Loki-L t1_j233nhz wrote
That is actually what is happening in some cases with smaller vehicles.
Gogoro who make electric scooter in Taiwan, have a system where instead of charging your scooter at a charging station you swap out the batteries with fully charged ones.
This is possible because these scooters only need two batteries and they are small enough to be liften by a single person without tools or help.
For cars that would not work as well.
Replacing batteries when they can no longer hold a charge in parts would not be too much of a benefit since they would all wear out at about the same rate and it makes more sense to do it all at once rather than come back to the shop every few weeks or months.
Since the batteries are so massive and cars move very fast, making them easier to remove would have some safety effects.
In general EV batteries only need to be swapped out after several years and it needs to be done by a professional and the fact that that professional takes a bit longer is a trade of for the battery staying put where it most of the rest of the time.
crookedriverguy t1_j23bzi2 wrote
Well, you're overlooking a concept here that *might* work:
Car maker Nio offers battery swaps for customers with a "battery as a service" deal. A swap at designated stations are claimed to take 5 minutes
2ByteTheDecker t1_j23sqh9 wrote
That's making a huuuuuuuge presumption about logistics. It would be very expensive to roll out on a scale that would make adoption reasonable.
Tesla Superchargers are barely that widespread and that's a much lower impact solution than swapping our hundreds of pounds of battery cell, and has alternate options like charging at home.
biggsteve81 t1_j24h5fq wrote
A company called Better Place tried that in Israel. It did not work well. Also, DC Fast charging can work on any EV, while a battery swap will only work on one specific brand of vehicle. Imagine if a Ford could only be refueled at a Ford gas station.
maowai t1_j24ws26 wrote
I think swappable car batteries work fine in some areas and circumstances, but I don’t think that it will ever take off or be necessary in the US. I own an EV and I do 99.9% of my charging at home. Swapping is less convenient than that, I don’t want to pay a permanent subscription on top of the price of the car. Fast chargers along highways are also far less labor intensive and much more mechanically simple than any sort of human operated or automatic battery swapper.
As soon as you own an EV, you realize how bad and unnecessary of an idea battery swapping seems.
Vitztlampaehecatl t1_j262167 wrote
This. Swapping out batteries is possible by default on the vast majority of ebikes, because you take the battery out to charge it. But car batteries are just too big to take out easily.
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