For sports cars or passenger cars that extra one inch lower seat height might matter, but probably not. Most people won’t notice in the taller seated positions of CUVs dominating vehicles on the road. I think Tesla mostly did the integrated pack to reduce parts, increase sales or profits by lowering MSRP or manufacturing costs, or to slightly improve efficiency by minor weight reduction, but I don’t know how much lighter the integrated setup is. I doubt it would be a deal breaker or anything, but not being able to battery swap in a future where other cars have that option could be a real deal breaker.

Searching "battery swap stations" in Google maps points me to an exhaust shop 6 miles away.

We don’t have them because we don’t have the Nio, which was designed for swapping. Teslas weren’t really designed for swapping in a practical way, as far as I can tell.

China sold 3x more EVs in one month than we did in three months, and it made up 31% of the share of new vehicles. In the US, only 4.6% of new vehicles being EVs.

US: All-Electric Car Sales Increased 60% To Almost 160,000 In Q1 2022
China: Plug-In Car Sales Climbed To Over 400,000 In May 2022

https://insideevs.com/news/585186/us...-sales-2022q1/
https://insideevs.com/news/594260/ch...ales-may-2022/

Again, I will predict that battery swapping will be a big thing. The other real benefit is battery stations can control their charging times, charging in the middle of the day and at night during off peak hours to flatten the duck curve that much better, while allowing people to swap after work during peak hours, as an option of home charging. The other thing worth mentioning is the stations don’t need to equal or replace the current number of fueling stations. Most people will charge at home or at work. We would only need enough stations for those wanting to swap, as opposed to fast charging or home charging, so in totality, only a fraction of fuel stations would be replaced by swapping stations.

China is moving fairly aggressively with renewables and have goals for carbon neutrality by 2060 and peak carbon usage by 2030. Musk has consistently touted their recent advances compared to the US, which is also why he has predicted more sales and growth in China for Tesla.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aut...es-2022-02-24/

https://insideevs.com/news/594260/ch...ales-may-2022/

https://energypost.eu/china-should-c...its-emissions/

I guess one advantage of falling behind other countries is we will be able to see what works and what doesn’t and move best from there.

I can see this having advantages and disadvantages. Makes for fewer number of charge points needed for normal times, but that could make holiday travel a mess (well more of a mess than it is now even).

With the huge gas stations we have now along freeways near major cities there can be big lines during thanksgiving travel. If the "fill-up" time for EV's is longer than gasoline cars - there will be a need for a larger number of charge/swap stations to handle that holiday traffic - or make the wait time longer. But, there will be no business case to build them for single digit uses during the year. I'm guessing they will size the # of charge/swap stations to something sustainable for regular day-to-day traffic.

If, like the typical EV driver, I charge 95% of the time at home, I wouldn't be willing to do a battery swap while on a road trip unless there is some type of guarantee on the swapped battery when used outside the "swap" process.

It depends on the ecosystem needed. For instance, there are already many Superchargers used at the midpoint between the Bay Area and LA, so this could be a location for swap stations that meet a holiday need. Who knows what will be around in 30-50 years in terms of high speed rails, as China and Japan and other parts of the world seem to be ahead of the game than the US, but where there is a need and desire there could be development.

While the lithium sulfur batteries are 3x as dense, they would charge about as fast because charging 50kWh takes a similar time, but if the battery is 150kWh for the weight of 50kWh then range would make swapping not necessary, and it would also mean the battery could have the potential to charge faster per mile because the battery is bigger, so a car in the future may add another 150 miles of range in just minutes. Level 3 charging is already capable of adding 3-30 miles of range per minute, but if the battery was 3x the size then we are looking at a lot of miles in 5-10 minutes. Swapping to a larger battery could be done to improve range to not have to stop, or swapping along the journey could be possible to speed up the process instead of charging. There could be a holiday surcharge for battery swapping. Who knows?

