Battery swapping is one option. It’s what Better Place proposed for its electric vehicles, but the company failed. And the Tesla Model S is designed to make it easy. See this YouTube video to watch it being done. (But turn down the audio, because the oohing and aahing of the fanbois and fangirls is really annoying.)
This is exactly what one company tried---- and lost almost a billion dollars when they went bankrupt.
If you “brick” your gas powered car you pour in more gas and away you go. You don’t have to buy a new engine.
Brick an early Tesla and you have to buy a battery pack for 40K per the posts above.
That’s fairly fundamentally different IMHO.
Or you could run your internal combustion engine without any motor oil. That would be the equivalent of “bricking” an electric car. (And it would require a similar level of dumbassery.)
The cars don’t allow you to drive past a certain low water mark on the battery. However, lithium-ion batteries–particularly with the chemistry Tesla uses–have a moderately high self-discharge rate. If you take a fully-charged car and leave it alone, it will eventually drain the battery to the point where it causes damage. I think with the Model S, they have the self-discharge down to the order of 1% a day, so the problem is much reduced. They claim that even a month of storage after reaching the “0%” point will not brick the battery. The Roadster was much worse in this regard; it could discharge up to 7% per day (as per the manual I linked to above).
I’m not sure about everything they did to improve this, but it’s probably a combination of improved cell manufacturing (from Panasonic), reduced standby load from the car itself, and additional reserve capacity. This latter part reduces total range, but increases pack lifetime even aside from the bricking stuff. Lithium-ion cells don’t like being even close to totally discharged, so if you want maximum lifetime you’ll prevent the them from discharging past ~20%.
Tesla uses a different cell chemistry from other most manufacturers. There is generally a trade-off between energy density and self-discharge rate; Tesla optimizes for range, which necessarily means they’re stuck with chemistries (lithium-cobalt or lithium-nickel-cobalt-aluminum vs. lithium-maganese, say.) that have worse self-discharge. That’s one reason why they’re the only electric with a 260 mile range, but it’s not without its downsides.
There is also the issue of the car itself using standby power for its various internal electronics, but that’s not a fundamental issue with the battery. The Model S has had several software updates to improve this factor.
Apples to Oranges.
Electricity and gasoline are both power sources, motor oil is not.
Yes, but the point is that if you’re willing to ignore common sense, the owner’s manual, the warranty and all of the warning systems built into the car, it’s possible to do irreversible damage to both an internal combustion auto and an electric one.
I’ll agree that the Tesla roadster which was so easily bricked was a bad design, but that’s a problem with that specific vehicle, not with electric cars in general. With most electric vehicles, running down the battery just means you can’t drive until you refill, same as running down a gas tank.
sbunny8 et al, note I mentioned an industry standard battery pack would be necessary. I think that having a portion of the total battery be removable/exchangeable addresses many issues. It allows interchange of battery but does not require the entire battery load of multiple models from all manufacturers be exchangeable. Some of the battery load is permanent, and configured and placed wherever the manufacturer desires. Another portion is modular and standardized for exchange. The balance between fixed and removable is a feature left up to the manufacturer, and can lean to either side depending on the desires/needs of the potential buyer.
Some users can indeed ignore the swap-ability and just plug in and commute. Other users may need extended range more often than once a year for vacation, and will take frequent advantage of the ability to just “fill up” like they did when driving a gas powered car. Short range is a major psychological hurdle preventing many people from even considering electric. Giving them a means to get what they think they need, or are used to from the gasoline era even if they really don’t need it in reality greatly broadens the potential market for electric cars. So if they then only swap modules once a year, who cares, if it gets someone who would never consider it into an electric car?
As for quality of the swapped module, well, remember that you’re not keeping it. You’re only using it until your next swap. I think the proprietors of the “swap stations” will be in a position to regulate the units they accept for removal and recharge. Drive in with a decent unit, it gets pulled out, replaced with a decent fully charged unit, and you drive away. Show up with a piece of crap module on its last legs and the automatic machinery tests it, and declines to take it out of your car. “Brick” your module and you’re not gonna just get a quick swap to relieve you of your big expense.
