May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Just to be clear, I am agnostic on what the announcement will be. I went crazy trying to figure out what the leasing announcement would be and was way off cause that option seemed too boring, lol.
But I do think that both faster SuperCharging and battery swapping are both credible options if this is going to be an actual major announcement, instead of just announcing more SuperCharger locations.
As to the battery swap the economics are fine if you justify it as public relations. Frankly, I think it would work extremely well in that sense. In terms of overall cost it would roll out in the same phased fashion as SuperChargers, and the yearly cost to Tesla would be relatively small.
One key barrier has to do with the inherent swappability of the batteries, and I've seen credible arguments on this both ways. Some think they can be swapped in minutes, some think it takes more like an hour once you count dealing with the battery coolant fittings and the coolant itself. If it can't be quickly swapped then it seems moot.
But another key issue is a scalable automated swapping station. It requires a custom engineered robotic device capable of quickly removing a battery, storing it, charging it, and swapping a charged battery in its place, while maintaining high levels of uptime and low maintenance costs.
All very doable and straightforward, but it is clearly a non-trivial bit of engineering. There are other management and logistic issues that need solving too. Developing a working system is probably more difficult than actually deploying it.
In a sense the idea that Tesla would delay announcing this until a year after the car was put in production makes a certain kind of sense. It is a substantial technology and process development project in its own right. Tesla would have needed to invest substantial resources before even beginning deployment.
So there is ample reason to be skeptical.�
May 11, 2013
WarpedOne There is one single reason that kills battery swapping: different cars use different batteries.
Battery swap station must offer my kind of battery or it is of no use to me.
Model S now uses 2 kinds of battery, GenIII will for sure use physically smaller battery, very probably of two different capacities.
Add a truck and a newer chemistry that demands a bit different electronics on board and things multiply into horror.
Imagine you drive into a gas station nearly empty only to find out they do not have *your kind* of gas.�
May 11, 2013
TD1 Battery swaping would make no sense, because its pretty clear that Battery swapping wont be needed anymore in 10-15 Years.
So Building a network of very very expensive Battery swapping Stations is not a longterm solution, that also why Betterplace failed, its a Business that has no future.
Supercharger Station is around 200k, Battery Swapping Station is around 2-3Million (thats what Betterplace had calculated)
My Money is on the Lithium-Ion / Metal Air battery Hybrid. Tesla has a Patent on it and that technology is capable of doing 1000Miles. It would be more expensive then recharging, but would once and for all solve the range anxiety issue. And since it will only be used on long distance trips, driver electric would still be much cheaper then Gas.
Im really surprised how the most people here totally ignore this incredibly awesome Patent that Tesla has there.�
May 11, 2013
raymond Perhaps a bit off-topic, but whereas sometimes 1% is "just 1%" (e.g. a 297 mile range instead of 300 miles) other times 1% is a lot (when 1% of patients in a hospital die).
Sometimes a reliability of 99% really sucks. And some people might view this as a reliability thing.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro And, most importantly, people might have focused too much on the swapping and whether they believed in it or not. In this way it has become clear that you can be a perfectly happy Tesla owner without ever visiting a swapping bay, and so it is only an added benefit to owners.
I am also agnostic about what the announcement will be - only ended up in this discussion because I thought the discussion didn't reflect how big Elon tends to think.�
May 11, 2013
Banahogg We've had people in and around the car long enough that I think we can be pretty sure there isn't a separate metal-air battery and support equipment (compressed O2 canister, pump, vent, etc) already hiding in there somewhere. And given that existing owners can't even get a full performance plus suspension as an retrofit from the company, retrofitting an entire power system seems unlikely.
Additionally, we have the existing evidence for battery swap from the 10K that needs explanation.
Personally, I've always thought of metal-air as more of a gen3 technology, as cool as it'd be to be able to just drop a long-range cruising battery in the frunk.�
May 11, 2013
vfx While I don't think Tesla will go the way of Better Place, If they were to offer Batt Swap I imagine they would offer a battery minimum guarantee as they have for resale value. They would simply cull out the weaker range batteries and refurb them later. All about making the customer feel comfortable.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor That possibly might be a factor. But it seems likely that if Tesla actually did design for battery swap (which they have repeatedly claimed to do) they might well have made it possible to have a 60kWh car swap in an 85kWh battery. There is probably no reason why the connections need to have been different, so functionally the only change would be the weight. The suspension is tuned for a particular weight, but adding a couple hundred pounds to the car will not substantially impair it.
