Video: Ride along as a real-world battery swap takes place in less than two minutes

Better Place is not Only about the swap station model. They do have a model that is just as benign as Coloumb, Aerovironmental, ECOtec, etc.

But that industry is getting crowded quickly and there are limits on how much money can be made. They are a growth industry but users only pay for equipment, installation, and maintenance. No long term fees.

I have no problem with that particular business model.

Only the one that involves buying an EV without the battery, leasing the pack directly from them, and paying a monthly fee that includes charging for free at their stations, and swapping for a small co-pay (or just part of the monthly fee).

They own the battery pack you drive with... so they can charge you a subscription fee every month regardless of whether you charge with them or not. It is incentive to use their services at that point.

It would work very well for commercial applications were such high usage and such high demand for swapping would justify the increased cost.

For consumers, swapping is not a necessity for everyday. But only a convenience for road trips. For that, I suggest you rent or buy an EV that the dealer can swap the pack (Tesla). For consumers, the swap station demand is not high enough to invest the money. And consumers want the cheapest option.. which is self-ownership.

Better Place is planning to lease the battery packs they swap, which negates any customer concern about loosing a valuable new battery - because it wouldn't be their battery that is swapped. To figure a fair lease rate based on actual usage, the packs measure the amount of electrical energy used in charging, regardless of the source of electricity, and reports that usage to Better Place for monthly billing. It's actually quite clever, those who don't drive as much or drive more efficiently than others don't pay as much for the lease.

Of course, battery swapping isn't for everyone, it won't work unless both the battery pack and the vehicle are designed for it, and it would be useless for a plug-in hybrid that can use that other fuel to continue driving when the battery is low.

@Joeviocoe,
I don't understand how Better Place's "lease the usage" model intersects with home and public charging. How do they collect money if you trickle charge or fast charge from someone else's plug? http://www.betterplace.com/solution/charging/ talks about BP installing a home charger for you, but then presumably the electricity goes on your home bill. People won't take kindly for being charged once by their electric utility and again by BP for battery usage.

Better Place sounds like Coulomb Technologies -- "Gee, a NETWORK of charging stations needs a NETWORKING company!" -- but with the cost of financing the batteries and the complexity of the battery swap wrinkle. Maybe BP thinks they can use the massive energy reservoir of all the batteries they own and do some Enron-style arbitrage in the electricity market.

The other thing that's going to *KILL* BP is their initials. :-)

That is why this model is not even being proposed for the "general public" who buys the whole car (with battery).

However, this is being suggested for markets where Nissan and Renault are selling the EV without the battery. And the driver leases the battery usage like cell phone minutes. It winds up costs just below gasoline prices would. So not the best solution for consumers.... but a good plan for the companies that own the batteries.

They would like to get drivers on "contract" to recharge and swap using only their services.

For taxicabs and other "strictly commercial" ventures. It is a win-win. Add individual consumers, and it becomes win_more-lose.

But for individual consumers. Why have swap stations and extra batteries only for situations that excessive range is needed? That is why they need to Lock consumers with a contract. Because demand would otherwise be very low, since the cheapest and most convenient method of charging is at home.

If the whole deal is owned "in-house" battery swapping makes good sense.

Infrastructure follows in parallel with number of BEVs produced. Since demand for swap stations is 100% in taxicabs... no problem with justifying investment.

Batteries are all "owned" by the company.

I am glad that they plan to tailor the fees the driver will pay based on actual usage.

This will make it cheaper.

But just like any lease, full ownership has the potential to always be cheapest. Risk is higher, but it can be mitigated.

Having another company looking to make a profit is bound to cost more money than it saves.

I pay the automaker for the EV, and I pay the utility company for the power. I don't want another company trying to put their hand in my cookie jar. 8}

The business model will work if you have serious concerns about the longevity of the battery, and are willing to pay more to not have to deal with the risk. And if swapping is absolutely necessary for your daily driving needs.

I always turn off my car when I fill up with diesel.

We have already discussed why swapping batteries is not good for the U.S. population that would also like to own (not lease) their battery.

Buying an EV with the most expensive component swapped out on a whim with an unknown pack... not smart.

And if the pack is leased, then the driver is tied to a monthly subscription for swapping or charging with specific companies.

It may work in Isreal... It may work for commercial ventures such as taxicab companies... but not the American public.

