Electric vs Gas
xkcd.com

Alt text:

An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that’s the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

  • frezikEnglish
    36·
    6 months ago

    It’s not going to work out. Battery connections need to be standardized across manufacturers, which is a lot more complicated than standardizing a plug. The garages to do swaps are a lot more complicated than chargers. It forces certain decisions on battery placement, which cuts out things like integrating the battery into the frame to save weight.

    Charger deployment has raced ahead. We need a lot more of them to support the EVs we already have, and need even more for the EVs that are going to be purchased over the next decade. Switching over to swapping would send the EV market into whiplash that just isn’t necessary.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      6 months ago

      I’m not understanding your “it can’t be standardized if it’s too complicated” argument. That hasn’t seemed to have been a big issue for, for example, computer motherboards.

      • jacksilver@lemmy.worldEnglish
        13·
        6 months ago

        A counterpoint to that is things like batteries, ram, motherboards, etc. in laptops (and pretty much every other device that uses rechargeable batteries). The fact is that for better designs the batteries are probably not going to be easily standardized in electric cars (also kills innovation).

        PC motherboards aren’t trying to use the least amount of space possible, because desktops can be large. The same isn’t true with cars, the space matters.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
          7·
          6 months ago

          Notebooks can be small. Those motherboards are also using standardized elements.

          This is just silly defeatism.

      • frezikEnglish
        15·
        6 months ago

        Motherboard standardization is not even close to comparable.

        You have to standardize the dimensions and unlatching mechanism of a huge battery out from under the car and latching a new one in. It has to support a battery that weighs around 2 tons. This isn’t just a matter of scaling up a AA battery connector. And then you have to convince all, or at least most, of the manufacturers to do that in order for network effects to help the process. Since we’ve had to do a lot before manufactures settled on a plug design, we’re not likely to do the same for batteries.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldEnglish
          6·
          6 months ago

          And then you have to convince all, or at least most, of the manufacturers to do that in order for network effects to help the process.

          Yes, that is how standardization works.

          Since we’ve had to do a lot before manufactures settled on a plug design, we’re not likely to do the same for batteries.

          Unless it’s regulated for them to do so. Time for the EU to step up.