EVs - have they got it all wrong?
Discussion
After pondering the latest news about new build houses having to have EV chargers from 2022, and listening to Jeremy Vine’s callers discussing it at lunchtime today, it occurred to me that the whole EV thing has been royally screwed up.
Is it just me or does anyone else think that the inability to quickly swap out the batteries of an EV is a glaring oversight in their design and that fixing this would solve a lot of the issues that put people off buying them or negatively affect people who already have them?
If the batteries of an EV could be swapped out in a few minutes at a service station the following issues would be eradicated or, at the very least, eased…
1: Charging time.
No longer an issue. You can now “fill up” as quickly as you can a petrol or diesel car.
2: Charging point congestion.
Only two chargers. A car sat in each for the next hour. So now you’re waiting for one of those to move before you can start to charge your car. What would be five minutes filling a petrol or diesel is now two hours. Not any more!
3: Range anxiety.
Significantly reduced as the ability to “fill up” quickly means having a car that can’t cover a long distance on a single charge no longer causes massive disruption to a journey.
4: Living in apartments or terraced houses.
No longer an issue. You just “fill up” at the nearest service station. You’d never need to charge your car at home so it doesn’t matter that it’s difficult, or even impossible, to get a cable from your home to your car. Also, no longer restricted to holiday accommodation that has EV charging.
5: Battery degradation impacting residual value.
No longer an issue. The batteries wouldn’t be a fixed component of the car, therefore, you’d never have a battery replacement costing thousands of pounds hanging over you, or wiping out a big chunk of the car’s resale value because the next owner would soon have to replace it and factor that into their offer.
How would it work?
Simple! There would be one shape and size of battery. These would be used in multiple in a vehicle, the number of batteries determined by its energy requirements. For example, a small hatchback might have two batteries, a family sized hatchback might have three, an executive saloon might have four, a large GT, SUV, etc. might have five.
The batteries would be contained in a cartridge which could be popped out at a service station, the batteries removed and placed in a charging dock and fully charged batteries inserted into the cartridge and this replaced in the vehicle. You’d pay for the difference in charge in the batteries you were depositing and those you were installing, as well as a “standing charge” for upkeep of the battery network.
Any batteries which had degraded below an agreed capacity could be removed from the network and replaced with new ones so customers could always rely on a certain range being available after filling up.
As battery tech evolved, manufacturing became greener, battery capacity and longevity improved, newer and better batteries could be deployed into the network and older, less efficient ones removed.
To accelerate this evolution all fuel/energy companies would be allowed to manufacture batteries in an open and competitive market, but must adhere to common specification to ensure compatibility when being mixed with other brands, same as you can mix different brands of petrol or diesel.
Am I the only person to whom all of this is startlingly obvious or am I stark staring bonkers and missing something obvious?
Is it just me or does anyone else think that the inability to quickly swap out the batteries of an EV is a glaring oversight in their design and that fixing this would solve a lot of the issues that put people off buying them or negatively affect people who already have them?
If the batteries of an EV could be swapped out in a few minutes at a service station the following issues would be eradicated or, at the very least, eased…
1: Charging time.
No longer an issue. You can now “fill up” as quickly as you can a petrol or diesel car.
2: Charging point congestion.
Only two chargers. A car sat in each for the next hour. So now you’re waiting for one of those to move before you can start to charge your car. What would be five minutes filling a petrol or diesel is now two hours. Not any more!
3: Range anxiety.
Significantly reduced as the ability to “fill up” quickly means having a car that can’t cover a long distance on a single charge no longer causes massive disruption to a journey.
4: Living in apartments or terraced houses.
No longer an issue. You just “fill up” at the nearest service station. You’d never need to charge your car at home so it doesn’t matter that it’s difficult, or even impossible, to get a cable from your home to your car. Also, no longer restricted to holiday accommodation that has EV charging.
5: Battery degradation impacting residual value.
