Battery swapping is a technology that could solve one key barrier for EV adoption: consumers’ range anxiety and the long waiting time for battery charging. Wouldn’t you feel more assured on a weekend trip if you knew you could stop at a swap station and replace depleted battery packs with fully charged ones in five minutes? But this isn’t easy to do, as Tesla and Better Place’s past failures. In China, however, battery swapping has been a reality for a couple of years. How did Chinese companies like Nio make it work with 2,300 swapping stations nationwide? What can companies outside China learn from the Chinese experience?
I don’t oppose the idea of battery station, but who owns the battery then? When I bought the car, am I leasing the battery? How about used car?
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I hope it’s not 200€ but it’s way higher than what I pay for the gas.
What if they EOL the battery and stops the leasing program? Now the perfectly fine car is non functional because it’s missing a battery. If I replace it, I’m just contributing more waste, not in materal but energy. Is that the “green” future we all after?
I’d assume you could still charge them the regular way. You’d just no longer get a fresh one, but that just puts you on par with the other EVs
The ownership is still questionable. Even if that’s the case, you’re stuck with the battery you last swapped in, which you don’t know the wear level or how long it will last.
So I can give an example. Here in Taiwan, Gogoro has put up a lot of battery swap stations for their electric scooters. When you buy the scooter, it comes with removable batteries which you can charge on your own. Or, you can buy a monthly subscription on top of it that gives you access to those battery stations, where you can ride up to one and swap a pair of freshly charged batteries into your scooter. Subscription price is tiered by Ah per month, if you go over the limit you pay extra per Ah.
In this case, yes I think Gogoro is in charge of maintaining/replacing old batteries. Subscription is separate from the scooter cost, so buying used should not affect your ability to subscribe to the plan.
I love that system
so it is your battery and got additional batteries you can swap on the road with a subscription? That looks promising.
However, this works for scooters is because the battery pack is small enough for hand carry and install. It won’t be on typical 4-wheel vehicles as those are about a thousand pound. Even if we can modular and miniaturize it like how Gogoro does, where to install it is a big problem. Obviously we can’t install it in the front compartment as that will be a fire hazard when crash.
No, you don’t get additional batteries. Once you start using the swapping service, the battery that came with your scooter goes into circulation. I suppose when you decide to stop subscribing to the service, the batteries that you have currently will be yours to keep. (I don’t own a Gogoro btw)
Yeah, and I agree that this system works great with scooters but not for cars.
Shame. It will be nice if I get a set of batteries I know well when the scooter used less frequently and charging at home makes more sense. Rather gambling on what’s the quality/wear level of the next set will be.
Guess that’s how they introduce new batteries into the system, and cost them lesser. As long as there are new scooter owners and using the service, there will always be new batteries entering the circulation. All they have to do is pull out old batteries not fit for using out of the loop, and maybe repurpose them for something else, like grid power storage system.
You shouldn’t need to worry about getting bad batteries. Since it’s priced at an Ah/month basis (there are also km ridden per month plans), you can swap batteries whenever you feel like it. It is on Gogoro to maintain the health of the batteries, and swap in new ones when they go bad (or upgrade battery versions!).
That’s the idea!
I mean when I use the scooter less frequently (maybe I got a bigger car) or live somewhere else doesn’t have the station, thus canceling the subscription. On that, I guess I will be stuck on the last battery set I swapped in.
Ah I see. So I took a quick look at their contract and some articles, the ownership of the batteries is with Gogoro during your plan, and they give you the option to pause this plan (30 days minimum a time, 90 days max per year). If you decide to pause or cancel the plan, you will have to return the batteries you currently have, and they will give you spare batteries in return. I don’t think you’ll be guaranteed good batteries either way.
Lol. I buy a new vehicle, put new batteries into the circulation, and when I terminate, I got an old set they specify which I have no idea what the wear level is. If I got to keep the last set swapped in, I atleast know how good/bad it performs.
No thanks.
I guess it would either work like a subscription fee or a one time fee per swap
Subscription for my car? Don’t we have too much subscriptions already?
And neither solve the ownship problem, and a tons of other problems.
Subscription for fuel.
Gas is more like pas-as-you-go. Battery no so sure. And they are different by nature: gas can’t be reused, batteries can.
The energy inside both can’t be reused. Both a gas tank and battery can be refilled.
Gas is just easier to transfer between containers. Electricity needs it be moved inside its container.
Isn’t the whole thing about who owns the tank?
Electricity is incredibly easy to move between containers. That’s how electric cars work.
