NIO ES8

[DJMC]

Many manufacturers share engines and other components. So do aircraft manufacturers.

What's to stop a battery service station having, say, four sizes of battery, from 2 star to 5 star?

It really will happen, it's so much cheaper and so much more inclusive for EV ownership.

[C.A.R.]

DJMC said:

Many manufacturers share engines and other components. So do aircraft manufacturers.

What's to stop a battery service station having, say, four sizes of battery, from 2 star to 5 star?

It really will happen, it's so much cheaper and so much more inclusive for EV ownership.

Logistically it just can't happen. Everyone's use case is different; you would need umpteen times more batteries than cars. Running low? No worries; just stop at a service station and - oh no, they're fresh out of batteries in size 3. Now what?

Also batteries are integral to an EV, the best place for them is in the floor, low down. So a removable battery is going to get filthy, quick.

As above; it might work for selected commercial applications; such as standardized box vans, but cross-manufacturer sharing of a component as significant as a battery is not happening any time in the near future.

[DJMC]

Remember Betamax (charging points) and VHS (battery swap service stations)?

VHS won and was adopted by all manufacturers worldwide.

The same should happen with Nio's innovative approach.

Ever arrived at a petrol station and it's run out of fuel? What did you do?

[dvs_dave]

Remember back in the day when cell phones had replaceable batteries that you could either charge in the phone or in a separate charging dock ready for a quick swap out. You could even get different capacity batteries for them. Seemed like a great idea at the time.

Few years down the line and battery tech is a little bit better, and now no phones have batteries that are designed to be routinely swapped, if at all. Turns out this way works better.

[anonymous-user]

DJMC said:

Remember Betamax (charging points) and VHS (battery swap service stations)?

VHS won and was adopted by all manufacturers worldwide.

The same should happen with Nio's innovative approach.

Ever arrived at a petrol station and it's run out of fuel? What did you do?

Ever arrived at a battery swap station and found your car isn’t compatible with it?

[MadMullah]

a more appropriate example would be mobile phone chargers

apple vs android - usb c vs lightning

until the EU made them have the same charger they dont want to share that. each wants the other one to back down - the same will happen to this

each maker will want to "win" the battle unless they're made to have a universal pack

[ZesPak]

DJMC said:

Many manufacturers share engines and other components. So do aircraft manufacturers.

What's to stop a battery service station having, say, four sizes of battery, from 2 star to 5 star?

It really will happen, it's so much cheaper and so much more inclusive for EV ownership.

I think the main point here is that we don't need this massively expensive and complex infrastructure.
As said by some others, some commercial transport might benefit from it, where the payload of ever bigger batteries digs in to valuable cargo capacity.

But for passenger cars, you can realistically do well over 150 000 km/year without ever needing to stop at a fastcharger. And even if you have to, the infrastructure for them is so low maintenance and relatively inexpensive, it's well worth the couple minutes of extra wait time.
The use case for passenger vehicles is so niche, it will never be worth the effort.

DJMC, have you lived with an EV for any amount of time?

[Oldwolf]

There are limited resources to build one battery pack per EV, how will we find the resources to build all these additional ones?

I agree with the posters who say limited use case.

[DJMC]

Oldwolf said:

There are limited resources to build one battery pack per EV, how will we find the resources to build all these additional ones?

I agree with the posters who say limited use case.

That's a good point. I guess you'd need 2-4 battery packs for each EV as they go through the maintenance/recharge cycle.

I heard recently (correct me if I'm wrong) that it takes 9 years to recoup the carbon footprint of an EV battery. It seems that the 2030 deadline doesn't care about the availability of natural resources to build EVs, only about saving the planet by reducing fossil fuel power. And that's unlikely whilst people interested in EVs won't buy them because of the inability to refuel quickly, and the high purchase cost of course.

A standardised battery pack (or four sizes) wouldn't lessen the use of resources, but it will lower ownership costs and so open the door to far more EV owners.

