Wireless Charging for Electric Cars

[wildoliver]

A petrol station style battery swap network charging say £50 for a swap of batteries that will get you a similar range to a diesel engined cars fuel tank would transform the electric car market, the big problems for normal people are the practicalities of long distance travel and charging up along the way, I'm not talking holidays here just life outside a trip to the shops (ironically shops being one of the locations that often have charging points) and the concerns about life of battery packs, if you can just drive down the road and change them for another pack for £50 then instantly the worry has gone.

There is no real reason it can't work other than cost, building all the stations, engineering the tech to change the packs automatically with a drive through function like a car wash, standardising the packs and future proofing the design so as technology improves it doesn't necessitate a change of outside design of pack making the cars/stations obsolete, who is going to spend the billions needed to do this when there are virtually no people driving electric cars as they are such a faff?

[xRIEx]

wildoliver said:

A petrol station style battery swap network charging say £50 for a swap of batteries that will get you a similar range to a diesel engined cars fuel tank would transform the electric car market,

I think it would destroy it (that's a bit extreme - I think it would make no difference whatsoever). £50 is a tank of diesel, why would an electric car owner want to pay that when half the reason they chose an electric car was being able to 'brim' it for £3.58?

wildoliver said:

... and the concerns about life of battery packs, if you can just drive down the road and change them for another pack for £50 then instantly the worry has gone.

It wouldn't remove the worry, for me it would add to it: you have no idea how many charge cycles the battery pack that you've just been given has been through; possibly it was in many cars with inferior battery maintenance software. Better the devil you know.

[AH33]

I live in a flat. Plus I like my car to make some engine noise, and not look like a leaf/zoe shaped blob. Plus I can only spend £20k on a car at most, and my family live 130 miles away.

Electric cars aren't for me.

[oyster]

xRIEx said:

it's still thinking about refuelling from a ICE point of view.

BINGO

People have to stop thinking about charging stations as if they're petrol stations.

Electric vehicle charging is all about home and destination facilities.

[rodericb]

xRIEx said:

It wouldn't remove the worry, for me it would add to it: you have no idea how many charge cycles the battery pack that you've just been given has been through; possibly it was in many cars with inferior battery maintenance software. Better the devil you know.

+1

Battery swaps are a bit of a dead end. Tesla tried it and not many people used it at all. Better Place failed against all odds. As more and more EV's take over the world there will be more and more form factors to cater for and if charging gets faster that'll make battery swapping even less attractive. You would need a significant level of cooperation between automotive empires to settle on a standard set of battery form factors and those companies are happy selling ICE cars to people for whom charging an EV at home is impossible. Battery swaps are only marginally less costly to the end user than a tank of petrol or diesel so there's barely any cost saving to offset the higher purchase price of an EV.

[ikarl]

AH33 said:

I live in a flat. Plus I like my car to make some engine noise, and not look like a leaf/zoe shaped blob. Plus I can only spend £20k on a car at most, and my family live 130 miles away.

Electric cars aren't for me.

Correct, they are not.

Seeing as we're playing this game however, my wife drives a maximum of 24 miles per day, we have a house, I have an ICE car that we will be able to use for long journeys, therefore an Electric would work for my wife.

as is the situation for a LOT of other people/families in this country

[bristolracer]

Hydrogen fuel cell

or

some kind of hybrid.

Until the range issues and speed of recharge can be addressed then electric is only suitable for city cars.

Quite where the tax revenue will be raised when say half the cars in the country are electric is another matter. if we all buy a Nissan leaf tomorrow then the government will be broke by Friday!

[JonnyVTEC]

bristolracer said:

Hydrogen fuel cell

or

some kind of hybrid.

There is no 'or'

Fuel cell is a hybrid - preferable to plug in and charge the battery than actually using expensive hydrogen.

[gangzoom]

AH33 said:

I live in a flat. Plus I like my car to make some engine noise, and not look like a leaf/zoe shaped blob. Plus I can only spend £20k on a car at most, and my family live 130 miles away.

Electric cars aren't for me.

Not yet, but in 12-18 months time things when be different.

Vauxhall is bringing the Bolt to the UK, £25K (been a Vauxhall your get discounts), 200bhp, 0-60 sub 7 seconds, 200 mile real life range, US deliveries start in less than 12 months.

Next gen Leaf is coming too, Sunderland has been told they are making the batteries for it, but Nissan aren't letting anything slip on release date yet - Persumably so not to eat into current Leaf sales.

The US market will get the Tesla Model 3 by 2017, but we woudlnt be see it in the UK till 2018/19.

So be patient, by 2020 I bet your be able to buy a 200 mile range EV from just about every major manfactures with a large variation in prices, just like what we see with combustion cars now.

[98elise]

996TT02 said:

Gary29 said:

I've got an idea, exchangeable battery packs, so if you're running low on electricity you can stop at a fuel station (currently known as petrol stations) and swap your battery pack for a charged one for a small fee (akin to paying for petrol currently)

Of course it would mean need the major manufacturers to agree on a standard battery pack type, but clearly having to wait around for a car to charge up is just not practical.

Ummm, except the battery packs are so massive and heavy they are engineered as part of the car.

Also it would need to fit both a twizzy and a tesla model s so its just not practical. I'd rather charge up on my drive over night anyway. It won't be long before we get on street chargers.

