What vehicle do you drive?
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ToeMissile
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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The idea of swapping sounds cool, but adds a good bit of complexity/cost to BOM and manufacturing.
As far as 600+ miles goes, it’s basically meaningless without knowing a number of other details to make any comparisons as direct as possible.
Lambourne
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There were studies a few years ago, not directly from manufacturers, that stress tested the various batteries and charge rates, but I don't remember where they were from anymore.
Here is the closest I could find right now, showing the lower you discharge the battery before recharging, the shorter the overall battery life. With an inverse effect of charging it from 80-100 also decreasing battery life. Still, repeated cycles of 50% - 100% last longer than 25% - 100%, even if that doesn't give the most optimal battery life/power:
View attachment 575893
This is the reason hybrids are far worse for battery longevity than full EVs, the small battery gets run down 100-0 twice a day for many typical commutes where a full EV with far more range only does a single 80-20% cycle.
90% capacity remaining after 3000 cycles is a nothingburger. For a EV typical use case (charge at home 5 days a week) that's 11.5 years. If you go hybrid and charge at home, charge at office 5 days a week you hit that 90% after 1000 cycles which is only 2 years of twice a day charging.
Battery swap tech just moves the problem to whoever is renting you the battery. Just like leasing a car won't make the maintenance/depreciation cost go away, you just pay for it indirectly.
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Kobayashi
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Tesla was doing this back in 2013, but scrapped the idea.
Tesla shuts down battery swap program in favor of Superchargers, for now
Tesla’s battery swap station near the Harris Ranch Supercharger station in Coalinga, CA seems to have been shut down, at least for now. What started out as a company vision to recharge Tesla vehicles in the same amount of time, if not quicker, as refueling a gas vehicle, turned into a pilot...
www.teslarati.com
It's an interesting concept, but it has some trade-offs that they didn't find worth pursuing. I know, personally, I wouldn't be a huge fan of permanently having a car payment, which is Nio's model with the battery subscription. Tesla tried to get around that where your vehicle's battery was set aside and you swapped it back when you returned from your trip or you paid some fee to keep the newly swapped battery. Another trade off is the pack has to be standalone. Most OEMs, Tesla included, are now making the pack a stressed member in the frame for weight savings. You could still come up with a way to swap things, but it's a lot trickier since now you're potentially bolting seats, trim, harnesses, etc directly to the battery. All the extra mass from a standalone pack adds extra cost and reduces range. Most people are pretty rarely doing long road trips, so, the swapping isn't going to be a common enough occurrence to justify the concept vs the alternatives.
ToeMissile
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Yeah and this is where they fucked up.Tesla was doing this back in 2013, but scrapped the idea.
Tesla shuts down battery swap program in favor of Superchargers, for now
Tesla’s battery swap station near the Harris Ranch Supercharger station in Coalinga, CA seems to have been shut down, at least for now. What started out as a company vision to recharge Tesla vehicles in the same amount of time, if not quicker, as refueling a gas vehicle, turned into a pilot...
It's an interesting concept, but it has some trade-offs that they didn't find worth pursuing. I know, personally, I wouldn't be a huge fan of permanently having a car payment, which is Nio's model with the battery subscription. Tesla tried to get around that where your vehicle's battery was set aside and you swapped it back when you returned from your trip or you paid some fee to keep the newly swapped battery. Another trade off is the pack has to be standalone. Most OEMs, Tesla included, are now making the pack a stressed member in the frame for weight savings. You could still come up with a way to swap things, but it's a lot trickier since now you're potentially bolting seats, trim, harnesses, etc directly to the battery. All the extra mass from a standalone pack adds extra cost and reduces range. Most people are pretty rarely doing long road trips, so, the swapping isn't going to be a common enough occurrence to justify the concept vs the alternatives.
They didn't design it to be a pop and swap battery so they needed technicians to do it by hand and the volume was so low/it was so early it was untenable to keep techs on hand and on payroll to sit around waiting for battery swap work, so you had to schedule it in advance. This is a terrible model especially for early adoption, this is like the early 70s OPEC gas shortages having to schedule your gas station trips in advance, of course it wasn't going to be popular. Then imagine having to train and employ specialty technicians nationwide to do this work? Its not like its gas attendants in new jersey pumping gas for you, you actually need training to replace the batteries.
So they made the critical error to go with superchargers (unmanned) even though it ruins the battery at the same time they opted to seal in the battery into the frame itself making it part of the structural integrity and making it basically impossible to replace (they can be replaced but it's cost prohibited, basically costs a new car).
