I’m always hearing about how we need a vast new infrastructure to cope with a societal switch to electric vehicles, supposedly to charge batteries during trips like we “recharge” our gas tanks currently.
But, for example, I can bring an empty propane tank to the store and swap it out for a full one, while all the refilling goes on behind the scenes and whatever pace works for the propane fillers. Why couldn’t gas stations just stock up on batteries and swap them out when they get low? This doesn’t seem to require a brand new infrastructure to me, or even state of the art quick charging batteries. We could get it up and running as soon as the cars existed. I understand the energy currently powering oil refineries will have to be redirected to this battery industry. But that seems like something that will naturally occur as we shift towards electrics.
So, where am I wrong? What am I missing when I hear about how expensive the infrastructure will be for electric vehicles?
Every vehicle requires a unique battery, cost of inventory would be out of reach.
ETA: Example-you buy ten battery packs for a Volt. What if there are no Volts in your area?
You’re sitting on 10s or even 100s of thousands of dollars in inventory. Multiply that across all makes.
Propane tanks size and fitting are standardized.
Swapping batteries in current electric vehicle is not a simple undo two screws and a strap.
Think how easy and quick it is to swap an engine.
Propane tanks are standard. The owner removes it from whatever he uses it to fuel and brings it into the gas station. Removing batteries and bringing them to a station isn’t as easy. Basically, any ‘refueling’ station would need a garage (seemingly a rarity nowadays) to swap the batteries out.
Another issue is standardisation. In order to be efficient, each auto maker would have to install the batteries in a standard fashion; i.e., a standard ‘battery bay’. Considering the size and weight of the batteries, this would probably cause design compromises that automakers don’t want to make.
If batteries standardize and become significantly cheaper, using a system that swaps out batteries becomes more realistic. We aren’t anywhere near that yet.
When the talk about changing infrastructure comes up it’s necessary for both charging vehicles in cars and charging spare batteries to be put in cars. The current grid can’t support an entirely electric fleet we need the work on infrastructure either way.
In the word of industry and warehousing, equipment does use changeable batteries. The batteries are also suitable counterweights, each weighing a ton themselves. Overall for the people using that equipment it’s a lot easier to plug the machine when it’s not in use then to swap the battery out. Swapping the battery out is a pretty easy task but it takes time no one wants to spend, so it’s generally only done when they don’t have down time for the equipment.
So if workers being paid for their time don’t want to spend the time changing batteries it’s a pretty hard sell on consumers. Having convenient outlets everywhere that they can simply plug their car into when it’s not in use is a much easier sell.
And I will threadshit by pointing out that I get a nice dependable 43 miles per gallon on my bog standard diesel jetta … and I don’t have to dick around with funky batteries, or trying to find a charging station, and I can change over to biofuel with nothing more complex than replacing the filters a few times in a row as the biofuel strips out the old petroleum schmutz. No bank of batteries that are hazmat to make and hazmat to dispose of, or expense to replace. As long as I do routine maintenance I have a reasonably inexpensive vehicle to buy, insure and maintain.
Batteries are expensive, heavy, take up a lot of space and have limited lifespans. So first of all, a service station would have to build up a rather costly inventory of batteries and hire people to schlep them around and charge them in their large and well-ventilated charging bays. Second, they’ll run the risk of trading out their brand new batteries for clapped out batteries that won’t hold a charge and will have to be charged against inventory.
Third, I don’t think (but could be wrong) batteries are particularly modular in current electric cars – they can be swapped out, but you probably have to get your hands dirty doing it. It’s not like swapping batteries in a digital camera.
That said, it’s probably a good idea for somewhere down the line once batteries are standardized and some of the accounting can be worked out.
As with many swap programs it is important to note that the propane cylinder program is not for the convenience of the customer and that the advantages are for the retailer.
You pay more than the cost to have it refilled yet you swap for a tank that has 15 of propane of propane when it was designed for 20 pounds. Yet most customers fail to even notice they are paying more for less.
They do not need do dedicate employees to filling tanks or pay for the additional insurance and permitting involved with refilling tanks for them it is a win.
It IS an appealing model until you think about this. A quick check shows that the battery pack for the new Nissan Leaf, for instance, weighs 660 lbs. And it takes up pretty much the entire area under the floor of the car. That’s simply too much to expect to come up with a convenient quick change process to handle. The car would have to accommodate some fairly heavy duty lifting apparatus, and a very large access hatch, or have a large number of more reasonable weight cells. Either way, the space to hold all the recharging batteries, and the cumbersome nature of the changing process is going to be a killer. If we could shrink the batteries by an order of magnitude, yeah, it would probably be the way to go.
the other thing to keep in mind is that even with as large and heavy as it is, it only stores as much energy as 5/8ths of a gallon of gasoline. I’m well aware that the electric motor and drive electronics are much much more efficient than a combustion engine so it’s not apples-to-apples, but it’s still a notable point.
ETA: honestly, though, I can’t say I disagree too much with the OP’s premise. the key thing right now that makes EVs a hard sell isn’t so much the low energy density of batteries, but the recharge rate. If you could substantially recharge an EV’s battery in less than a few hours, I think a lot of the stigma would go away.
Along with yabob’s points, there’s also the liability when lifting apparatus fails and drops the 660 lb. battery onto the car it just pulled it out of. OK, maybe that’s not likely to be a common accident, but what about scratched paint, dents, or bent frames from mishandling; if you’re disassembling a major part of your car more often than you currently fill your gas tank, that’s going to add up to a lot of wear and tear.
I don’t think the big problem is with non-interchangeability, or with the handling of heavy, bulky batteries. The first problem can be solved with appropriate industry standards, which has been accomplished in every other industry. And the second can be solved with appropriate vehicle and swap-station designs (make them modular, put them at the very back of the vehicle, etc.).
I think the biggest problem is with the *cost *of the battery packs. The swapping station would have a huge investment in maintaining a viably large inventory, and this would be cost-prohibitive.
And the long charging time isn’t a problem, anyway. Charge it overnight (when electricity is cheaper anyway), and you’ve got everyone covered whose round-trip commute is within the car’s range. If businesses start to put in charging stations as an employee perk, then you’ve got everyone whose one-way commute is within range. And for going on a hundreds of miles trip to Gramma’s house, you just use the other car that, as an American family, you probably have anyway. Or make it a plug-in hybrid instead of a pure electric, and just fill up at the gas station like you do now for those trips (while still doing most of your commuting on battery).
Exactly what you state is being done in Israel. The company switches out the battery in under 10". They are selling a charge at the outlet. They own the batteries. The American companies are building the cars around proprietary battery configurations and the only standard they even come close to is one for the charging ports.
There is in fact a way to charge a car’s battery quickly, where “quickly” means in about 3 minutes for a 50% charge or a half hour or so for a full charge. The problem is that you need a special charging station and a car equiped to handle it.
It’s known as “Level 3 charging” or “DC Fast Charge” (google for those terms to find out more). It’s a high voltage system (480 volts, compared with ordinary house current for Level 1 and 220 V for Level 2) and generates quite a bit of waste heat when charging (which means it’s wasting power).