Making charging faster by removing most of the range (because you have way less volume to use if it’s removable) and making a cheap power source obscenely expensive makes no sense.
The model only works if users are forced to subscribe to a battery swapping service for the full life of the vehicle (or there is a large upfront fee to join with a used vehicle). Otherwise it would be too easy for a consumer with a worn out battery to do a one-time swap and get a like-new battery as a cheap alternative to very costly battery repairs. The dumped battery is likely to have very poor range and the battery swap company will need to dispose of it.
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No, you’re paying over and over for the battery.
Sort of like how you pay over and over for gas, without which your car doesn’t work?
Even when I don’t use it? How is it acceptable?
I don’t see anywhere that you can’t also just buy a battery and charge it yourself if you’d prefer that over a subscription.
Which the manufacture will either set a high price or simply not offer it. We had this in software (Adobe), and movies/TV shows (Netflix). Companies prefer continuous steady streams of revenue over burst because the numbers will look better for the investors, and easy to show them the solid future of the company.
I won’t be in the “Owns nothing and be happy” camp. Or honestly, rarely have things I do not own.
But for gas you don’t need to worry ownership problem as you can’t reuse gas. Once it is burnt, it’s gone.
Batteries are different because you can recharge it, which brings ownership problem into sight. And unlike gas tank for your grill, which the port is somewhat universal and shape doesn’t matter too much. Car batteries have wear level that affects performamce (range) and are likely designed to fit a car/platform. It isn’t that interchangeable.
No, it’s like paying over and over for the gas tank.
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In my head the batteries would work somewhat like the electric scooters you can rent around big cities. There would be battery companies that pay stations to stock their batteries. Then EV owners pay for the juice they used, plus a little extra for the wear, plus a little extra to make it worth it for the battery companies when they swap to a new battery. So you’re essentially renting the batteries.
That’s like asking who owns a propane tanks for your grill. You own it while you have it.
When you get a new batter, you own the new one, and relinquish ownership of the previous one, paying for the electricity that’s on the new battery. AS LONG AS the battery that you’re relinquishing is substantially identical to the new battery.
That “substantially identical” is up for heavy debate.
Sure. If you’ve abused it in some way so that it doesn’t take or hold charge, then you might have to pay for a replacement battery. But I think there would be an implied warranty when you’re given a replacement, that the replacement was fit for service. And the company might just have to roll the cost or replacing batteries every so often into their electricity pricing models.
I would guess a swappable battery would be separated from the vehicle, similar to a gas bottle for a grill.
The battery would be rented for a small deposit and on swapping you only pay the energy + service fee.
I guess you could also buy one to own, but then could not swap that.
That’s how it would make sense, at least.
I will take ownership over leasing as a 200 miles range is more than enough for me. But you will see if the leasing model works out, they will only have leasing left for you as that’s a continous money flow. Or have the battery be super expensive to discourage you buy it.
Renault tried leasing the batteries in EV in an effort to lower the initial cost of the car while increasing their tail for future owners. They abandoned it only a few years in as it was a disaster for their used market that got worse the older the car got as nobody wanted the ongoing cost. Only the initial owner saved money, and only if they managed to use PCP finance with a balloon set before Renault realised that the battery leased cars would be worth significantly less.
Renault also did not like that with older cars they would be liable for the battery replacement far sooner than they planned as they (initially) had a higher percentage unusable before they had to do a free replacement vs. a normal battery warranty, made worse as a leased battery has a warranty as long as you are paying the lease.
Renault could repossess the car if you stopped paying the battery lease and refused to buy it out. Its like any car finance that puts a lien or similar on the car, you do not own it till its gone.
Yeah, when I wanted to buy an electric car I look at the used market for the Renault Zoe but I quickly gave up.
The idea of paying a monthly subscription on a used car quickly turned me off and buying the leased battery back from Renault was prohibitively expensive.
That just proofs my point in https://lemmy.ml/comment/11726077
Once they get you on the hook, they can only provide the subscription option, much like how software (Adobe, I’m looking at you) does today. Or have the one-time purchase option be super expensive to lure customers into the subscription model.
Simply because continous revenue is batter then a one-time purchase.
It’s not just that, its what happens if you get a battery from a guy named roger who said he knows what he’s doing and fucked with it?
Battery swapping sounds great, until you put it into a real world scenario.
There are already plenty of shady car mechanics named roger who can swindle you out there…
Yea, sure but that doesn’t effect me because I have the chance to know who’s working on my car, you don’t if you habe battery swapping going on.
Not just about “who owns it?” but also how does it work with insurance if something goes terribly wrong and who will bear the responsibility?