Batteries will get better over time, Elon Musk is targeting 500 miles on a single charge.

[AnotherClarkey]

ging84 said:

it's a gimmick, the difficulty of having to get out of your car and plug a cable into it is not one of the main things holding back electric vehicles

Presuming that you are actually in your car when it pops off to charge itself.

[TooMany2cvs]

oyster said:

xRIEx said:

it's still thinking about refuelling from a ICE point of view.

BINGO

People have to stop thinking about charging stations as if they're petrol stations.

Electric vehicle charging is all about home and destination facilities.

So long as you don't want to go on a long journey.

THAT's when EV charging needs to start thinking about convenience and time-to-charge. Home/destination is an easy one to tick off, but mid-journey charging is what'll allow large-scale acceptance.

Well, that and there actually being sufficient electricity available which doesn't come from burning dinosaurs, anyway.

[bristolracer]

TooMany2cvs said:

Home/destination is an easy one

Assuming you have a drive to park on, and indeed your destination has a suitable vacant bay.
It gets more awkward for those living in cities, which really is where we need EVs.

I am not against EVs in fact i think they have huge potential, once the issues of range are overcome, but i think it may be some years before the motorist will overcome the "running out of juice" fear. Maybe the Hybrid idea should be developed more, a small efficent engine complimenting the range and powering of the electric motor.(BMW i8 type thing) if you could get say a 50/50 mix doing it that way it could mean a massive reduction in emissions,reduce the no juice fear and encourage a lot more people into these type of vehicles.
As it stands at the moment EVs only work for those who have reliable access to the power points, most ev owners need two cars if they have to go out of range or off grid.

[JiggyJaggy]

Just driven an i8 from Heathrow to Bournemouth and then to North London and the range on the i8 went from 206 miles down to 182, so approx 24 miles of range reduced. So efficient, hence I was not too worried about charging whilst meeting a client in Bournemouth. Thats the beauty, you don't run into trouble when the battery runs flat, stick it in Sport and let the battery charge whilst you have some fun!

[unsprung]

gangzoom said:

AH33 said:

Electric cars aren't for me.

Not yet, but in 12-18 months time things when be different.

Vauxhall is bringing the Bolt to the UK, £25K (been a Vauxhall your get discounts), 200bhp, 0-60 sub 7 seconds, 200 mile real life range, US deliveries start in less than 12 months.

Next gen Leaf is coming too, Sunderland has been told they are making the batteries for it, but Nissan aren't letting anything slip on release date yet - Persumably so not to eat into current Leaf sales.

The US market will get the Tesla Model 3 by 2017, but we woudlnt be see it in the UK till 2018/19.

So be patient, by 2020 I bet your be able to buy a 200 mile range EV from just about every major manfactures with a large variation in prices, just like what we see with combustion cars now.

This.

In months we could see a different marketplace emerge. Not just more full-on EVs, but also hybrids that can double or treble current miles per gallon. There is real benefit here, even if petroleum prices remain low.

Business models will evolve. The on-demand likes of Zipcar et al. will find opportunity in the low maintenance regimen of EVs. Similarly, Ford are introducing a scheme that allows a group of friends or an extended family to lease and share a single vehicle. Again, the "plug it in and forget it" nature of EVs could prove ideal for this.

Most of all, we could be surprised by the form factor of future EVs. Their powertrains can be small relative to those of petrol-powered cars. Or at least more flexible in terms of fitment. What will we do with all of this interior space?

[TooMany2cvs]

JiggyJaggy said:

Just driven an i8 from Heathrow to Bournemouth and then to North London and the range on the i8 went from 206 miles down to 182, so approx 24 miles of range reduced. So efficient, hence I was not too worried about charging whilst meeting a client in Bournemouth. Thats the beauty, you don't run into trouble when the battery runs flat, stick it in Sport and let the battery charge whilst you have some fun!

Yes, internal combustion hybrids do resolve that issue.

Well, mostly. The i3REx may not.

[rodericb]

gangzoom said:

Not yet, but in 12-18 months time things when be different.

Vauxhall is bringing the Bolt to the UK, £25K (been a Vauxhall your get discounts), 200bhp, 0-60 sub 7 seconds, 200 mile real life range, US deliveries start in less than 12 months.

In left hand drive or right hand drive?

[unsprung]

rodericb said:

gangzoom said:

Not yet, but in 12-18 months time things when be different.

Vauxhall is bringing the Bolt to the UK, £25K (been a Vauxhall your get discounts), 200bhp, 0-60 sub 7 seconds, 200 mile real life range, US deliveries start in less than 12 months.

In left hand drive or right hand drive?

This is an essential question and the answer, regrettably, is not the one which we would like to hear.

The Bolt EV may be sold across the globe, but only in LHD markets.

Perhaps it is down to cost: EVs are more expensive to purchase than their petrol-powered cousins. The first-generation Volt (a hybrid, not a full-on EV) was a success in the US, but a bit of a failure elsewhere.

Consequently, General Motors may assume only light volumes in the EU for the Bolt. As part of this "light" assumption, GM may have calculated that it won't pay at this time to invest in either RHD engineering or RHD support or both.

One corollary to all this: market structure. If we look at personal ownership vs company car... In countries where the latter is a significant force in the marketplace, could EVs be at a disadvantage? Just guessing. Any thoughts welcome.