Traction and stability control is all controlled by software, so when you swap in an 85kWh battery the car would just load the appropriate control profile. If you have an air suspension, that is controlled by software as well and the car might come very close to being a full 85kWh car in terms of acceleration, braking and handling just from switching batteries and loading a different control profile. But even a standard suspension would not experience much in the way of difficulties.
So *IF* this was going to be done, it is likely that only one battery type is needed. When GenIII comes out that would be a second form factor that would need to be supported.
Any truck is likely to use one of those form factors, while "chemistry"; "different electronics"; or other horror multipliers all fall into the realm of software controllers. They don't affect the basic form factor. Future advanced batteries would be able to be seamlessly swapped in as long as they use a compatible form factor. If there is serious miniaturization in the future you might still be able to plug it in using an adapter. If a future advanced battery supported higher power output than the current generation motors could support, then that would just be software limited.
These are straightforward problems to solve when dealing with electrons. EV's are very much a digital platform.
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I agree that battery swap is a short term fix. But your estimate from Better Place just goes to show how inexpensive this would be for Tesla. For the BP small battery swapping solution to work in the U.S. they needed to build swap stations every 25 miles. Thats a lot of investment to cover any significant area.
Tesla could cover most of the U.S. with just 100 stations in the initial rollout, and the "refill" fees could eventually make the system profitable as the vehicle fleet grows. Given that possibility Tesla might be well served by finding partners to share in the cost. Maybe they should package it as a CDO and sell it to Wall Street.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro Haha, funny man. Only you got this the wrong way around - Wall Street sells CDOs to people they consider stupid. (Stupid defined as trusting the expert advice from Wall Street).�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Ya, no kidding.
That said there is potentially a money making opportunity in battery swap if that turns out to be the winning technology in the future.
There might only ever be 300 such stations built in the entire U.S. The CapEx isn't terrible and if they charge ~$20 per swap (for 150 miles of range between stations) that approximates paying $3.50/gallon in a car that gets 25mpg.
If the vehicle fleet starts @~15,000 in 2013, and increases by 15k each year until 2016, that is ~60,000 vehicles using the initial 100 stations. If 2.5% of vehicle days use a swap station a single time you get 60000*365*0.025=547,500 swaps for 2017 based only on vehicles built in 2012-2016. @$20/swap that is a pathetic $10.95m in revenue after investing ~$200m and having ongoing operational costs.
But in 2017, you build 15,000 more Model S and 100,000 GenIII. That is ~1.6m swaps in 2018, which is ~$32m in revenue to pay operational costs. After 2018 production 2019 yields ~$53m in revenue. At some point in this process the $200m investment becomes profitable, even accounting for incremental investment in extra battery capacity. Maybe.
Tesla doesn't care. They deploy this and SuperCharging and let the market decide which one wins. It's all advertising to them, and they might be able to get partners to take a risk on battery swap. That risk might be more palatable after Tesla has had its first profitable quarter and has won every car award available, than maybe it was in 2012.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro I think this is plausible. The two credible alternatives that I have seen voiced at this point are this and the "Supercharger upgrade + Elon math". I think Elon is a guy that can learn from mistakes, so let's hope to avoid more bistromathics. In that case, the battery swap is the best match with the tweet.
Is there a third (or "1B") alternative that would go something like this: Install a "thingy" in the frunk, which has a receptacle. Here you can plug battery "cassettes" that you can exchange at the SC station? Probably not feasible in terms of weight and volume of cassettes to be replaced?�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 This is what I'm starting to see. Deploying swapping can make plenty of sense as a temporary solution, even it it costs $200 million.
That size deployment could cover Model S/X produced in next 5 years. Assuming they sell 100,000 of these in NA over the next 5 years, they could charge $1-2K to turn the feature on. If 50% take the feature at $2K they recoup half of the cost. Charging per mile usage at cost recoups cost of batteries, and customer knows they've also benefited by not putting these miles on their own battery.
Even $2,000 per car is a laughably cheaper short-term solution for range than what the competition has come up with... an ice engine as a range extender.
What about when Gen III swamps the system?
"They can let market decides what wins" (and science). Four years from now metal air battery may be ready. Put that in Gen III, offer choice in Model S/X, and Tesla wins whatever customer preference mix ends up between SCs, swapping, and metal air.
