I always wondered if Gogoro-style batteries, but for cars could be a thing. Doesn’t need to be automated. You pull up, twist and pull out ten ‘pods’ and replace them with fresh ones. Then drive off. Want a quick top-off, just swap out two. Pay for what you use.
As battery density improves, your range goes up too. They would need to engineer the access ports and the battery/BMS interconnect. No need for expensive, automated swap stations. Any gas station, hardware store, or grocery store could have a battery swap wall. Like 7-11s in Taiwan for Gogoro.
If implemented like moped battery swapping on Taiwan, things might work. If everyone designs their own unique solution, nope. :)
Biggest problem I see with this is storage. A Fiat Punto sized car will need a smaller battery than a Peugeot 5008. Even if a place like the EU were to force standised tech to make Peugeot batteries to be interchangable with VW or BYD, the amount of different batteries due to car size will make swappable batteries require a rediculous amount of storage space. So how do you get that kind of space in the middle of London? Or Tokyo?
I think just growing a patience and planning when and where to charge is a much more efficient way of going about it.
Charge while you’re shopping, or while the car is parked at your job, or while you’re picking up the kids from school.
Modular batteries would be a possible solution, although likely to not be feasible.
If car batteries followed some size and power standards like AA and AAA batteries do, different models could have a differing number of batteries that could be swapped out addressing the different needs for different models situation. All that would require is the majority of manufacturers to comply with the standards in a consistent way, and since we can’t even settle on a standard charging connector the standardized batteries are not really feasible.
Who says there has to be that many options? If they make a standard make only like 3 sizes. 50kwh for smaller cars, 70 for mid sized cars, and 100 for big cars. Or shit maybe do 25 kwh packs, and just have more or less packs depending on the size of the car. Density won’t be as great, but it gives more flexibility.
Because of innovation.
Let’s say we make 4 standard sizes today. Type A (25kwh), Type B (50kwh), Type C (75kwh) and Type D (100kwh). These 4 different batteries have different sizes, because energydensity and all that.
In 3 years some company finds a much better way to store electricity. Now they can pack 50kwh into a 25 kwh pack (with the same linear progression through the other types. So now you’d need a Type A1 and Type A2, Type B1 and Type B2… and so forth. Now you have 8 different kinds.
Sure you could just reuse the obsolete batteries for something else, or strip them down to their materials and use those, but that would be so incredibly wasteful in energy, that the green option, would be to offer both. That way someone who only needs a type B1 for their commute, can save a bit of money, while the company isn’t forced to replace all the batteries. But now you have a shitload of different batteries in your storage.
In 3 years time some new company have made an even better battery. The batteries should be able to function for more than 6-ish years, in fact, many places have warrenties for 10+ years, so just determining that they’re done and needs replacing isn’t a viable option at this point. So now you need 12 different kinds of batteries.
Sure you may not need as many of each battery with each new generation, but you’re still going to need an excess of what you expect to have to need. Otherwise your customers will choose your competitor when you run out of their particular battery.
But the absolute biggest issue is. How many batteries would you need in a city like Tokyo at a single battery swapping station? 100 isn’t going to do it, 1000 is probably more realistic. How do you store 1000 batteries in a city like Tokyo? Buy a skyscraper, knock it down and build a storage building? You’ll be half a billion in dept from the start and won’t break even in your lifetime.
In short. Swappable batteries is an attempt to overengineer a problem that has an insanely simple solution. Patience. Who knows, maybe in 20 years you’ll be able to charge 50kwh in 5 minutes anyway?
If energy density were to double, so say the type A battery went from storing 25 kWh to 50 kWh, then that just means that the type A cars can go twice as far. It’s still the same form factor. Serial numbers or other identification and tracking could be used to charge the customer appropriately. If you’re looking for something specific, the swap app could tell you who has what in stock. As the 25 kWh batteries wear out, they’re replaced with 50 kWh batteries.