This gives there car a finite, measurable life cycle. Sure most things nowadays have designed obsolescence but it's different when it's a 100k dollar sports car that becomes a paperweight after 1500-3000 charges depending on how you charge it.
All this can be avoided by designing the car to be a pop and swap battery, it has the same costs to build out replacement centers as it does to build out supercharger stations but it moves all the downsides of the batteries back to the oem and gives you a 3 minute "fill up" experience just like a gas station. It also allows the oem to control all aspects of battery charging to maximize longevity instead of trusting your customers to always do it optimally or have to rewire their houses electricity.
You should never want "ownership" of the battery itself or have to worry about getting "your" specific battery back, that puts all the liability on you the consumer. Instead you buy a car that costs 15-30k dollars less because you aren't buying the battery and don't have to ever fuck with 220v wiring or the added hassle or costs on your electrical bill.
instead you just rent a fully charged battery and swap it when it gets low. the cost to rent them is the same as the cost of fuel per month.
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Mizake
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I honestly feel like this whole battery degradation thing is overblown. I've owned Tesla for years now, and the amount of battery loss is negligible, like 10-20 miles from new.
Tesla states that battery degradation after 200,000 miles is about 12-15%, depending on model. Think about that.....how many cars have you driven 200,000 miles? Let's say the range on a Tesla is 200 miles, to make the math easy.....well, after driving 200k miles, which would probably take you close to a decade, your range would still be around 170 miles. Still a completely usable car for every day driving.
Here's a link to a Tesla that's over 400,000 miles on it's original battery:
This Tesla Model S Has 430,000 Miles On The Original Battery And Motors
Tesla states that battery degradation after 200,000 miles is about 12-15%, depending on model. Think about that.....how many cars have you driven 200,000 miles? Let's say the range on a Tesla is 200 miles, to make the math easy.....well, after driving 200k miles, which would probably take you close to a decade, your range would still be around 170 miles. Still a completely usable car for every day driving.
Here's a link to a Tesla that's over 400,000 miles on it's original battery:
This Tesla Model S Has 430,000 Miles On The Original Battery And Motors
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Burren
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Are people worried that much about the batteries? That's the toughest part of the car. Its everything else that will wear out.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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I'm not so much worried about degradation as I am literally everything else about the car. Degradation is just a price point. It could be 50% over 3 years, it might still be worth it if it was cheap to replace and you just have effectively a serviceable component.
Mizake
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I was just going by the past 2 pages on this thread with people discussing about batteries, battery life, and how to optimize battery life. When I feel like there is no need to worry about optimization since the battery lasts a long time anyways.
As far as everything else wearing out.....isn't that true of any car? At least with EVs you don't have oil components, probably a lot less rubber tubing, etc. There are significantly fewer components in an EV compared to an ICE, which means fewer parts that will need repair/replacing in the future. The one thing that EVs go through faster though, in my experience, is tires.
Cad
scientia potentia est
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I've had Teslas and driven them mostly exclusively since 2016... zero battery issues of any kind. My first Model S my oldest son is now driving... it has like 95k miles and still charges to ~220 miles of range where brand new it was 256 or something.
We can disagree about whether they're fun to drive and stuff, and I can understand your position on that, but they are durable and reliable as hell in my experience.
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Fucker
Log Wizard
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Power units...second hand...are cheap, too. Second hand low mile Plaids are a steal. Someone on a budget could grab one, put a stout brake system in it and have on hell of a car for less than the price of a new base model 5L Mustang.
Lambourne
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It's people buying into horror stories. I was once worried about some of that stuff too. First EV does feel like a jump into the deep end where you're not sure how things are going to work out.
I'm nearly two years into EV ownership now and it's been just fine. Range anxiety is a good term because it turns out it really is more a paralyzing fear of the unknown than a real world problem. Driven my BMW i3 (which is a very dated car now when it comes to range) halfway across Europe. Did it take more planning than using a gasoline car? Yes. But nothing you can't handle with all the free resources available on the internet.
I'm nearly two years into EV ownership now and it's been just fine. Range anxiety is a good term because it turns out it really is more a paralyzing fear of the unknown than a real world problem. Driven my BMW i3 (which is a very dated car now when it comes to range) halfway across Europe. Did it take more planning than using a gasoline car? Yes. But nothing you can't handle with all the free resources available on the internet.
Palum
what Suineg set it to
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Kobayashi
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I mean it's impressive for what it is, but not nearly as much if the video wasn't being massively sped up. I didn't see the speedometer crack 25, which is like 13 mph. That yoke steering wheel looks retarded there going multiple revolutions in some of those twists - totally impractical.