Even if the swapping is near, or completely, obsolete in 10 years it just all makes the path to 500 mile batteries (or beyond) more palatable to more people.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel That seems crazy to me. A $200 million for a temporary solution to a problem for the very tiny portion of people for which SC's aren't fast enough? That's not efficient use of capital and Tesla certainly hasn't been one to waste cash on dual "let the market choose" tactics.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Yes, if they partner with the customers themselves they can lower swap fees down to just the incremental cost for each swap. Good point.
Who knows what to do, but based on Elon's tweets and official Tesla statements as recently as the....
Well, I just looked. We have an answer in the most recent SEC filing -
�
May 11, 2013
FredTMC I was thinking the exact same thing. Basically a block battery for the rear or frunk that has maybe 50-100 mi capacity. Problem is that it weighs too much (~ 400 pounds for 100 mi boost). Maybe lowered into frunk with a hoist. It wouldn't need active cooling if it only recharged the main battery at a slower rate. Kinda of like a gasoline gen set. You drive away and it's still recharging the main battery. Between this battery block and simlutaneous supercharging of the main battery, the driver may be on his way in 15min or less.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Quickie link for anyone interested.. just search for "swap"
Tesla Motors - Quarterly Report
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Maybe the SuperCharger announcement is that they are scaling them back in favor of a new strategy, lol�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 ckessel it serves two purposes.
1. the point that Consumer Reports said would take the Model S to a 110 out of 100, filling up as quickly as an ICE. It may be irrational, it may be only a temporary issue, but I think CR is right... the ability to drive long range as conveniently as an ICE is the biggest drawback in public opinion. In practice SCs may only be not fast enough for a minority, but it is currently the most successful point of attack against Tesla I know it's detractors to have.
2. it manages the growth of demand on Superchargers. If it swaps in 3 minutes and IF SCs shortly get to fully charging in 30 minutes, it is 10X faster a recharge. This will be critical during the 5% of the year of major holiday driving. It's one thing to wait 10 minutes behind 3 people on the battery swap line, another to wait 1.5 hours on line behind the SC line. Tesla either invests something like an extra $90 million for enough SCs to accomodate triple traffic at ultra peak times, or they get a lot of grief from press and customers about ridiculous lines around Xmas and Thanksgiving.
So that $200 million becomes more like $110 million. And again if they charge $1K or $2K for those unlike yourself who'd like the feature, the cost gets scaled way down or eliminated.
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Awesome find C.O. Who'd of thunk it would be tough keeping up to speed with a thread on a Saturday. This is not done, but it is very encouraging indeed!�
May 11, 2013
Royal TS(LA) I think that automated battery swap is the most likely option. Judging from several images showing the underside of Model S, it seems that the battery module design is such that the module can be unfastened very easily and hence dedicated robotics should be able to do the job. Keeping individual packs and recharging them until the real owner returns to the recharge station would be complicated and expensive, since storage space would be needed. On the other hand, using statistics and probability calculus should enable to have a really small underground storage&recharge chamber with some simple transport system, maybe some form of conveyor belt?
I may err, but IMHO there are several arguments against metal-air battery extension packs, as well as against using ultra capacitor packs.
Metal-air batteries do have a nice energy content, but how much space is there really left in the Model S to pack this thing in without annoying its driver and passengers? One of the great points about Model S is its spaciousness. Space equals value, hence IMHO reducing available space equals reducing the car's value. I can hardly imagine that this is Tesla's intent. Also, metal-air batteries need to be refurbished. If there is no compact automatic refurbishment for empty metal-air batteries on-site, there would have to be a logistics to be involved -> cost factor. Seems implausible from a business perspective. Keeping systems as simple as possible and as cheap as possible is the key factor to success.
Ultra capacitor packs are very nice, because they can basically be sucked dry close to 0V. But what good would they really do? I read somewhere on the forums about an idea to use ultra caps to quickly recharge and then let those refill the battery pack on the road. Tough luck, because half the energy of the ultra caps would be lost during the process. Plus, you'd e.g. need about 33 cubic meters (!) of commercially available ultra caps to get 85 kWh. Assuming a 100 fold improvement still requires 0.33 cubic meters of space. The numbers don't work out, even with science fiction.
