GM is pulling back on EVs

[Gregs24]

This is what Ford should be working on. Simple battery swap system. Buy the car with a “rented” battery lowering the cost. Apartment dwellers with no charging option at their home becomes moot. Battery swap takes 3 minutes for full charge, not 30-45-60, etc. No battery depreciation at resale, since it is independent of the car.

Nio are already doing that and they are setting up swap stations in the UK ahead of releasing cars for sale. Whether it will work profitably is another matter. Historically cars with leased batteries are difficult to sell on second hand, an example being the early Renault Zoe.

There are certainly some advantages to swapping, quick and easy, the battery can be charged slowly which helps with lifespan and also lowers local electricity demand, but the big disadvantage is the requirement for the swapping stations which is quite a big investment for the car company

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[sk47]

This is what Ford should be working on. Simple battery swap system. Buy the car with a “rented” battery lowering the cost. Apartment dwellers with no charging option at their home becomes moot. Battery swap takes 3 minutes for full charge, not 30-45-60, etc. No battery depreciation at resale, since it is independent of the car.

Hello; Someone, perhaps you, posted about battery swapping becoming the future of EV's at least in terms of a quick turnaround from low charge to full charge. I posted asking a number of questions still yet to be addressed. Perhaps you do not have the answers. Perhaps as when the EV only sale mandates caught our attention, those of us with questions will have to slowly eek out the answers on our own.

My initial response to this particular video is it makes sense for a company with fleet vehicles. A taxi company with many of the same vehicles can make it work. The vehicles are standardized so the batteries and the install/removal system can work on all of them. The company also owns the batteries, the charging racks, the real estate and can afford to have the power supply wired in.

The video showed two taxis being serviced in about ten minutes so there must be many charged battery packs on hand. At one switch every ten minutes that is six per hour. 144 per 24 hour day. Just a guess, but such an operation ought to require lots of real estate as well as consume lots of electric energy.
New to me thought and question. Say such an exchange station must be charging numerous battery packs at the same time, I wonder how efficient the mass of chargers might be? Will lots of heat be a side product of the charging and thus require extensive cooling. In winter will energy be needed to keep the battery pack warm?

I understand the idea. I use lithium battery packs in my powered hand tools. I buy extra batteries and chargers. During an intense job I can run down a tool soon. The battery gets hot with hard use (electric energy changed into heat rather than kinetic work). Batteries get warm even in the slow rated chargers. So some amount of the electric energy goes to heat. I have gotten into a habit of not pulling a hot battery from a tool and sticking it directly into the charger. I allow it to cool down first. Having extra batteries helps.
Anyway the idea clearly can be made to work in special circumstances such as in the video. I do not see the practice working for the individual who owns only one EV. (refer to my previously posted list of questions) My take is this is another of the dream type "someday in the future" solutions so often mentioned.
Clear enough those in charge of mandating EV's have not considered this solution. They are pushing private ownership of chargers at home and pay chargers scattered around.

the big disadvantage is the requirement for the swapping stations which is quite a big investment for the car company

Hello; Yes this is one of the questions i posed before. Big capitol investment required up front.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Historically cars with leased batteries are difficult to sell on second hand, an example being the early Renault Zoe.

Yes, the Zoe was ridiculous. You paid 20K euros or thereabouts for a little bubble car (which was approximately what you paid for a Focus back then - and that was a properly good car, not a cheap econobox like the Zoe), and then paid a monthly fee of 79 euros for the battery, for the rest of the car's life. 79 euros was about the same as I was paying for gas in my 2.0 Ecoboost Mk4 Mondeo, and noticeably more than I was paying for gas in my hybrid Mk5 Mondeo. And both were big, comfy, well equipped cars, which started at any temperature, could cross the country in one go, and in which I didn't have to turn off the heating when the estimated range went down.
I can understand the appeal of a small electric car for short city drives. I wouldn't mind having one myself. But paying a perpetual fee for the battery, which is exactly (or even more than) what you'd be paying for gas in a normal car, seems downright stupid to me. Why bother with an EV then?
I guess it might make sense if the car were much cheaper to buy to begin with. But the Zoe wasn't.

 

[Gregs24]

Yes, the Zoe was ridiculous. You paid 20K euros or thereabouts for a little bubble car (which was approximately what you paid for a Focus back then - and that was a properly good car, not a cheap econobox like the Zoe), and then paid a monthly fee of 79 euros for the battery, for the rest of the car's life. 79 euros was about the same as I was paying for gas in my 2.0 Ecoboost Mk4 Mondeo, and noticeably more than I was paying for gas in my hybrid Mk5 Mondeo. And both were big, comfy, well equipped cars, which started at any temperature, could cross the country in one go, and in which I didn't have to turn off the heating when the estimated range went down.
I can understand the appeal of a small electric car for short city drives. I wouldn't mind having one myself. But paying a perpetual fee for the battery, which is exactly (or even more than) what you'd be paying for gas in a normal car, seems downright stupid to me. Why bother with an EV then?
I guess it might make sense if the car were much cheaper to buy to begin with. But the Zoe wasn't.