No longer an issue. The batteries wouldn’t be a fixed component of the car, therefore, you’d never have a battery replacement costing thousands of pounds hanging over you, or wiping out a big chunk of the car’s resale value because the next owner would soon have to replace it and factor that into their offer.
How would it work?
Simple! There would be one shape and size of battery. These would be used in multiple in a vehicle, the number of batteries determined by its energy requirements. For example, a small hatchback might have two batteries, a family sized hatchback might have three, an executive saloon might have four, a large GT, SUV, etc. might have five.
The batteries would be contained in a cartridge which could be popped out at a service station, the batteries removed and placed in a charging dock and fully charged batteries inserted into the cartridge and this replaced in the vehicle. You’d pay for the difference in charge in the batteries you were depositing and those you were installing, as well as a “standing charge” for upkeep of the battery network.
Any batteries which had degraded below an agreed capacity could be removed from the network and replaced with new ones so customers could always rely on a certain range being available after filling up.
As battery tech evolved, manufacturing became greener, battery capacity and longevity improved, newer and better batteries could be deployed into the network and older, less efficient ones removed.
To accelerate this evolution all fuel/energy companies would be allowed to manufacture batteries in an open and competitive market, but must adhere to common specification to ensure compatibility when being mixed with other brands, same as you can mix different brands of petrol or diesel.
Am I the only person to whom all of this is startlingly obvious or am I stark staring bonkers and missing something obvious?
markj113 said:
A current rapid charger can add a few hundred miles in about 20 minutes.
If we're really going to go down the fixed battery route then it needs to be mandated that all rapid charges are compatible with all electric cars. As I understand it, someone who owns an Audi e-Tron has fewer options than someone who owns a Tesla, and solving this still doesn't remove the issue of battery degradation hitting a car's residual value.markj113 said:
how long would it take to swap over a "quick release" battery weighing 1/2 tonne?
There would have to be some kind of terminal that you drive into and the machine would sort it out, same as a car wash can wash cars of varying shapes and sizes. A battery changing terminal would have to be able handle a few sizes of car but at least there could be a common cartridge design that only came in a few sizes.I think the thing you're missing is that battery swapping stations would be 10x as complex as the current charging stations. Cars would support home charging anyway because that's 90% of the journeys. So you're left with a complicated solution that isn't all that much quicker than current rapid chargers. It would also remove some of the ability of manufacturers to differentiate.
Also one strategy for weight saving is to make the batteries structural as Tesla are now doing, and the removable packs you propose wouldn't be able to do that so would be even heavier.
Also one strategy for weight saving is to make the batteries structural as Tesla are now doing, and the removable packs you propose wouldn't be able to do that so would be even heavier.
It was tried and failed with the fluence - google 'better place'
Its being done again by Nio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw
Its being done again by Nio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTsrDpsYHrw
MitchT said:
Am I the only person to whom all of this is startlingly obvious or am I stark staring bonkers and missing something obvious?
Logistics. How many batteries would a typical motorway service station need, where do they get stored, how do you protect them against theft, how do you charge them quickly enough to keep up with the expectations of users for very quick swaps? Huge startup costs and huge overheads due to keeping spare/charging batteries kicking around. Very difficult to deal with peaks in demand.Packaging. Generic packs don’t allow for clever packaging solutions, making it harder to get decent range. How do you deal with heating and cooling of battery packs to optimise them if they could be in very different physical layouts? It can be overcome, but the headroom you’d need to build in will again reduce capacity. Connections for heating and cooling will take up space and reduce battery capacity.
Safety. You’re going to need some very tamper-proof and robust industrial connectors to deal with the disconnect/reconnect cycles. They won’t be small, so again you’re looking at them taking up space and reducing battery capacity.
It’s a dead end IMO. Seems attractive on the surface, but there are enormous downsides.
Better idea. Electrified rails that mean the cars don’t need batteries. As they self drive we may as well connect the cars up so they move together in long chains. As they’re all moving together may as well just have two metal tracks rather than metres of wasteful asphalt, saving on tyres too. Rather than the parked cars littering the streets, they could all be waiting to receive passengers at ‘stations’.