Trading one tyrant (oil companies) for another (better place) is not my idea of freedom.

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My vote is for rented range extending trailers. It can have extra batteries, gas engine, or even a fuel cell. I don't care. It is rented only for long trips anyway.

A battery swap model cannot be done as a "once in a while" choice. It can only be done at the time of EV purchase. To be locked in. Buy a "better place" EV and then pay a monthly lease for the battery that includes the fee for charging and swapping based on use.

No freedom to choose anymore. No freedom to buy solar panels and drive every mile on your own power. No thanks.

Joe, you're assuming the pack has neither "intelligence" nor memory of how it has been treated. It's my understanding that the Better Place battery packs will, in fact, have such memory.

Swapping a "dumb" pack would ultimately result in exactly the scenario you outline. But a "smart" battery pack will remember how often it has been pushed to its limit, had high acceleration events, been left un-charged for too long, etc. In short, the pack would report itself as potentially defective or degraded when it is turned in to any swap station and the current user will be notated in Better Place' files (it's reasonable for PBP to protect its assets and expect drivers to pay for damage that they cause and excessive abuse of swapped packs could lead to termination of a person's access to the charging infrastructure worldwide).

Other data such as the pack's range over time, level of charge remaining at the time of charging or swapping, temperature at time of charging, etc., will be tracked and statistical analysis will point out the packs that are becoming degraded so they can be taken out of rotation and either repaired, replaced or reconditioned with new batteries, etc. Some battery packs will develop problems due to failing cells within the pack. Adequate backup capacity within the pack can maintain the quoted range until the pack is swapped out again (perhaps the pack can signal the vehicle's computer to notify the vehicle owner that a battery swap is recommended).

In other words, there are a number of reasons for pack degradation or failure. Some of them are caused by the actions of the driver and those can be flagged and dealt with as needed. Other causes are unavoidable and will be flagged as well and will be handled in due course as a natural cost of business. Even the age of the pack will need to be considered and packs at the edge of their useful life will likely be removed from service and reconditioned with new batteries.

Side note, just as the Volt's battery pack will maintain its 40 mile range throughout its 10 projected lifetime by utilizing more and more of its built-in excess capacity as the pack ages (the Volt can initially only use 8 kWh of its 16 kWh pack) so too the Better Place packs will have excess capacity built-in to enable automatic response to failing cells and aging of the pack itself.

There is no reason to assume that the Better Place battery packs will be any less technically complex than the Volt's battery pack. Shai Agassi is no dummy and will not hinge the future success of his company on the irresponsible behaviour of a few lead-footed people so these events will be tracked and some customers will be charged for the damage they cause. It is no different from renting a car - you break it, you bought it.

I'm no proponent of "renting" a battery pack if they are cheap enough to buy. But PBP could bring the initial cost of owning an electric vehicle down enough that nearly everyone could afford it and that would be best for all of us (even the people who "love" their gas burner). Everyone would still have the ability to buy an electric vehicle that comes with the pack. But for those who cannot afford it, PBP will be a good thing. Those people will be able to save money, too, as the cost of the PBP pack rental and charging will be less than gasoline for a comparable vehicle. Let the market vote on PBP, don't just write if off as failed before its even been tried.

Far easier and cheaper to assign parking spaces and build thousands of EVSE charge points on the streets than to build hundreds of swap stations and produce an extra battery pack for every EV produced.

It was quite easy when vehicles parked on the street in cold weather climates all needed an outlet for engine block heaters. Then fuel injection came along and the cables were removed.

Sure much higher wattage would be needed. But the alternative (a new billion dollar infrastructure) is only better for companies that stand to make a profit.

Engine block heaters were not for the gasoline. Injectors do nothing to solve issues of cold.

"Some cars, such as the second generation Toyota Prius pump hot coolant from the cooling system into a 3 litre insulated thermos-style reservoir at shutdown, where it stays warm for up to 3 days."
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_heater )

I like the idea of tossing a few extra 25 lb batteries in the back of my EV for a long trip, swapping the empties every 250 miles; it's the ultimate range extender for a city EV with a small built-in battery pack. Tesla makes it sound as if you will be able to go to a Tesla dealer and do this with your Model S, but details are non-existent. There's no standard that addresses the mechanical, electrical, and safety issues of racking batteries in an accessible location, and none on the horizon. Better Place has gone for the heavy standardized pack swapped by robots.