Frankly, I’d be rather upset at the idea that I might pull into a Swap Station to give up my almost-new swappable battery that cost $8,000 and get a heavily used one which is only worth half as much. Will the Swap Station keep a variety of batteries on hand, all at different ages and conditions? Okay, now what if I bring in my battery which the electronic tester decides is a “B” grade battery and they don’t happen to have any "B"s in stock (just gave up the last one an hour ago). Will they give me an “A” grade battery and charge me $2,000 for the difference? Or give me a “C” grade battery and hope I’m not upset about the fact that my car just depreciated by $2,000 thanks to the Swap Station? What if the swap station gives me a “B” battery and then on the very next time I pull in the test says it’s a “C” grade. Can I protest the rating or do I just have to take whatever it gives me?
These types of problems exist on a small scale with propane tank swap stations. But it’s a big problem because the cost an empty propane tank is only about twice as much money as the propane it can hold. Over the life of the swapping, the value of the tank itself is negligible. The reverse is true for Lithium Ion batteries. Even a small (by EV standards) LI battery costs many thousands of dollars and yet the electricity it holds cost just pennies. Over the life of the battery, the cost of the battery itself is roughly the same as the cost of the electricity you charged it with. The price of the “tank” is far from negligible here.
I really don’t see how the EV owners would be comfortable gambling with a piece of hardware which is worth several thousand dollars and take someone’s word for it that the new one is just as good condition as the old one. Maybe I’m being too cynical.
I hope you are – being too cynical. 
My gut feel is different from yours. I don’t see the swap module having any special value, beyond its utility value. As long as it’s good enough to swap, its value is the same – “swappable”. You’re not gonna sell it, or otherwise remove it from the car to realize some separate value. It’s worth a swap, same value as the one you get in return. Sure, when your car is new the modules you receive will almost always be older than the one that came with your car at delivery. But as your car ages, modules you receive at random are more and more likely to be newer than “your” original one. I think it just takes a mind set to accept utility value rather than some kind of innate value based on time of purchase to be comfortable with this. After all, whatever the condition of your present module, a completely different one is just a swap a way.
I presuppose of course that the swap facility is regulated and/or has enough integrity not to itself indulge in deceptive practices and does indeed classify all modules as either “good enough to swap” or “not” in a factual manner.
Tesla, at least, has a very robust battery warranty (something like no less than 80% of original capacity for 8 years), so one assumes that they wouldn’t be swapping in batteries that don’t meet that standard.
I can see someday getting 20% of city dwellers to go electric.
Trucks, country people including farmers, the bunches of folk that commute 50 - 60 miles one way for work.
This all assumes that the electric cars sell well enough that people that really could use them can afford them.
In this country, it is not the selling of the cars, it is of convincing the people to buy them.
Also, these charging stations??? Hummmm, going to be stand alone, going to sell Philips on adding the equipment at their stations?
IMO, infrastructure is going to be a bigger hurdle than a workable design for the cars.
What about weigh distribution? Will the total car as driven off the lot going to be lighter or heavier if you use the same basic car to start with or do they need to a total new design to make them work?
If I want a midsize car, which system is lighter in total weight.
I have no clue so can you guys enlighten me? I am wondering about all this.
At the factory I work at that is what we do with the forklifts. We just swap out the batteries.
The batteries though weigh about a ton and require a special crane apparatus and it can be dangerous to swap them out.
Also one battery might not be as good as another meaning it doesnt hold a charge as well so you might be swapping a good battery for a bad one.
Tesla has already answered this for their upcoming swap stations: they keep track of your original battery. When you go on a long trip, the first swap station you visit will hold your battery for you in storage. From there, you can swap the rental battery at will. On the way back, you again stop at the at the original station and get your battery back.
I’m convinced just about 100% of city dwellers will drive electric (if they actually own a car. Many won’t).
I see gasoline cars sticking around as secondary fun cars. Sports cars mostly. And diesel fueled vehicles will stick around for heavy towing (horse trailers for instance) and long haul trucks.