You read it here first. I want no more than 0.1% of all ticket revenue.
You read it here first. I want no more than 0.1% of all ticket revenue.
None of those are problems for most people, whilst battery swap stations have their own set of difficult problems.
its not a bad option and works in certainly places in China, afik they are starting to do it in Norway also, but its not like some magical solution to things.
most people with evs charge when the car is parked and barely use fast chargers etc
its not a bad option and works in certainly places in China, afik they are starting to do it in Norway also, but its not like some magical solution to things.
most people with evs charge when the car is parked and barely use fast chargers etc
Recurring topic.
Ignoring the physical challenges of trying to fit standard batteries to a myriad of different cars, have you considered the commercial and legal aspects?
For starters, do you think car manufacturers are going to just give up the opportunity to differentiate their products and make a profit on what amounts to 30-40% of every single car?
So who is manufacturing these standard batteries in your plan?
And who owns them?
For the UK you are talking about several hundred billion pounds of depreciating assets.
What commercial and legal structure are you envisaging for the ownership and responsibility for these assets?
Private individuals are never going to be willing to own tens of thousands of pounds of product that they are responsible for but don’t actually have, but instead gets passed around amongst the population. You can’t control how the battery is looked after and ages, there’s no way you would be willing to risk the ownership proposition.
So who owns each individual battery, who is responsible for insuring them against damage, failure or theft?
What happens if a battery fails and damages someone’s car? Or worse, catches fire and causes injuries, or burns down someone’s house. Who pays? And vice versa, does the owner of the battery come after you if you damage their battery? It’s potentially a legal minefield.
You’ve also not taking into account that in many EVs, the battery casing and chassis are pretty much the same thing. This helps to reduce weight and cost, but now you are suggesting reverting to something more complex and expensive.
The idea might work in a place like China but you haven’t got a hope in hell of making it work as a mainstream option here IMO.
Ignoring the physical challenges of trying to fit standard batteries to a myriad of different cars, have you considered the commercial and legal aspects?
For starters, do you think car manufacturers are going to just give up the opportunity to differentiate their products and make a profit on what amounts to 30-40% of every single car?
So who is manufacturing these standard batteries in your plan?
And who owns them?
For the UK you are talking about several hundred billion pounds of depreciating assets.
What commercial and legal structure are you envisaging for the ownership and responsibility for these assets?
Private individuals are never going to be willing to own tens of thousands of pounds of product that they are responsible for but don’t actually have, but instead gets passed around amongst the population. You can’t control how the battery is looked after and ages, there’s no way you would be willing to risk the ownership proposition.
So who owns each individual battery, who is responsible for insuring them against damage, failure or theft?
What happens if a battery fails and damages someone’s car? Or worse, catches fire and causes injuries, or burns down someone’s house. Who pays? And vice versa, does the owner of the battery come after you if you damage their battery? It’s potentially a legal minefield.
You’ve also not taking into account that in many EVs, the battery casing and chassis are pretty much the same thing. This helps to reduce weight and cost, but now you are suggesting reverting to something more complex and expensive.
The idea might work in a place like China but you haven’t got a hope in hell of making it work as a mainstream option here IMO.
You have a heady mix of:
- all the infrastructure issues of hydrogen - lots of expensive stations that need to be in convenient places to be viable, before anyone will commit fully to making cars that use it
- the failed experiment of EV battery leasing - people would rather just have a battery be an integral part of the car (mechanically and financially), not an ongoing expense, not a headache when you sell it or trade it in.
- all the space and grid connection requirement of a big hub of rapid chargers - to get a decent throughput of cars at peak times you need a reasonable number of batteries and you need to charge them pretty fast.