One other thought... when an EV with inbuilt battery pack is written off or wears out, what happens to the batteries? I guess they can be extracted and recycled, but I'd have thought a removable battery pack under the car would stand a better chance of survival (perhaps not if shock damaged) and also be easier to remove to check/re-use/recycle.

To me this solution seems a hell of a lot easier to scale up than putting a charging point in every other lamppost across the UK.

Edited by DJMC on Wednesday 22 June 11:05

[saaby93]

DJMC said:

Oldwolf said:

There are limited resources to build one battery pack per EV, how will we find the resources to build all these additional ones?

I agree with the posters who say limited use case.

That's a good point. I guess you'd need 2-4 battery packs for each EV as they go through the maintenance/recharge cycle.

I heard recently (correct me if I'm wrong) that it takes 9 years to recoup the carbon footprint of an EV battery. It seems that the 2030 deadline doesn't care about the availability of natural resources to build EVs, only about saving the planet by reducing fossil fuel power. And that's unlikely whilst people interested in EVs won't buy them because of the inability to refuel quickly, and the high purchase cost of course.

A standardised battery pack (or four sizes) wouldn't lessen the use of resources, but it will lower ownership costs and so open the door to far more EV owners.

In some ways the batteries are already standard with about 3 types
Tesla use 18650 laptop batteries, others use those pouch cells and then there are tetrapack cells perhaps in BMW i3
The issue is that technology is improving rapidly
Who is going to buy a smart with a 17kwh pack when a Peugeot has a 50kwh?
How to upgrade one with the other

[DJMC]

saaby93 said:

In some ways the batteries are already standard with about 3 types
Tesla use 18650 laptop batteries, others use those pouch cells and then there are tetrapack cells perhaps in BMW i3
The issue is that technology is improving rapidly
Who is going to buy a smart with a 17kwh pack when a Peugeot has a 50kwh?
How to upgrade one with the other

I had that thought too. As battery tech improves, with more power/capacity from the same size battery pack, your current EV will become outdated rather quickly as the one two years down the line is announced with higher power output and a better range or acceleration, or both. But I'm talking about the swap-out battery casing these batteries go into, as per the Nio's.

With "loose lay" batteries it would be difficult and expensive to remove, say, a Tesla's batteries and replace them with newer, higher capacity, batteries as they come into production. This is another reason I wouldn't buy an EV with an inbuilt battery. It will very quickly become outdated, lose value, lose its attractiveness.

A swap-out battery pack could so easily be remodelled to replace its internals with the higher capacity cells so as to improve power and range. Imagine this as a selling point. Nio already offer a lifetime warranty (no limit on miles) and if they added lifetime battery upgrades as capacity to size improves you could end up with a car which does 300 miles when purchased, then in 2 years the newer pack will go 400 miles, in 4 years time 600 miles. I'd guess at around 600 miles range Nio (and others) may want to stop and a smaller outer casing might be designed which still fits earlier cars but allows more small cars to be added to their model range.

[anonymous-user]

Batter swapping increases costs to consumers!

The vehicle is much more complex, ie has more parts, requires more maintanance, and costs more to develop

The vehicle is heavier so less efficient (both vehicle and battery have to be individually structurally strong and the interface needs to handle huge loads safely (crash at 10g, and your 500kg battery pack weighs 5 tonnes.....)

The infrastructure is hugly more expensive, instead of a relay and a plug on a cable, to recharge your car you now need a "swapping station" that can handle the (heavy & bulky) batteries

Who ultimately pays for those ^^ the consumer does.

With fast chargers now routinely adding 200mph or more, and the public fast charge network blooming rapidly (no, it's not good enough yet, but its comming soon with massive investment) and the simple fact that the vast majority of people don't drive long distances very often so simply plug their car in a couple of times a week

[DJMC]

Some comments from the Fifth Gear video page:

"Kristian
2 weeks ago
It's now 1 month since I bought the Nio Es8 after selling my Tesla model x. What is very good about the ES8 is comfort and especially driving comfort. Perfect suspension and very little noise both from road and wind. Battery swap is ingenious in that you do not have to think about the condition of the battery and and it is quick to change. But perhaps the most important thing for many of us who have bought the car is that the car is not outdated by later and better generations of batteries. Nio is committed to ensuring that later generations of batteries are compatible with the current version of Nio. It is the constant development of better batteries that reduces the price of used cars, but with this tecno this will be way much better."