The rest will be electric.
Prices are steadily coming down. Eventually electric will be cheaper than ICE simply because they have fewer moving parts and complexity.
As for convincing people to buy them, that doesn’t seem to be a problem. After 2 years Tesla still has a 3 month waiting list, with every car selling for full sticker. Nissan Leaf and BMW i3 also sell well.
Electrical infrastructure is already in place. All that’s needed is to connect a high power charging station to the existing electric grid. That costs very little. See the buildout of Teslas supercharging network in only a couple of years:
Give them another year and it will be just about done.
Currently ICE is lighter weight but uses much more energy by about 3:1. This is because most of the energy in the gasoline turns into waste heat.
There’s a lot of focus on battery energy density. It started with cell phones in the 90’s and now it’s also cars. Progress is steady and there won’t be a weight penalty for very long.
It should also be mentioned, by the way, that regularly changing the oil in an ICE car isn’t common sense. People don’t know inherently that you need to change the oil; that’s something that needs to be taught. “Don’t let the battery run down completely” or “don’t leave it off the charger for three weeks” for an electric car are likewise not common sense, and need to be taught. If Tesla didn’t teach that well enough to new owners, that’s their fault. Putting it on page 83 of a 150-page manual or whatever isn’t enough: Nobody ever reads their car manual cover-to-cover, and most don’t even open it until after there’s a problem.
I have one of these. When the two parts are connected the base runs down before the top. Surely a car could used a scaled up version of the same technology?
I can imagine 40% of city dwellers having no car at all. Heck, right now in New York City, 56% of households don’t own a car.
Those people are a small percentage of the total population. But I agree that a conventional EV probably wouldn’t work for them. One solution is to have a series hybrid EV such as the Chevy Volt. It runs on electric only until the battery runs down, then it switches over to gasoline.
Over the lifespan of the car, EVs for sale right now actually cost about the same as gasoline cars. Add up fuel, insurance, depreciation, repairs. EVs have a higher sticker price, so more depreciation, but lower fuel cost and lower repairs, so it averages out in the long run.
Yep, as long as people see their car as a magic carpet to freedom, instead of a way to get to and from work, it will be tough to convince them to buy an EV which won’t allow you to jump in the car and drive to the other side of the country any time you feel like it. Of course this is a ridiculous fantasy, like the fantasy of taking your SUV off road into the Sahara Desert. 98% of SUVs never go off paved roads, ever. And 98% of people who drive cars drive less than 40 miles per day. My Mitsubishi i-MIEV has a range of 62 miles, which is about 10x what i need on a daily basis. I work less than 2 miles from my house and the grocery store is less than a ile away.
Right now the chargers are stand-alone but I think we will eventually see electric charging stations at Philips 66 and the 7-11 and the Circle K. FWIW, there’s a chain of stores in the Pacific Northwest called Fred Meyer. It’s basically a Kroger grocery store plus clothing and housewares, kinda like WalMart Supercenters. Anyway, mostl the Fred Meyers around here have a gasoline station in their parking lot and they also have an EV charging station on the other side of the parking lot.
The design of the cars is already workable. I have an EV with 10 times the range I need. The infrastructure is already here. All I need is a 110V outlet. My house has a couple dozen 110V outlets. Doesn’t yours?
Now, if you also want a 220V charging station where a stranger can pull up and use it for a fee, then yeah that requires some work. But those things aren’t any more expensive to install than a regular gasoline pump, and they are just as easy to operate. There are about 20 of those in the town where I live, but I rarely use them because I just plug in at my house overnight. And if you want a 400V charger which can give your car an 80% charge in only 20 minutes, like the CHAdeMO charger, or the Tesla Supercharger, then yeah that takes some work to put one in. But the power grid is already here. And you never have to have a tanker truck come in to refill it. So I still don’t see what you mean about infrastructure being a hurdle.
Chargers run on electricity. We already have electricity. The infrastructure is here already.
An EV with Lithium Ion batteries weighs a couple hundred pounds more than a comparable gasoline car. Not much difference.