- the mechanical complexity of safely isolating a 400+V pack then pulling the very heavy thing out of a car and putting in fresh ones in a small period of time, without ever damaging someone's car, or getting stuck part way through
- the challenge of getting manufacturers to agree on anything, let alone a fundamental part of the car, and making the packaging compromises that such a battery would need
Honestly, 1-4 of your list are fixed by there just being more chargers (and mitigated with longer range cars). Stop at a motorway services on a busy weekend and look at the dozens of ICE cars not refuelling - just people wanting to have a break on their journeys, use the toilet, get some food or a coffee. Imagine if there were so many chargers they could just roll in to a free one, and get a worthwhile charge while doing exactly what they do now.
The people without home charging tend to use their cars to go to other places - to work, to the gym, to the shops, to see friends. If there's chargers in those places they just top up while they do other things. Norway-style charger ubiquity makes this stuff pretty easy.
As said, Nio in China are still pushing this idea - there's a few videos showing real-world experiences like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMr42VnFyo - worth noting that a) it's a manned, attended station (which might be cheap in China, less so here) b) having different size batteries available complicates things c) over 5 minutes for the swap itself, but 8 minutes or so from last one leaving to you leaving, during which you can't do anything else. I'd rather park, plug in and do something else for 20 minutes instead.
- all the infrastructure issues of hydrogen - lots of expensive stations that need to be in convenient places to be viable, before anyone will commit fully to making cars that use it
- the failed experiment of EV battery leasing - people would rather just have a battery be an integral part of the car (mechanically and financially), not an ongoing expense, not a headache when you sell it or trade it in.
- all the space and grid connection requirement of a big hub of rapid chargers - to get a decent throughput of cars at peak times you need a reasonable number of batteries and you need to charge them pretty fast.
- the mechanical complexity of safely isolating a 400+V pack then pulling the very heavy thing out of a car and putting in fresh ones in a small period of time, without ever damaging someone's car, or getting stuck part way through
- the challenge of getting manufacturers to agree on anything, let alone a fundamental part of the car, and making the packaging compromises that such a battery would need
Honestly, 1-4 of your list are fixed by there just being more chargers (and mitigated with longer range cars). Stop at a motorway services on a busy weekend and look at the dozens of ICE cars not refuelling - just people wanting to have a break on their journeys, use the toilet, get some food or a coffee. Imagine if there were so many chargers they could just roll in to a free one, and get a worthwhile charge while doing exactly what they do now.
The people without home charging tend to use their cars to go to other places - to work, to the gym, to the shops, to see friends. If there's chargers in those places they just top up while they do other things. Norway-style charger ubiquity makes this stuff pretty easy.
As said, Nio in China are still pushing this idea - there's a few videos showing real-world experiences like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvMr42VnFyo - worth noting that a) it's a manned, attended station (which might be cheap in China, less so here) b) having different size batteries available complicates things c) over 5 minutes for the swap itself, but 8 minutes or so from last one leaving to you leaving, during which you can't do anything else. I'd rather park, plug in and do something else for 20 minutes instead.
In our world EV's are not the answer, they are simply a plaster manufacturers are putting over us or the people that can afford them to make them still want to buy cars, they are not fit for purpose for everyone, only some. but they are a necessity to allow that tech to be developed and paid for by the rich to allow the poor to eventually be able to buy the proper, decent EV vehicles that will truly work. They are the guinea pigs and they are lapping it up in their blanket of green badges and superiority as you can read every day on here.
Let me give you an example, this weekend I am going to watch the RAC Rally in the north, doing that in an ICE would be completely impossible, there would be very few places to charge it up there or on the way without missing a lot of the action, and overnight would also prove difficult, and even if you could charge the chances are you would only be able to do a select amount of stuff due to the inability to charge as easily as buy fuel.
Is this a reason not to get one, for me yes and a lot of people I know as they restrict your freedom to be as free as you can in oil burners massively.
Will we have to accept this is a matter of course? Yes, as these sports will die off either through high petrol prices to compete or more likely the green lobby will stop these events anyway. But right now I have zero interest as an EV utterly restricts my ability to follow hobbies. As it does numerous other things.