"rhonan Astill
3 weeks ago
In terms of depreciation this is a game changer because with ev's battery degradation is a major depreciation point. Yes the body will have some degradation but the bulk worries will be gone."

"Hakan K
3 weeks ago (edited)
Great video. Most of Tesla users are not aware of the battery replacement cost, which can be from $16K-$26K after they are out of their warranties. Battery degradation is another problem they will face. Battery replacement has numerous advantages for users, as long as NIO can keep it financially feasible for its business operation. Please do not forget that NIO does offer regular charging option too."

"bryan
3 weeks ago
Just imagine if this technology was THE industry standard. Regardless of make or model, the battery was the same (in maybe 3 sizes) every current petrol station was the battery swap station (along with a carwash and toilets/ shop/ fast food outlet.
Bish bash bong, you leave the car to do its thing in the automated battery swap and optional car wash, while you either sit in it, nip to the loo or shop."

Read 300+ other comments here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3J2YxmHTnc

[DJMC]

Max_Torque said:

Batter swapping increases costs to consumers!

The vehicle is much more complex, ie has more parts, requires more maintanance, and costs more to develop

The vehicle is heavier so less efficient (both vehicle and battery have to be individually structurally strong and the interface needs to handle huge loads safely (crash at 10g, and your 500kg battery pack weighs 5 tonnes.....)

The infrastructure is hugly more expensive, instead of a relay and a plug on a cable, to recharge your car you now need a "swapping station" that can handle the (heavy & bulky) batteries

Who ultimately pays for those ^^ the consumer does.

With fast chargers now routinely adding 200mph or more, and the public fast charge network blooming rapidly (no, it's not good enough yet, but its comming soon with massive investment) and the simple fact that the vast majority of people don't drive long distances very often so simply plug their car in a couple of times a week

As batteries get smaller in the swap-out casing, weight and economy can be improved, and safety too.

You can still charge a Nio at home or at a charging point. It's not swap-out only. Most people (who can) will take advantage of home charging for cheaper rates but when you're caught out you have a quick re-fuel option.

If you live in a block of flats, or nowhere near a charging lamppost you can still own an EV and re-fuel as you do now in your ICE car.

[anonymous-user]

DJMC said:

Some comments from the Fifth Gear video page:

"Kristian
2 weeks ago
It's now 1 month since I bought the Nio Es8 after selling my Tesla model x. What is very good about the ES8 is comfort and especially driving comfort. Perfect suspension and very little noise both from road and wind. Battery swap is ingenious in that you do not have to think about the condition of the battery and and it is quick to change. But perhaps the most important thing for many of us who have bought the car is that the car is not outdated by later and better generations of batteries. Nio is committed to ensuring that later generations of batteries are compatible with the current version of Nio. It is the constant development of better batteries that reduces the price of used cars, but with this tecno this will be way much better."

"rhonan Astill
3 weeks ago
In terms of depreciation this is a game changer because with ev's battery degradation is a major depreciation point. Yes the body will have some degradation but the bulk worries will be gone."

"Hakan K
3 weeks ago (edited)
Great video. Most of Tesla users are not aware of the battery replacement cost, which can be from $16K-$26K after they are out of their warranties. Battery degradation is another problem they will face. Battery replacement has numerous advantages for users, as long as NIO can keep it financially feasible for its business operation. Please do not forget that NIO does offer regular charging option too."

"bryan
3 weeks ago
Just imagine if this technology was THE industry standard. Regardless of make or model, the battery was the same (in maybe 3 sizes) every current petrol station was the battery swap station (along with a carwash and toilets/ shop/ fast food outlet.
Bish bash bong, you leave the car to do its thing in the automated battery swap and optional car wash, while you either sit in it, nip to the loo or shop."

