Info [YT scottyKilmer] chinese car maker Nio fast swap electric battery vehicles BAAS subscription (get ready for Batteries As A Service)

[gorobei]

so they seem to have a working solution for service/recharging stations that automatically pull out and insert a freshly charged battery in 5 min. in europe you can buy the battery and use a home charger.

seems viable enough for those who dont have the option for home chargers.

interestingly Vinfast is also going with BAAS but are partnering with a taiwanese battery maker.

i wonder what kind of off-label use lifehackers could come up for these batteries.

 

[quikah]

3rd times the charm (modern attempts anyway)? Better Place went bankrupt and Tesla abandoned swaps early on in favor of just building out supercharger network. Not sure what the right approach is, but I don't mind stopping for ~40 minutes at a supercharger during roadtrips.

 

[Kaido]

This would solve the charging issue. I can fill up an empty tank in under 3 minutes with gas. The new Tesla Superchargers can do 200 miles in 15 minutes, but:

* 15 minutes is a dang long time in practice, especially if you have kids or pets or whatever
* Assuming you live near a Supercharger
* Assuming there's no line to charge up
* Assuming you're not splitting the power with the car next to you, which reduces the charging speed

If you're not the planning type, it's definitely a drawback. My buddy just rented a Model 3 from Hertz & drove from CT to Florida & said it was a huge pain stopping to charge up every couple hundred miles, having to wait, having to go out of his way to find a charger, etc. If you plan out your trip around the car's limitations, then it's not too bad, but aside from the cost of the EV vehicles (a fully-loaded Model Y is now nearly $86k!!), the public-charging issue can be a real thorn in your side, depending on your lifestyle!

 

[Kaido]

3rd times the charm (modern attempts anyway)? Better Place went bankrupt and Tesla abandoned swaps early on in favor of just building out supercharger network. Not sure what the right approach is, but I don't mind stopping for ~40 minutes at a supercharger during roadtrips.

tbh I think Tesla was smart to do that, because charging reflects people's reactive approach to fueling up their cars. No complicated procedure to worry about or having to have techs on-hand to do the swap or maintain the automated machines, just plug in the charging cable & voila!

 

[gorobei]

i was assuming we wouldnt see quick swap batteries for a few years until fuel-air battery tech matured and found a manufacturer, but assuming these are li-po there are some serious questions about how long term sustainable this is given dendrite formation.

they could be assuming that solid state batteries are just around the corner and they will be able to transition over with no discernible difference to the user, but you have to wonder about whatever infrastructure they have set up for the current li-po version. the packaging tooling for the battery slab has a cost. if they do switch to some other battery tech, will all the cooling in the charge stations be wasted.

the real question is if this solves long haul trucking issues with going BEV.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I'd bet against this. Such schemes end up cost more than running cars on gasoline, and then you would need stations with large inventories of batteries, and real estate for the them, etc...

Like "Better Place", it's a house of cards business.

 

[sdifox]

Actually saw a Vinfast at the Canadian National Exhibition on Sat.

 

[sdifox]

I have always thought Battery as a Service ia pretty viable.

 

[Heartbreaker]

I have always thought Battery as a Service ia pretty viable.

It really isn't. Your company has to finance the cost of batteries, the ones in the car, and the spares, and the real estate, buildings, and equipment to store/charge them, pay for the people to work there, and then make a profit on top of all that, and the consumer has to pay for all that.

So what the consumer sees, is that its MUCH more expensive to have a battery as a service, than to simply own it, likely double or triple. You are taking the most expensive item in the car, and Making MUCH more expensive.

You might pull this off for scooters, where the costs are so MUCH lower that the added expense is worth it for the convenience, but for cars, the added costs will be prohibitive.

You get things like Project Better Place, that touts this as a business model, and gets massive subsidies, but when the subsidies decline the house of cards collapses, because it's simply not possible to do this at a reasonable price.

 

[gorobei]

if you watch the video (around the 2 min mark) they cover some of the issues.

• the system is automated: web app to schedule, machine to remove/replace (no daily employee wages), automated testing-charging.
• the real estate is 3 parking spaces including charged batteries storage (easily done at offstreet parking lots at stripmalls}.
• Scotty goes thru the math on the cost to customer (obviously in early days where the company is subsidizing).
• battery included as part of car doesnt calculate end of life of the battery and replacing it costs.

i dont think nio or vinfast have solved all the long term economics of baas as a solid viable model, but there is a market for this.

for those that dont have a home/garage that can accommodate a charger, this is the next best thing. without a home charger you dont get the discount benefit of a bev vs ice car. without that cost reduction of home charging and the convenience of always having a full charge to start the day, bev isnt as compelling.

if you fall in to the 'without home-charging' category, the choice of going to a station/fastcharger for a 3-5min swap to 100% charge is better than a 15-20min to 80% charge.

additionally battery cooling during charging is significant engineering issue. early bev were using some pretty simple cooling solutions for the bat packs. new designs will only get more complex, heavier, and likely unservicable if tesla gets their way. the cooling system in a fixed location swap station will be far more efficient and have way more time to properly charge the pack than any integrated system in a bev. moving the cooling/charging system outside the vehicle can reduce weight, one of the serious downsides to bev vs ice.

the company will be incentivized to make the packs servicable. a single faulty 18650 cell on a tesla can take down a bev pack max charge by 10-20% with massive costs to fix/replace. the removable baas packs will likely be far more repair friendly, if only to reduce capital expenditure and keep inventory size down.

these early baas companies are likely not viable businesses right now, but the business model can be viable with upcoming battery technologies.

 

[Heartbreaker]

if you watch the video (around the 2 min mark) they cover some of the issues.

• the system is automated: web app to schedule, machine to remove/replace (no daily employee wages), automated testing-charging.
• the real estate is 3 parking spaces including charged batteries storage (easily done at offstreet parking lots at stripmalls}.

3 parking spaces x how many units? Without a lot of units where you want to travel, they are kind of useless, an Vinfast highlights a big problems in that they are using an incompatible systems.

 

[quikah]

3 parking spaces x how many units? Without a lot of units where you want to travel, they are kind of useless, an Vinfast highlights a big problems in that they are using an incompatible systems.

It quickly breaks down once you try to scale this. Look at all the gas stations around and the number of people filling up at any one time. Now translate that to battery swap stations. It doesn't work. Better charging infratructure is the only real solution outside of very specialized situations.

 

[AdamK47]

Scotty Kilmer's channel is full of conjecture and his own opinions about brands. People gravitate to it for their own confirmation bias. You know he has something important to say with all the arm wagging he does.

 

[Kaido]

Scotty Kilmer's channel is full of conjecture and his own opinions about brands. People gravitate to it for their own confirmation bias. You know he has something important to say with all the arm wagging he does.

I just can't see the logistics working out, which is why I suspect Tesla ditched the concept. Great idea, but dunno about the reality of execution!

 

[JulesMaximus]

Scotty is an annoying asshat who posts clickbait videos just to generate traffic. His content sucks and I will not watch his videos.

 

[Jon-T]

The idea of replaceable batteries sounds like a good one.

They just need to stick to a common universal format.

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