Another aspect is the assumed increase from 90 kW to 120 kW super charger capability. Well, 90/120 is .75 or 75%. That's a meager 25% charging time reduction. So we need 22.5 minutes instead of 30 minutes? Elon said that this would be quicker than typical gasoline refilling. Hence I say, a 25% reduction is nice and dandy, but nothing dramatic. IIRC, there is a scene in the megafactory video where they show that Tesla workers were drilled to attach the battery pack in like 4:15 manually. My guess is that even this can be automated, and this is what I believe now works on the road. It would make sense.
There is a hint from Elon in the reign of "it has been under your nose", right? Which would make sense, if the super charger stations had already some extra infrastructure beneath them, still visually being sealed off from the outside. And the little tower structure next to the recharging spots seems like it could pack a punch and deliver an appropriate amount of cooling (for itself and possibly subterranean recharging, a kind of air conditioner). Maybe some men in black are working their S's off each night to install alien tech in those spare spaces..�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Tesla is already charging $1,500 for SuperCharger hookups. Switch that money into investment for Swap Stations and you have ~$30m/year to invest in new stations. In 4 years that is $120m of investment which goes a fair distance towards covering the cost.
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Just in case anyone missed the switch over. This thread is solved. Tesla has already announced Battery Swap in the 10Q filed yesterday.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 As to storage Royal, one thing to remember, the SC stations are in between cities, basically the middle of no where. It may be tricky dealing with state governments that tend to manage these big highway rest stops and allow for construction, by the land itself, or worst case a couple miles from SCs, is cheap cheap.�
May 11, 2013
JRP3 I have to agree with ckessel on this. On the other hand, if they just use it as "range washing", i.e. 'look what we can do", just in a few token locations, they get the ability to say "faster fill up than an ICE", and string people along for a few years until larger packs with higher charge rates can be rolled out. This way they don't have a huge investment across the country, or around the world, on a soon to be obsolete technology.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Anyone wanna lay odds on whether Tesla charges a swap fee or just does it for free as long as you return to pick up your old pack?�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 Bet they charge a fee to truck your pack from one location to another, i.e. if you want to take a different route out than return, are a snow bird... Likely some extra fee if you hang onto swap battery longer than 2 weeks. Can't have people swapping out there 5 year old battery and forgetting about it in storage!�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Who knows, maybe. As an investor, I'm not tickled if Tesla is throwing money at what are basically mutually opposing plans for addressing range issues. Yea, we hear about range from folks like Consumer Reports, but demand is fine regardless and reviewers that have tried the SC (including CR) were pretty happy with them. Tesla and Elon have been completely over the moon talking about SCs, how great they are, how competitive with gas, free for life, blanketing the whole USA and then Europe and on and on.
It seems it'd be knifing their very highly visibly touted SC in the back. If that's really the announcement, it'll certainly be interesting to see how they spin it as anything than saying SCs aren't the right solution.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor It's not so bad as all of that. Batteries will get denser, but to a certain extent those gains will need be realized in lighter and cheaper batteries over the next decade rather than extra range. If you build a swapping infrastructure why do you really need more than 200 miles of range except as a niche application?�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 It may be an announcement and token implementation, but JRP3, do you really think it so unlikely a high percent of S/X buyers would drop $1.5M to have access to a swap network if they believe it will be built? If so, why not collect the cash and use it to actually build the darn thing.�
May 11, 2013
JRP3 Disagree, it's price. If people could get a 200 mile range EV for $30K very few would care that much about the range issue, especially with the supercharger network in place. Sure some would still complain, they always will.
The 10Q doesn't say when it may be happening. Plus, even if that's an announcement, is it a supercharger announcement or the under your nose announcement?�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor And don't forget charging times. Filling a 200kWh battery quickly is exceptionally difficult with the electric grid that exists. You might need heavy duty power generation right at the charging source to even make it practicable.
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It say's "near future". The SEC would probably spank them if "near future" meant in 2014. It would be the under your nose announcement I would assume, based on Elon saying "faster than filling a car" in relation to the mystery announcement.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 ckessel complementary, not opposing plans. Swapping avoids giant mess on the handful of days of dramatically higher usage, and for those who find 30-40 minutes at SC no issue, don't drop $1,500 on the option. If you're one of the ones who thinks the wait is unimaginable, fine, we've made an option available to you.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Well, that'll be the spin part. I'll be curious to see how they spin it because it doesn't look complementary at all.