Zoe was actually quite a bit bigger than it looked. Still a relatively small car, but much bigger than expected when you stood next to it.

 

[key01]

changing market dynamics as Mercedes pumps the brakes on going all EV by 2030.

https://mbworld.org/how-tos/slidesh...=202431&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=content

 

[K4fxd]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/electric-18-wheelers-even-stupider-160410934.html

More reality for BEV's.

 

[sk47]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/electric-18-wheelers-even-stupider-160410934.html

More reality for BEV's.

Hello; Very informative article. I picked only one item from among many.

From the article.
"First, ATRI finds that US nationwide power generation would need to increase 40 per cent over the coming years just to accommodate the additional load placed on the various regional grids to recharge all the new heavy truck batteries. Taken in a vacuum that may sound achievable to the layperson. But no such vacuum exists: The added load must be found in addition to massive new loads being demanded for low-emissions heating, passenger vehicle charging, population growth and economic expansion, server farms, and even AI, which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently said will itself require a doubling of power generation."

Hello; Let me add that recently four or five hydro-electric Dams were removed in California. The idea was to revive the salmon population. I posted about such in a different thread. Among the other ironies is the result that breaching the dams has proven to be an environmental catastrophe on it's own. Released silt which built up over decades has smothered and possibly killed off much life in the river and even out into the Pacific for a distance.

Of course the loss of generation capacity seems likely to be sorely felt.

 

[K4fxd]

power generation would need to increase 40 per cent over the coming years just to accommodate the additional load placed on the various regional grids to recharge all the new heavy truck batteries.

In a few posts I did some math to show how much power will need to be added, it is staggering.
It got poo pooed by the champions. This article shows I am correct.

 

[sk47]

In a few posts I did some math to show how much power will need to be added, it is staggering.
It got poo pooed by the champions. This article shows I am correct.

Hello; By now we come to understand basic facts or numbers are not enough to convince "true believers" once an ideology has been adopted. If past is prologue two possible responses might happen. One is some unrelated link will be posted which in their mind refutes these energy needs numbers. The other and perhaps more likely is they have us on ignore and will not see the information.

 

[K4fxd]

Fast charger my ass.

64 min for 37 Kw.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/tested-one-gm-first-highway-110155762.html

**A 350 kW DC fast charger — roughly equivalent to 800 volts, the fastest level of DC charging widely available in the United States or Europe — delivered 37 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to the Polestar 2 EV I was driving in 64 minutes at a cost of $20.41.**

 

[K4fxd]

Will people ever learn?
https://www.yahoo.com/news/electric-vehicle-catches-fire-explodes-152934585.html

 

[K4fxd]

https://www.yahoo.com/autos/classic-cars-greener-electric-vehicles-150000860.html

Even worse, a Polestar 2 (a Swedish electric car) generates 26 tonnes of CO2 during the manufacturing process. That means you could drive your classic car for over 46 years before it generates as much CO2 as the “green” electric vehicle. Let that sink in for a moment.

 

[sk47]

The great electric car scandal is only just beginning (msn.com)

Hello; Allow me to pile on a bit. A real world test of actual EV ranges.

 

[Joshinator99]

The great electric car scandal is only just beginning (msn.com)

Hello; Allow me to pile on a bit. A real world test of actual EV ranges.

In related news, water is wet and the sun is still bright. The US Government got caught allowing manufacturers the ability to fluff their EV mileage tests by an arbitrary, *made up*, factor from day one, completely skewing the mileage tests vs ICE vehicles. You simply cannot get the energy density of hydrocarbon fuels in any battery currently in existence. Meanwhile the Biden Admin dropped a few billion dollars into a whole “nationwide charging network”…two years later, a whopping SEVEN chargers have been built.

It’s a huge scam, and anyone with an IQ over room temperature saw this coming.

 

[Joshinator99]

Fast charger my ass.

64 min for 37 Kw.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/tested-one-gm-first-highway-110155762.html

**A 350 kW DC fast charger — roughly equivalent to 800 volts, the fastest level of DC charging widely available in the United States or Europe — delivered 37 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity to the Polestar 2 EV I was driving in 64 minutes at a cost of $20.41.**

That’s a massive *$0.55/kWh*!!! Or, roughly 2 to 3 times what the normal person pays for electricity at their house…

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