Read 300+ other comments here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3J2YxmHTnc

proving quite clearly that reading anything from a public comments section is a waste of time! lol!


For example, given zero history, how do you know that "Nio is committed to ensuring that later generations of batteries are compatible with the current version of Nio". Why would a car company want to make their cars last for ever? (think about the economics of that one for a second!)

And on battery degredation, swapping makes no difference. A battery degrades when you use it, so all the batteries in the "fleet" degrade continuously, so we ALL pay for that. There is no such thing as "free". if NIO are getting lumped with the cost of replacing their fleets battery then guess what, you as a buyer are actually paying for that (plus some profit too!!). If the battery that is fixed in your car ages, you pay for that (in either reduced resale value or replacement cost) and if the batteries in the "swapping fleet" age, then you also pay for that too, because now the manufacturer has to pay for those, so to make the same profit, they need to charge their customer more, ie YOU!


These comments also show me that most people have no idea how life with a BEV actually works for the majority. For the majority, even 5 min of battery swapping is less convienent that simply putting there car in charge at home over night. Having to drive somewhere specific to "refuel" is really tedious once you have owned an EV that is just full every morning every day anway!

The no1 dissadvantage of battery swapping will be the introduction of singificant souces of un-reliability and failure. How do you physically securly attach a 500kg battery to a vehicle in such a way as to provide sufficient strength to stay together in a crash, but also to be removable easily? It's not actually a simple problem. Consider cars with folding fabric roofs, generally that complex roof mechanism is the first part to fail (expensively) on the car, but at least if the roof is stuck you could still drive home, if you battery gets jammed during a change you're cactus! And what about the electrical and coolign connections that now need to be self sealing and dismountable? The primary advantage of and electric powertrain is precisly the fact it has hardly any moving mechanical parts. Battery swapping is a significant retrostep. This is especially true when we look at user warranty and life estimations. Fact is, a battery swapping car will have more failures and hence cost the manufacturer more money. And yup, the customer pays for that too......


Finally stupid or biased people always mention the cost to replace a worn out battery, but seem to somehow think that the convientional powertrain in an ICE vehicle lasts for ever! A passenger car is specifically engineered to provide a nominal life expectancy of around 150,000 miles and ten years. Every time you drive your BEV the battery wears, just as every time you drive your ICE the powertrain wears. As a user you pay for both of those things. The fact there is a battery rather than an ICE is irrelevant. In fact, the only reason that you would consider replacing the battery in a BEV rather than replacing say the engine in an ICE is actually because the simple and robust powertrain in the BEV is likely to be SIGNIFICANYLY LESS WORN than that of the ICE. Change the battery in a 200,000 mile Tesla and the motor and gearbox will easily do another 200,000 miles. Few people change the engine in a 200,000 mile ICE precisely because the rest of the powertrain is "beyond useful life". Really that makes the cost of a battery replacement actually very cheap, because what it is actually doing is preventing you having to buy an entirely new car!!!!!

[anonymous-user]

DJMC said:

As batteries get smaller in the swap-out casing, weight and economy can be improved, and safety too.

But if the batteries change in physical size of arrangement then NIO now have to update and modify all there battery handling ifrastructure too!!

If battery cell tech improves then you can also "update" a non-swappable battery, because the BEV powertrain is intriniscally agnostic to the source of the electricity. Yes, you need to remove a few bolts but that really isn't hard (it's already being done on old nissan leafs for example)

DJMC said:

You can still charge a Nio at home or at a charging point. It's not swap-out only. Most people (who can) will take advantage of home charging for cheaper rates but when you're caught out you have a quick re-fuel option.

Right, so now we have customers paying for a very expensive service they won't actually use? If you are "caught out" then there is a much higher chance of finding a local standard fast charging station rather than some specific NIO battery swapping station, and with chargeing rates of more than 200 mph becoming the norm, it's more likely to be faster to spend 15 min on a CCS at maccyd's just round the corner than 5min at a battery swap station you've had to drive for half an hour to get too!