To me, wearing my Tesla investor hat, Tesla is going to store dozens batteries in wait for the few high traffic days sounds equivalent to having piles of cash committed to something that's almost never used.�
May 11, 2013
Royal TS(LA) I have a feeling that the swapping infrastructure was already installed during construction work and that they tried to get the swapping station firmware to function properly until recently. The Model S is expensive enough to allow the assumption that this extra effort is already priced in. So, I think this is most probably for free, too. If not, maybe 10 bucks per quick swap?�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 ckessel, I'm an investor myself. I also really didn't like the idea of swapping. until yesterday. If they charge customers per mile at cost for the use of those batteries (probably $.20/mile), the batteries will be paid for, not cash going to something never used. To the customer it will be on par with the cost of gas, AND, they won't use up those miles on their own battery, actually making it considerably cheaper than gas (this is real, not fuzz Tesla lease math).�
May 11, 2013
JRP3 If you have a 400-500 mile pack do you really need a swap?
Large storage pack on site that can dump charge, plus provide FR for the grid, which utilities might pay handsomely for.
Still, you've all made some pretty good points, and with the 10Q wording, I am leaning in the swap direction. I'm not yet convinced it's necessarily the right move but it may be.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 JRP3 it may well be obsolete in 10 years (with 500+) packs, but if it pays for itself and opens hearts and minds, why not? and fwiw, I really believe that while Elon Musk has no issue with making billions, he really does aim to accelerate the adoption of EVs as well.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro Now the $1M question is: How will this affect the share price.
I'm thinking a lot depends on how good a job they do of selling it at the demo - it is not an automatic win. People have now gotten used to the idea of how a Model S works, and this is a radical modification of the concept. There could fear that Tesla has doubts about the current concept, while the new one is unproven.
If there is some unforeseen smartness/technology or other hidden gem (partnership?), that could help a lot.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor So my quickie model.
There is a clear upper limit on the number of swap locations required. This simplifies life, because even scaled to support the entire vehicle fleet in the U.S. you only probably need hundreds of locations, not tens of thousands like with gas stations (actual number 121,446 as of a year ago). Scaling to achieve high swap volumes is straight forward, because typical usage is so low (only used on road trips).
In a decade swap volumes will make those locations wildly profitable if Tesla charges swap fees inline with gas costs, or else they charge customers upfront and then a nominal fee per swap, and might even make it completely free after the upfront charge. Any method allows for road trips that are cheaper and faster than ICE, with power supplied by Solar Panels.
They pirate the Better Place model and promise to support batteries from other manufacturers. Improve on Better Place by enforcing standardized form factors for batteries. Improve it more by selling the batteries to other manufacturers. Regardless of method the infrastructure is in place to encourage other manufacturers to adopt the model.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 share price impact tougher to figure out than what an Elon Tweet is really about
as to unforseen smartness... we are talking about a guy whose building a rocket at a fraction of Boeing came up with decades more time.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro Just a thought: Is this the "Egg of Columbus" in terms of solving the Gen III equation? As far as I understand, the challenge there has been to make a car that has a sufficient range, yet get it down to the right price point.
The battery swapping would maybe allow Tesla to successfully launch a Gen III with a smaller battery pack?�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Yea, I saw that too and it again seems to completely counter Tesla's other statements. Tesla has been pushing SCs with the free for life bit which is inline with the whole cheaper to operate angle they (very correctly) tout.
Then turn around and introduce a model that's not free and costs roughly the same as gas?
I get what battery swapping brings, it just seems to run counter to all that Tesla's currently promoting. As for winning hearts and minds, they've already raised guidance for this year and 50% for sometime in the future at 30,000 a year. They don't need to win hearts and minds any faster than they already are.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor I don't know. But in 4 years it MIGHT be technically possible for a Model S class vehicle to achieve 500 miles (I actually assume it will). You will still need to charge $70k for the car and it will still be the same size. Think about that, it requires a doubling of power density and a reduction in price per unit of power by half over the next 4 years to achieve the same size and price point as the Model S.
Or you can plow that into a battery which is half the size and costs half as much and put it into a smaller car. And that is assuming a 100% improvement in just 4 years, along with all of the attendant logistical problems of actually charging the battery at an acceptable speed, both at home and at public stations.
Swapping might be necessary to achieved rapid adoption of EV's.