I'd love to get a perspective from the forklift industry. Supposedly hydrogen forklifts solve the space and time issues of warehouses needing to maintain a battery room for all their spare recharging batteries. How big are these batteries, is there one pack or several?

@Joeviocoe
I think if there is a range extender, it doesn't make sense to charge the battery, but rather directly use the generated electricity to drive the motor. Kind of like how the Volt does it. It uses the battery as a buffer, but doesn't charge it with the generator. That way you can avoid putting unnecessary charge cycles into your battery, and you also avoid charging losses.

Right Jake.

I don't think I implied that the RE would charge the battery. But only provided power for highway cruising.

The on board electronics would just need to be allowed to accept up to 35 KW DC external power while driving. Since this is DC directly to the battery, the genset could "charge" the battery when not power to the wheels is not needed. But that would be a waste.

So the range extender system would need to be smart enough to throttle itself down or turn off when not needed. But a simple speed sensor can do that easily enough. The OEM battery pack gets the EV up to cruising speed. The remote unit for the RE sits mounted on the dashboard like a GPS. And the driver turns on the RE like switching on cruise control. The RE determines the exact power output based on the speed on the highway (and a programmed chart of KW/mph based on the model of EV).

The great thing about a towable range extender is that all the smarts and engineering would be on the trailer. The EV maker would only need to allow those 3 things I mentioned. And since the trailer is rented... the total cost is not much of an issue.

If automakers would simply include a tow package, a TEPCO connector underneath the rear bumper, and an override that allows charge in motion... then companies would scramble to produce towable range extenders.

They might start off as 35 Kw gas engines... then move to flex-fuel
Then be a bunch of batteries (the whole trailer is swapped).
Then maybe a HFC trailer.

It would be easy and cheap for the EV makers... and allow a new sub-industry to develop.

@skierpage
I frequently work with electric forklifts, the biggest difference here is that the battery in an electric forklift is lead acid, they weigh around 1200lbs and are about 1ft wide x 3 feet long and 2.5 feet tall. Each battery consists of 6 tall, square, 6 volt cells in series for 36 volts, all wrapped in a 1/2 inch steel jacket. One battery can easily last all day in our machines, they are usually, but not always charged overnight. If you need to use a machine and it's battery is discharged to below ~10%, it is better to swap out the battery than risk having the machine die mid-lift. We keep a spare battery fully charged on the rack at all times, to swap, you unload the battery from the machine onto a steel cart and transfer it to the rack (the cart, forklift and rack all have heavy duty rollers on them to slide the battery over). Then you transfer the new battery to the cart and install it into the forklift, they slide in from the side. This job takes about 10 minutes, and requires two people, but it's better than waiting for the machine to die out on the warehouse floor. The interesting thing is that we probably only need to swap batteries maybe once a week, most of the time we manage to keep them topped off by charging overnight or on lunch breaks, etc. They charge to full in 2-4 hours.

The battery rack is only about 4 feet deep, it is along a wall, and is maybe 10 feet wide, no separate room needed. The 480 volt chargers are mounted above the rack, we have 3 of them, 2 for the standard forklifts, 1 for the order picker, which uses a smaller battery.

There is also the issue of maintenance in a taxi fleet. I have a cousin in the business and he tells me they often replace starters every 6 monts to a year.. and they have lots of expenses with automatic transmissions also. His drivers usually buy 2 year old used cars for this use so low cost is important also.

There are many considerations:

1)
Every EV taxi will be on the road during the day. No time to charge up during business hours.

2)
The average daily miles (180 miles) for each EV taxi far exceeds the capacity for each pack (50 miles)

3)
There is no way to predict when a particular EV taxi will need a swap. So you cannot have 1 replacement pack designated for multiple EV taxicabs. There exists a significant probability that many EVs will pull in for a swap around the same time.

So statistically, the minimum is 1 extra pack at the station for each EV taxicab.


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Eventually, a cheap and lightweight 250 mile pack would render the whole battery swap model for taxicabs unnecessary. But Better Place should make some money in the meantime.

