Better Place battery swapping plan comes under fire
Although many share the vision of ubiquitous infrastructure to support future fleets of electric vehicles, the concept of battery swapping, frequently championed by Better Place, doesn't seem to have the same appeal as the fast-charge station. In fact, in the past week, battery swapping has come under a bit of fire from different quarters. On one side of the globe, we have Mercedes' director of group research and car development, Thomas Weber, telling The Marker that not only is the swapping plan dangerous and could result in electrocution or fire, but that, "The industry has not even resolved matters as basic as the optimum location for an electric car's battery or the battery type." Ouch.
Meanwhile here in the States, the president of ECOtality, Johnathan Read, reeled off his own list of perceived problems with rival Better Place's battery swapping station concept. In an interview with the Cleantech Group during the launch of its EV Micro-Climate Working Group in Arizona he said, "It takes 10 or 15 minutes to fast charge, which isn't going to be much quicker or slower than swapping a battery, and certainly a lot less moving parts and potential points of failure. Let alone the capital costs required to build a battery swap infrastructure." He went on to make points about the speed of energy storage evolution and the difficulties of standardization. Of course, we're sure Better Place has already considered many of these points and is most likely in disagreement with the views of its critics. We would like to hear how they would respond but while we wait, feel free to leave your responses in the comments.
[Source: Haaretz / BusinessGreen.com]
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 3)
Doug 12:39PM (3/11/2009)
A battery swap infrastructure is just too expensive for too little benefit right now and runs the risk of quickly becoming obsolete.
I've said this before, but I'll say it again here:
Let the early adopters get their BEVs and PHEVs (REEVs, etc) for which home charging eliminates the "chicken and egg" problem, and gas stations eliminate the range problem.
Build parking meter style charging stations (both 120 and 240 V), scaling roll out with demand. When building new parking structures, pay the incremental cost of supplying power near the parking spots so that charging stations can be easily added as needed.
Implement the greater than 100 kW charging and the battery swaps within competitive racing, where their use is more appropriate and the engineering cycles are faster. Let that refined technology filter to the masses when/if it becomes more technologically and economically sensible.
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Sir.Vix 12:57PM (3/11/2009)
Owning a battery is better than renting a battery.
Even though i don't think making money is a shameful thing to do, i think renting a battery is dumb compared to just owning one. You're guaranteed to end up paying more money in rental fees than you would if you simply owned the battery in your car, which lasts 10 years before dropping to 80% of capacity, so really you can get 15-20 years before it's charge level is less than half of it's original capacity.
Monthly battery fees for rental just drives up the cost of going all electric unnecessarily.
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ohm 1:33PM (3/11/2009)
Ever used liquid propane-butane for cooking?
I did. The tank is not mine - I just swap it to the full one when it's empty for fixed fee.
I think BP can do.
And one more thing - BP cars CAN BE charged from the socket. Battery swapping is only needed when you go farther than your car nominal range.
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jpm 1:40PM (3/11/2009)
PBP is a scam!
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Noz 2:49AM (3/17/2009)
Indeed it is. MB tried this concept decades ago.
jpm 2:58AM (3/17/2009)
NB?
Noz 2:19AM (3/18/2009)
Mercedes Benz
stas peterson 9:37PM (3/11/2009)
If you merely go through the engineering numbers, the idea of "quick charge" is revealed as a pure FANTASY. There is no such thing, nor can there be, under the laws of Physics, unfortunately.
Just like PBP is another FANTASY except for any but a few small self -contained areas like an isolated Israel, or a small island.
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Chris M 1:39AM (3/12/2009)
Funny thing is, Aerovironment has already demonstrated a 10 minute charge for a 35 Kwh battery pack, and they didn't have to violate a single law of physics to do it. All you need is a 210 Kw power supply, the right type of batteries, and some very good engineering, fantasy not required.
Now, you might argue that it isn't practical, you could certainly argue that a slower 1 hour charge makes more sense, but you can't pretend it's impossible.
EVnut 4:20PM (3/11/2009)
As Randy brought up... the number of EXTRA batteries we need here is one of the big show stoppers (among several) to the battery swapping plan.
The battery is currently the most expensive component of any car. That's the whole point behind the battery swap idea, right? So the customer doesn't have to buy this expensive battery outright. But somebody has to buy it. And they don't have to buy just ONE per car, they'll need to be maybe TEN for each car on the road (Randy says 2-3, I say way more than that) because you never know at what location the battery swap will happen, and you'll need several charged units on hand at all times. So for 100,000 cars you might need 1 million batteries. I say this is a show-stopper even if you only make ONE extra battery per car on the road, and I think the real number needs to be far higher for this to have a chance of working.
Once we can go 300 miles on a charge, this pretty much becomes a mute point anyway.
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Chris M 7:10PM (3/11/2009)
While I agree that battery inventory is the major expense for the PBP swap stations, perhaps even too great an expense, I think you've overstated the number of batteries needed for reserve inventory. For most drivers, swapping wouldn't be an everyday event, most of the time regular plug-in charging will be used. Remember, swapping is for those rare trips that are longer than the battery range and maybe an occasional replacement for a deficient pack, for most drivers that would be just a few times per year.
Also, the spent packs swapped out would be recharged in a few hours, exact time depends on power available, charge rate of the batteries, and the state-of-charge. Lets assume a 3 hour max charge. In that case, a swap station would only need enough batteries to supply the expected demand for the peak 3 hour period - in some remote locales that might be only a dozen or so, a high demand site might stock 30 or more. Therefore, the number of reserve batteries would depend on the number of swap stations and expected demand, not on the number of cars.