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Yes, absolutely. Once the infrastructure is in place, there is no real need for cars with 300+ mile ranges at all. 250 gets you to any swap station in the country, or else it gets you home.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3
I see it differently ckessel, I see them offering an option to those who can't see waiting 30-40 minutes, without taking the SC option away from those who can. There's a ton of software online where you can get the free version or pay up for the premium. I don't resent Adobe or Google for having premium products they charge for... I'm psyched they also have PDF software and Gmail for free.
ckessel, can you really blame Tesla not wanting to have to spend 3X the SC budget to accomodate holiday traffic for free and have those SCs go unused all the rest of the year? the SCs that would power battery swap system would be covered in something like a $1,500 option price to owners.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Yes, this might end up being just as free as SuperCharging. Once the infrastructure is in place the marginal cost isn't much higher than the energy cost. The batteries are virtually indestructible, and you get the most use out of them by putting tons of miles on them.�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms What if Tesla announces a partnership with some existing company that already has facilities -- even if it's just a roof and four walls and a source of power -- that Tesla will be able to use?
Me, I'd be game for a partnership with In-n-Out. You enter the drive-thru, pull up to order your food, and there's a Tesla Model S detector that asks not only if you'd like fries with that, but would you like to swap out your battery...
But on a serious note -- what would be involved with battery swapping? All done robotically? Requiring technicians? Requiring lifting the car or not? Or, like with Jiffy Lube, requiring you to pull over a special "hole" (being careful not to drive into it) through which they go to work on your battery?
Seems like a huge amount of infrastructure investment.
Perhaps Tesla introduces an entirely new way of buying the car. You buy the car with a leased battery. You own the car, but not the battery. The battery belongs to Tesla, and is part of the network of batteries which you swap in and out from.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Just to re-emphasize, the money they are making from the "SuperCharger" hardware can basically finance this. There is no reason at all not to replace the SuperCharger program with swapping stations.
If you build a swap station, adding a couple of SuperChargers is a tiny additional cost. Just a few thousand dollars really to install the pylon chargers.
The big money was always in the transformers and other infrastructure associated with the SuperChargers, and all of that needs to be built into the SuperSwapper.�
May 11, 2013
Royal TS(LA) Leasing the battery pack should bring down the initial cost nicely, right? Good for mass market stimulus IMHO.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro I'm thinking this. It makes for the most sensible logistics, both for customers and for the company.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Not really. They might be able to license the stations directly from Better Place, and just modify it slightly to meet the Tesla form factor. It would all be completely automated, with the main robotic assembly being underground.�
May 11, 2013
DonPedro Good point, even though swapping robots, battery inventory and charging points are going to cost a bit, too.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Yea, I guess I see that % of people as small enough it's not worth spending money on them.
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I don't get how that's any different than all the batteries they'd have to keep around for holiday traffic as well as the expense of a non-trivial physical building and robots and such.
Can someone explain how swapping places doesn't obsolete the SC? Someone said they'd be complementary, but I don't see how that's possible. Long distance travel is rare enough now as a % of miles driven. I can't imagine there'd be enough demand for 2 different solutions.
Maybe obsoleting the SC is the plan, but Tesla barely has them installed now and is actively touting them, so why do that if swapping will end up being the norm and they're staring "soon" according to the 10Q?�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor What if it's still free and covered with the $1,500 SuperCharger fee (or some fee recognizably close to that)? I don't see what the objection would be. As a customer its a vastly better product (with the exception of the requirement to return to pick up your battery). As an investor its a larger (but affordable) investment that could increase the size of the market for the primary product. The revenue from increased market share easily trumps the relatively small costs that are largely being offset by customer fees anyways.
Anyone not wanting to swap can just use the SuperChargers which are co-located with the SuperSwappers anyways.
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Darn. Better Place is listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 Those extra SCs just get built and only used as the very rare peak peak times. The batteries, however, get used until they have no useful life... whether that takes a year or ten years. By charging a customer the cost/mile of the battery, I estimate at $.20/mile, the battery gets paid for.