As for long term and worldwide, cars are not the answer in anyway to the crisis, they are being built to make the Western elite feel less guilty and to capitalise on our guilt, the rich are buying them, that will fuel the ability to make them cheap, but the real answer to global warming is far more complex than electric cars.
The rich will want to fly so then aviation fuel will become prohibitive whereas now it is being basically ignored over automotive fuel pressures and exploitation of the poor with taxes. Cars first, then let's sort out planes as its much harder and we still need these bankers and CeO s to fly everywhere on helicopters and first class.
eventually that will filter down and electric will assist with jets.
But the real issue is the Far East, they don't give a toss about green issues (as you could tell with COP), and why should they, we are hypocrites to tell them, as we started it, they are chasing us and our lives are now utterly dependant on them to allow us to live our tech filled lives cheaply with products built with slave labour in these countries fuelled by fossil fuels. If not for them doing this we would be living far lesser lives right now.
An Iphone would cost 5 grand, there would still be shops we all use, etc etc etc.
Until you sort out them and make stuff they can afford we are just window dressing, not even bloody shopping.
Let me give you an example, this weekend I am going to watch the RAC Rally in the north, doing that in an ICE would be completely impossible, there would be very few places to charge it up there or on the way without missing a lot of the action, and overnight would also prove difficult, and even if you could charge the chances are you would only be able to do a select amount of stuff due to the inability to charge as easily as buy fuel.
Is this a reason not to get one, for me yes and a lot of people I know as they restrict your freedom to be as free as you can in oil burners massively.
Will we have to accept this is a matter of course? Yes, as these sports will die off either through high petrol prices to compete or more likely the green lobby will stop these events anyway. But right now I have zero interest as an EV utterly restricts my ability to follow hobbies. As it does numerous other things.
As for long term and worldwide, cars are not the answer in anyway to the crisis, they are being built to make the Western elite feel less guilty and to capitalise on our guilt, the rich are buying them, that will fuel the ability to make them cheap, but the real answer to global warming is far more complex than electric cars.
The rich will want to fly so then aviation fuel will become prohibitive whereas now it is being basically ignored over automotive fuel pressures and exploitation of the poor with taxes. Cars first, then let's sort out planes as its much harder and we still need these bankers and CeO s to fly everywhere on helicopters and first class.
eventually that will filter down and electric will assist with jets.
But the real issue is the Far East, they don't give a toss about green issues (as you could tell with COP), and why should they, we are hypocrites to tell them, as we started it, they are chasing us and our lives are now utterly dependant on them to allow us to live our tech filled lives cheaply with products built with slave labour in these countries fuelled by fossil fuels. If not for them doing this we would be living far lesser lives right now.
An Iphone would cost 5 grand, there would still be shops we all use, etc etc etc.
Until you sort out them and make stuff they can afford we are just window dressing, not even bloody shopping.
GT9 said:
Alternatively: Shouty bloke projects his specific sphere of reference onto the whole population and has no ability to envisage the long game to achieve extensive global access to low carbon energy efficient motoring.
I'll go with option 2. 
This whole EV business really has gotten under peoples skin hasn't it?
LukeBrown66 said:
Let me give you an example, this weekend I am going to watch the RAC Rally in the north
Not sure which rally you are talking about but there are 400mi range EVs on the roads today that gets you from Plymouth to Newcastle which is a 7 hour drive. You probably pass many hundreds of EV chargers on route too.But feel free to remain a relic, you can say it wont happen or cant happen all you like but reality is proving you utterly wrong.
CoolHands said:
Dingu said:
Good job an ICE engine suffers no degradation and goes on forever really isn’t it.
This guy’s everywhere right now. Which returnee is he?Feel free to disagree with the point I made though. ICE and EV have various pros and cons which will have various importance to different people based on their situation, preference etc. The idea that EV not having unlimited life (one of the OP points) is a specific con vs ICE doesn’t really hold up though.
Tesla demonstrated this 8 years ago, took just over 90 seconds to replace the battery on a Model S
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5V0vL3nnHY
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