Some good points, Joe. Please refer to my post above which, IMO, details a worst case scenario 4:1 ratio of packs to taxis. Even in that terrible case the extra cost of the batteries is fully paid for in 3 years and 3 months. Since the batteries will likely last 8 to 10 years the last 4 years 9 months to 6 years 9 months will be at extremely reduced cost as you are only paying for the electricity to run them.

I didn't even delve into the reduced maintenance. Hermperez makes an important point about the reduced maintenance costs and reduced downtime due to mechanical failure.

Then there is the public preference to consider. There is a large percentage of people who will want to take an electric taxi over a gasoline or natural gas taxi. One key to profitable taxi service is the utilization rate and if 10% of taxi customers show a preference to the electric taxis then that makes that fleet more profitable than their fossil burning competitors.

It's a win for the city because there are no tailpipe emissions. If all taxis were electric there is a potential to reduce Tokyo's pollution by up to 20%.

Even with a 1 to 1 (100%) extra battery to taxi ratio that's still better than running on gasoline.

Gas is expensive in Tokyo: "The average price of regular gasoline in Japan this week fell to Y139.3 ($1.53) per liter, or $5.81 per gallon, from Y139.6 last week, posting the first drop in 13 weeks, according to data released by the Oil Information Center on Wednesday... But it was still much higher than the Y120.0 price of a year earlier and the highest since Y141.0 marked on Nov. 4, 2008."
(source: http://imarketnews.com/node/14338 )
In 2005, it was $4.24 per gallon ( http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/global_gasprices/)

If you take figures from edmunds these taxis will drive 180 miles per day and will exchange their pack after 50 miles of driving. That would seem to indicate a 4:1 pack to taxi ratio but fast charging may be involved which would throw the numbers off...

Japanese cars are pretty fuel efficient so let's assume 40 mpg for a gasoline taxi. 180 miles per day is 4.5 gallons or $26.15 per day. How much does a 50 mile pack cost? Can you assume half of the Leaf's 100 mile pack? So $4500 / 26.15 = each pack pays for itself in 172 days if electricity is free, al paid off in 692 days (1 year 11 months). But it's not so we add 12 kWh per pack, 4 times per day, 48 kWh per day would come out to 1008 yen, $11 per day. Redoing the calculation: $18000 (4x4500 packs) / (26.15-11) = 1189 days. So if it replaces a gasoline taxi, the better place taxi will pay for the extra battery costs of all 4 packs in 3 years and 3 months by fuel savings.

Wow, that looks expensive. Millions and millions of dollars.

To add to what cmiles1701 said, let me point out that it would take less time to charge the battery than it takes to discharge it, even assuming relatively high speed freeway driving - and I suspect that these electric taxis will be used mostly on urban streets with lower speed limits, not freeway runs from city to city.

For that reason the spent battery will be ready for re-installation in another taxi long before the taxi that "dropped it off" will need it.

The battery swap station will only need enough batteries to meet the expected peak swap demand, not a number of batteries equal to the number of EVs on the street.

@ Joevioco

Actually you don't need an additional battery per taxi (100%) .

One could do a statistical analysis on the fleet- which taxi goes where, how often the recharge, whether the taxi will be used 24/7

You really only need a 25 - 50% extra batteries for the fleet as the (assume high voltage) battery module recharge is much quicker than the in the fleet use. It's not a 1-1 relationship.

Assume night time use that most of the fleet would simply plug in.

I love the better place battery swap concept:


I wish/hope that a safer lighter battery would be developed (portable lithium air?)
so one could stop at a gas station and buy, say a "10 mile energy module"- enough to get to a normal plug in spot, to recharge the car more fully.

One could plug that into the "aux/emergency battery port"- and get going.

I think it is rather clever to base the lease on actual battery usage, rather than a flat monthly fee, and the best way to determine actual battery usage is to measure the amount of electricity used in charging it.

PBP wants us to be locked into their plan. We understand perfectly.

They control the prices. They control how we drive. They want to be the next oil barons.

They cannot control the diverse electricity grid. So they want to control the access to that grid.

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And in exchange for higher prices and given up control... PBP is offering the ability to go back to the "fueling" paradigm we are so addicted to.

No thanks. Not for me. I would rather plan my driving more carefully and just charge up at the house for the cheapest possible rates.

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The good thing about cell phone contracts... they do end. Pay more upfront for the device... but in the long run, self-ownership is cheaper.

Watch the video. They do just that.