweet!

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The video showed a recharging station in the parking lot - it would not be practical to retrofit parking lots to do battery swaps!

The battery swap station is the building that looks a bit like a car wash.

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Wait a second...they're going to make recharging infrastrucutre along with battery replacement pit stops?

That's sounds so silly. Just add a charger with the car; chargers aren't very expensive and aren't so bulky either. So far, I think this compnay is hype. Then again, you never know!

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$200 million is a lot of hype!

I don't see that replacing batteries should be such a problem from an engineering point of view. There's no reason why a selection of different batteries could be accommodated. Or thinking about it, what about modular battery packs using the same small batteries? It would certainly require a lot of cooperation from the principal vehicle manufacturers but if they could offer their customers a guaranteed 30 second battery swap they may well be interested.

By the sounds of things the swap stations could provide revenue earning load balancing services when vehicle demand is low.

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Ahem! "There's no reason why a selection of different batteries couldn't be accommodated."!

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The battery swap system is about the only idea that actually makes electric cars feasible. Here's a real life scenario that makes me really hesitant to ever buy an electric car. One day I drove to work and also had to run an errand at one of the plants. This probably means that I can barely make it home without a recharge. However, I received a phone call after running my errand that my son had broken his arm and I needed to go to the hospital. Except the hospital was further away than my range allows. With the battery swap, this isn't an issue.

Here's another one. I came home one day to find that the mulch delivered to my house was dumped in my driveway instead of on the side. I parked on the street instead (no charging possible). I moved the 12 yards of mulch but it was so late that after I cleaned up and ate dinner, I crashed for the night. I never moved the car off the street (no charge). When I realize the next morning that I can't make it to work because I have less than the needed charge, the battery swap seems like a better idea!

Or this one...it is mid January and the temperature is overing near zero. The performance of the battery pack is down so that I can't really make it to and from work. With the battery swap, I can make it now.

About the only nice thing about our petrol solution is the convenience of instant refueling almost everywhere. The electric cars needs that same level of convenience. I had a friend who used to own a Diesel, but traded it in after being stranded at one too many times at a gas station that did not carry Diesel.

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Wow Rob who proofread that!??!?!? Bad bad bad..

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rob: How long is your commute?

I know plenty of people have longer commutes than I, but the longest I ever had was about 30 miles. After work I used to drive to a ski hill to teach snowboarding which added about 30 miles to my return trip, so ~100 miles per day.

If you had twice the range you needed for your daily drive plus a factor of safety, wouldn't that pretty much take care of all of the scenarios you presented? The Tesla has a range of about 250 miles. Of course we can't all afford a Tesla, and maybe it's not the car you want anyway, but my point is that all of your arguments are based on a vehicle range that's only a little longer than your commute, while the ranges of EVs are growing with every new generation of batteries.

Furthermore, nobody tries to argue that an EV is the car everyone should drive (well, everyone on Hawaii maybe). If your commute is 200 miles a day (and I know there are those people out there), then it will be quite a while, if ever, before there are EVs that would meet that need. (Though I would argue that if you commute 200 miles your quality of life might improve if you change jobs or move closer to work).

I think the problems associated with battery swapping stations mentioned by other posters would outweigh the benefit they deliver on those rare occasions when you drive more than 200 miles in a day (just picking some number). There are no swapping stations for cell phone batteries.

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Why piss away another $200M on this stupid idea when they could spend that money on fast-charge technology? Anyway, 82% of all drives are less than 40 miles in length which gives us PLENTY of opportunities to recharge. The other 18% of drives can be handled by using a range extender using biofuels, H2(yuck) or even by renting an ICE car for those occasional long trips. Better yet, take the train! NO one method will solve every situation and battery swap is a waste of time and money and it will KILL competition and innovation.

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I don't know abou the States but over here in the UK, around half of all cars sold are fleet/comapany cars. The average mileage for a company car here is a little under 20,000 miles per year. Chances are that'll involve a fair few journeys into the 100s of miles. A sales rep on a 300 mile cross country trip probably isn't going to want to stop for 10 minutes in every hour and a half to recharge. And I live on a small island!

What this company seems to be doing is offering a solution to these people that enables them to go electric without any hassle. For the rest of us who bumble a few miles to work and back, we might visit the swap stations once a month on a weekend trip away and recharge at home or at work the rest of the time.

It's all about options and enabling a technology to fit as large a market as possible.

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People seem to be criticising this company without fully understanding the problem it's trying to solve. The hassle of standardised batteries is pretty obvious, its not like somebody who's proposing an idea like this hasn't thought about it. Sure it is an obstacle, but it is by no means insurmountable. I mean, how many electric cars are even in development right now? Let alone actually on the road. Since the EV industry is still in it's infancy, I don't see any reason to claim this is a bad solution, as there aren't any company specific batteries to speak of yet. Besides , its pretty easy to go out and by standardised batteries for consumer electronics, why not cars too? Its a little different in that these are rechargeables, and it would be more of a rental system, but there's no reason that couldn't work. Competing battery swappers could have their own types, all matching the same standardised shape and size but maybe with different chemistries. Anyone dishing out shitty batteries would simply lose its customers.