DJMC said:

If you live in a block of flats, or nowhere near a charging lamppost you can still own an EV and re-fuel as you do now in your ICE car.

If you don't have home charging (and the vast majority of users do don't forget) then you have to drive somewhere to recharge. Given the increasing inclusion of chargers at normal destinations, why would i drive to a specific swapping station, rather than just plug in outside the gym, or tesco's or even at work (which will be drive the largest uptake of BEVs, ie when workplace charging becomes the norm)

And of course, the biggest question will be how many swapping stations will there be, and how many "swapping bays" will be at each. Given a CCS charging station is about 5m squared of flat tarmac, a small metal box and a link to a substation, and hence is very easy and cheap to install (and requires practically zero maintainance) there will always be far more chargers than swappers. So if you have to wait more than about 10min for a swap, then it's actually slower than a charge!

[OutInTheShed]

Battery swapping won't work too well when people have shagged out batteries to get shot of.

The game of time-shifting mains electricity with Octopus Go type tariffs means that all batteries will never be equal.
The system needs to be one thing or another, you can't have people swapping a battery that they've seriously devalued by using a significant slice of its cycle life. Not without people paying over the odds.
It will be like trading your rusty camping gaz cylinder for a shiny new one.
An expensive game where you pay dear for the contents, because it's a given that some people are taking liberties with the container.

[ZesPak]

OutInTheShed said:

Battery swapping won't work too well when people have shagged out batteries to get shot of.

The game of time-shifting mains electricity with Octopus Go type tariffs means that all batteries will never be equal.
The system needs to be one thing or another, you can't have people swapping a battery that they've seriously devalued by using a significant slice of its cycle life. Not without people paying over the odds.
It will be like trading your rusty camping gaz cylinder for a shiny new one.
An expensive game where you pay dear for the contents, because it's a given that some people are taking liberties with the container.

1. Sell the car, rent the battery out.
2. Battery status is actually very easy to read out.

That said, it's a terrible idea and there's really no reason to do it.

[TheDeuce]

ZesPak said:

SWoll said:

Depends on your usage.

We go beyond the absolute range of our car a couple of times per year and do 99% of our charging at home overnight so would see little benefit from more range, higher charging speeds or a swappable battery. I imagine quite a few owners have a similar experience.

I agree. Swapping batteries would again need more infrastructure. And very complex infrastructure at that, as opposed to pulling a cord.
It seems to me one of these things to appease the people who say "I don't want a car that can't do 1000km in one go" or "I want to stop for 5 minutes and then do another 500km".

I don't see how they can ever expect to build and sustain the infrastructure when such a small % of car owners will drive far enough to need to swap more than a couple of times a year. And for all the rest of the driving you're dragging around the extra weight involved in making the pack swappable.

The Chinese can definitely make it work, because they control the direction industry centrally - if that's the way they want to go they can make it work. But elsewhere... Why does BEV need such an infrastructure when the vast majority can charge at home and hardly ever need it? The current availability of mere 50kw chargers hasn't let me down yet. Also housing density in Chinese cities is insane, charging at home is bound to be less practical for many.

Tesla with their supercharging network and longer range models make any trip around most of the western world a doddle already. I just can't see those simple and compact, fairly inexpensive chargers being replaced with a far more complex battery swapping station.

[saaby93]

OutInTheShed said:

Battery swapping won't work too well when people have shagged out batteries to get shot of.

The game of time-shifting mains electricity with Octopus Go type tariffs means that all batteries will never be equal.
The system needs to be one thing or another, you can't have people swapping a battery that they've seriously devalued by using a significant slice of its cycle life. Not without people paying over the odds.
It will be like trading your rusty camping gaz cylinder for a shiny new one.
An expensive game where you pay dear for the contents, because it's a given that some people are taking liberties with the container.

unless the batteries are rented