There is mobile charging. I don't know if there could be mobile swapping in some capacity. I don't know what goes into a swapping station.

You wouldn't own the battery. Same with leasing a car, where you and the bank don't own the car. The battery would need to be insured like a car that is leased, which really isn't an issue because the rest of the car needs to be insured. If something happens to the battery in the form of an accident that is your fault then it would be your fault, but if the battery needs to be replaced or something happened out of your control then the battery would be swapped out.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...tteries-lease/

Got it....

This a little slight of hand frankly since in the the long run it doesn't save anything. It's also different than providing fuel for ICE because built into the price of the battery subscription is the amortized cost of the battery plus probably some margin of error (the service likely has a more than 1:1 relationship of cars to batteries).

Honestly, I'm not saying that battery swapping is a bad idea, but I don't think you are going to find the OEMs agreeing to a standard format unless forced upon them.

OEMs are still fighting over a charging port standard (which is a relatively simple change and can even be solved via adapters in some cases). I see no chance that swappable batteries can become standardized in any significant way in personal vehicles.

I don’t think they are trying to make a slight of hand. People say the same thing about Tesla when they advertise prices that include government subsidies or if they advertise the price being lower based on gas savings and maintenance. I think people go in well aware of what they are paying each month. Also, the monthly subscription is in lieu of fast charging, which often costs similar to filling up with gasoline, so the $142 for six swaps seems fair. At $6/gal, that is 24 gallons or 710 miles/month at 30mpg, which seems like a bargain. Cheaper than filling up with gas for most people, so the battery is essentially free.

There is also an option to pay $12/month to rent the battery, which is $1,440 after ten years, and there is the option to buy the battery for $10k, which might prove cheaper for higher resale value and home charging, but that could also mean someone is financing a $30k car instead of a $20k car, and they are selling a battery that is old and partially depleted at 10 years old.

Nio is proprietary, so they swap Nio cars only. We would need swapping dealerships/stations based on manufacturers or groups like VAG might all work. I wouldn’t dismiss the possibility of a standardization. It won’t happen tomorrow, but it probably will happen. You might be aware of the car connectivity consortium, which is a group of manufacturers creating a standard for connecting our phones to the cars for keyless entry like Tesla has. I would personally love to lose my bulky key fob. Apple in Europe needs to comply with laws to use USB-C as a standard, so we reduce cable waist. They will probably avoid this by switching to Magsafe. Outside or Tesla, EVs already have a standard for charging. I can totally see a future with a bolting pattern and size standard with a quick disconnect standard.



https://carconnectivity.org/

You could vary the sound generator to mimic a 2 stroke. It might sound like my mother in law. Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiithc Nag Nag. Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiithcNAGNAGNAGNAG.

People say it because its true. Any vehicle could be advertised this way. Say Toyota asks you what you're driving then they show you the difference between driving a Prius and a Suburban as your "cost" for purchasing the car, but it really isn't. The upfront cost is the purchase price, not some theoretical cost based on driving habits and former car ownership.

If my first car is a Tesla, Tesla's "lower based" cost is a pure fabrication, as an extreme example.

Regardless of all that, I agree with you that until the magical 10 minute to refill to 300 mile battery comes along, swapping makes theoretical sense.

Personally though, however its done I don't won't to depend on the car OEM to provide me fueling/charging/switching infrastructure. I should have my pick similar to fuel.

I guess we'll see how it plays out over time.

One of my charger vendors has a guy that sits on the committee for BCI and says it's the wild west when it comes to the the lithium ion manufacturers. They can't agree on any type of standardization.

Swapping could be a great alternative if the logistics can be worked out. However, I'd be reasonably happy with a 20 minute refill on a 400 mile battery. For me though the sweet spot for range is 500 - 600 miles. I don't need that for around town, but 500-600 is my daily average for road trips. Being able to travel interrupted only by our biological constraints would be perfection. (I think)