Now if you actually understood the situation at hand a little better rather than simply criticising the guy because he came up with something you hadn't thought of before, you would be aware of the problems involved with trying to cram a bunch of energy into a battery pack in a reasonable amount of time. Some of you are just saying that for the majority of drives and drivers, a full charge of a typical pack would be enough to get the car out and back home for the night and recharge, and I whole-heartedly agree. Most people simply don't need to drive very far in a day, and human sleepy time can coincide nicely with a reasonably paced recharge.

On the other hand, some of you seem to be seeing the other idea presented in this video, the inductive charger, as an alternative to the battery swaps as a means of a quick refuel. Inductive charging is an elegant solution, eliminating wires and the need to physically plug in, but it doesn't mean the recharge process would only take 5 minutes. Charging up a 10kWh or so battery in a matter of a few minutes would require an intense amount of current, so your battery and power electronics have to be able to withstand that, and wherever you're getting your electricity from needs to be able to dish out that kind of power. That means you'll probably need a massive bank of capacitors to store grid electricity continuously and as quickly as possible to build up a buffer, and then discharge those capacitors whenever a car comes in for a recharge, and hope that you have enough time to recharge the capacitors before the next car comes.

I'm not saying this isn't feasible, but I'm just saying both of these options have their challenges, and really, they aren't competitive options, as at this point, battery swapping offers something that recharging doesn't, and that's a quick top up. Its another question altogether as to whether quick top ups are necessary. I think in terms of consumer acceptance, it may be necessary, people don't typically drive very far but they don't like the idea of a vehicle that couldn't go very far if they needed it to once in a while.

Another difficulty with battery swapping is the shear number of batteries required. Its up to debate as to how many batteries would be required. Would it be something like 3 for every 2 cars? Or closer to 2 or 3 per car? In that case, can we actually make enough batteries?

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Goodcheer:

My commute one way is 54 miles which is a lot for this area (I am in the process of moving). When I lived in the Detroit area that sort of commute, comparing to coworkers, was standard if not a bit short. Back home in Iowa, that drive gets you to the next big town to do some shopping and other errands. Something on the order of 150 mile range may just add enough of a margin assuming that I recharge. My point is if I miss a recharge for whatever reason, I am essentially hosed. The battery swap takes that worry out of the equation. If I could get a 50% recharge in 5 minutes I would have to rethink the battery only option.

Another worry I have to deal with is battery cold temperature performance. In Michigan it is not unheard of to be below zero for days at a time. With a swap available, a diminshed range due to the cold temps won't leave me stranded on the interstate.

As far as trust, don't I already trust the oil companies to supply me good gas? The same will occur with the swapping stations. Now let me choose a swap station that recharges the packs using green energy and I would be one of their loyal customers.

The unfortunate bit is that we have something like 60 years of training that cars can be refilled any time and any place. The electric car needs that level of convenience to become mainstream.

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I keep reading about how the average commute is under 40 miles, or %80 of people drive under 40 miles at a time. Where are these numbers coming from? My guess is not from people who live outside of a large city. The recharging solution makes sense in an urban environment, the battery swap makes more sense for longer distances. The problem with the battery swap is size and shape of the battery, not to mention where the batteries are placed in the car. Ideally (for us car enthusiasts and anyone that appreciates good handling) the batteries should be mounted low in the chassis. Swapping a battery would then require a lift. What about special tools? Personally I think recharging is the way to go. If the Volt works as advertised, the range extender option will prove the best short term solution for getting more electric cars on the road. It eliminates the potential for being stranded, running out of gas is a major pain. Running short of juice and having to tow or flat-bed your car would be a nightmare.

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No reasonable person can ask one tool to solve every need. EVs are great for everyday commuting and every family should own one. If you're a sales rep then buy a biodiesel car (or a Volt) for work. When you need to take that occasional long trip then rent a biodiesel car (or a Volt) or better yet, take the train.

Standardization for the sake of some “battery swapping” scheme will only serve to kill competition and innovation. It will NEVER catch on except for industrial forklifts.

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Tim:

The standardization will not kill competition and innovation, just change it. Has having a standardized battery, like a "C" cell, stifled competition? Energizer, Everyready, etc., are all trying to come up with something a bit better than the other guy. A car tire has a standard interface to the rim and to the air hose for filling, but there are plenty of differentiators.

Here is some ideas for differentiation for the battery swap:
1. At ABC Corp we have the fastest battery swaps available.
2. At DEF corp our swappable batteries have a 20% greater range than ABC corp.
3. At GHI corp we guarantee you will never be stranded or your next 5 swaps are free.
4. At ECar our cars work flawlessly with the battery packs from ABC, DEF, or GHI.
5. At VHouse we can install your own home swap system with Green Recharge.
6. SCar EPerf battery packs are the lowest weight packs for your sports car and they still exceed a range of 200 miles! Ask for them by name at ABC Corp stations nationwide.
7. Going on a long trip? Choose SuperRange packs from DDD company. Need a pack for your autocrossing? Choose HiPower from EEE company.


Just because something is standard, doesn't mean it can't be a money maker.

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