So what if an unexpectedly high demand depletes the charged battery supply? How is that different from a gas station running out from an unexpectedly high demand? It has happened, you know. The difference is that an empty gas station must wait until a tanker truck can make a delivery, but a PBP swap station will be constantly recharging the drained packs and have some ready to go in less than 3 hours. Still annoying, but much better than having to wait a day or two for a tanker truck to arrive!
EVnut 8:48PM (3/11/2009)
Chris -
Your point is well taken, and I admit that I have no idea what that actual number might be. What remains a fact is that we will definitely need significantly more batteries than cars. And since the battery is the single most expensive item on an EV - perhaps 1/2 or more of the cost - even a small number more batteries than cars is a big deal. And to pay for that, the lease on the batteries would need to cover this huge expense, as well as make a profit for the folks doing it.
To answer your question about how running out of batteries at the swap station is different than running out of gasoline at the station... First off, I do know that happens as I have experienced it. And what I did about it, was to drive 0.25 miles across the freeway and fill up at the next station. The fact of the matter is - at this point battery cars are not best suited for long-distance travel. And I don't think this battery swap idea changes that suitability. If and when super-high capacity batteries fall in our laps - then we'll have our answer. Until then, we're stuck with using EVs conveniently for only about 95% of our trips. ;)
Ya know what I love about this whole discussion? It is that we're not arguing about EVs being viable. We're just arguing the details about how best to make them work for more people. I LOVE that.
EVnut 5:22PM (3/11/2009)
>Our current fuel pumps have multiple grades of fuel. Why couldn't a battery swapping station hold multiple sizes or varieties of batteries?
Because now instead of just needing 10X as many batteries of the same type, you need multiples of EVERY different type you expect a station to stock. Where does this limitless money come from?
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Dave S 4:39PM (3/11/2009)
Battery swapping is the way to go and here is my 2cents why:
1) Standardize the batteries for use in many vehicles. Easy swapping.
2) Doesn't mean you can't charge @ home.
3) Metered energy - you pay for what you get and credit for what you trade back in. Its the digital wireless age, we can do it.
4) The batteries will be well cared for, or they won't provide income for the chargers/traders. Electronic histories kept local on the batteries ensure that people stay honest.
5) Speed. A modular battery, easily removable from the vehicle, will slide in and out even faster than gas can be pumped when coupled with robot type assistance.
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Bob Seeley 5:57PM (3/11/2009)
Connector failure rate is the thing that's gonna kill this idea IMO.
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Chris M 12:51AM (3/17/2009)
Not if they do some good engineering. I used to drive a Sentra hatchback that had a rear wiper powered through a set of contacts that would open and close every time the hatchback was opened and closed - which happened a lot! Lots of things needed repair over the years, but not those contacts.
What most concerns me is the economics. Will it be financially viable, or will the extra expense of maintaining swap stations and reserve batteries be too much?
Dick Dell 9:29PM (3/11/2009)
Anyone remember the Irridium project? That was the Motorola partnership with a large Japanese firm, with the objective of creating a cellphone-satellite system that could connect from point to point anywhere in the world. They launched 77 satellites at a couple of million dollars apiece but current cellphone technology grew so fast that the system was obsolete before the last one was launched.
The point is, that a project that does not account for the pace of technology will fail.
Battery and charging technology is now moving at a very accelerated pace. We are looking at battery and charging systems that will take a battery to 85% capacity in just about 5 minutes. Can you safely swap a pack out that fast? Maybe. Is it worth it? Probably not.
Dick Dell
Advanced Vehicle Research Center, Danville Virginia
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Woodenbee 9:58AM (3/12/2009)
sounds like that mercedes guy is just using some good old Bush/cheney/rove fear mongering, electrocuted! how exactly????? for those countless millions of alleged men out there who are too sad to change a light switch let me school you, I'm done. I cant thing of one way you could get electrocuted while a machine changes out your battery while you sit in your car, or even if you had to swap out battery packs by hand!! wow I guess Republicans do get all there tactics from Germany, I guess they should be more careful who they call fascists, or national socialists huh, I should write a book on all the absurd fear mongering thats gone on over the years, I could probably write one on just the last Presidential election, you know oh Obamas a gun grabber, run for the hills, sad dumbasses, hunting is gay!
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Efried 4:51PM (3/12/2009)
I will hang a poster about that topic in EVS24 in Stavanger ;-)
Its now time that I finalise my paper about it, thanks for the new ideas!
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David Herron 9:54PM (3/15/2009)
Something your article did not go over is the power requirements to enable fast recharge. Yes a fast recharge is theoretically more convenient than a battery swap. It's not like Better Place invented battery swap, as battery swap systems were in use over 100 years ago by early electric vehicle makers (read "Internal Consumption") and today there is a competing organization who has designed a quick battery swap system: http://www.beyond-the-plugin.com/ ... But still you'd have to design the vehicle so the pack was conveniently located for a quick swap, and that might not be the best vehicle design. However fast recharge isn't a panacea, simply add up the power requirements to perform a quick recharge. Say your pack needs 20 kilowatt-hours of electricity in five minutes. That's 240 kilowatts of electricity. That much power is not something which is used in normal practice by typical consumers, instead it's kept to highly trained professionals in highly controlled situations.
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