(as to your point about small percentage of people not wanting this. I think up until February, Tesla may well have seen it as you do now. Why build this Super Swapper out, even if we charge for it as an option if not enough people will want it to recoup money? While Elon never budged an inch on Broder's report being non-sense, he did say Tesla would make a concerted effort to respond to the situation. In other words, they may have been on the fence about battery swap, and then decided it was worth it to put all the flak to rest even if they don't recoup the investment).
by the way "Super Swapper", nice C.O.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Yea, that's fine. Just my previous question of why push SCs at all if swapping will be better and Tesla is starting swap stations "soon"? I can't see any reason Tesla wouldn't completely pull the plug on SC if swapping is faster and could be free/cheap.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor It might well obsolete them. It's to early to tell. If it can be offered for free it obviously does on primary corridors. SuperCharging might be relevant on secondary routes. I have no idea.
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Yes, that was the reason why I asked folks to lay odds on whether the "SuperCharger" announcement is going to cancel the program, lol.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Yea, but you've got to have a stack of just as many batteries sitting around waiting for customers as you had SC stations waiting unused. You have to have enough that on the July4th weekend when everyone is driving that there's a battery for every single person that wants one, just like you'd need an SC for every single person that wants one.
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Well, if they announce swappers then I certainly hope they kill the SC. Waste of resources supporting and building out both.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Anyone wanna lay odds that Tesla SuperCharger strategy was both a backup (in case the business case for swapping didn't close) and FUD to jam Better Place out of the market and help Tesla get favorable pricing on a contract with Better Place to build swap stations? Or do we think that Tesla developed stations in house?�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 All year you have to have 3X the SC spots for July 4th, almost all waste. Cost of one Super Swapper same whether it's used one per hour or 20 times. Cost of batteries the same, whether 7% of inventory in use or 70% in use. How is that? Because a battery in the system lives it's life in the system, is paid for 1 mile at a time by customers, whether that's over 1 year because there are X batteries or 10 years because there are 10X batteries. Does that make more sense?�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Yes, I don't see any real reason to have them both on primary travel corridors if you can offer the service for free. Out in the boonies though SuperChargers are a much more economical option.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 C.O. I do think part of wait on swapping was to watch how Better Place played out, and not validate their program somewhat by Tesla doing same. I really doubt they'll license Better Place. SpaceX has way out-engineered Boeing, I suspect same here with BP (though they wouldn't be hard to negotiate with at this point).
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I still see a place for both. Do I want to pay for those miles with Swap battery? Am I stopping to get a meal anyway? Why not SC. That said, it's not clear until they get the thing going and they see how demand says. I've heard Elon say more than once he is agnostic about battery tech of the future, I'd imagine he has the same approach to range solution... whatever proves to work in the real world.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel No, sorry, I totally don't get it.
An SC slot is wasted when it's unused, got it.
Batteries are wasted sitting around unused too. If a swap station has to stock 20 batteries for peak travel days, but only use 10% of that on non-peak days then 18 batteries are, on average, sitting around unused.
Either way, the investment in capital is sitting around unused. What am I misunderstanding?�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms I was gonna say. Does TSLA acquire Better Place?�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Everyone should keep in mind that a larger battery inventory allows for more rate arbitrage, and also marginally lowers the overall unit costs for battery production (though not by much). So needing a relatively large inventory isn't unproductive.
And switch that around to look at the SuperCharger case. If 1 hour charge times is the norm going forward, you have truly huge bottleneck issues when you factor high holiday volumes.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel If Tesla is using the $1500 SC access fee to pay for it, they really can only afford to build one or the other.
I still think if they go the swap route it's going to be a big PR blow. They're going to be admitting their touted solution wasn't the right choice. Which in turn means admitting all the effort they spent on the specialized plug for high amperage wasn't needed, nor is all the super charger hardware, etc. It's going to be hard to spin all that spent effort and money as a positive.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor I remembered the reason you co-locate the SuperChargers with SuperSwappers. Some people need to take their battery with them on long trips, or permanent moves.
Also, there is an associated problem in inventory management for long trips. How can there not be some kind of rental involved? Can someone really hang out at their parents house for a month without causing some kind of disruption? I should probably stop talking because we are getting into areas that I had patentable ideas on, lol.�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms Seems to me SC sites and swap sites could co-exist happily. And some sites might offer both facilities.
I particularly like the idea of SC sites being relegated, ultimately, to largely remote, rural areas, say the 101 corridor north and south of Paso Robles in CA, whereas Tesla builds out three or four swap sites on I-5 between Sacramento and San Diego. Maybe all the service centers become swap sites too?�
May 11, 2013
DTB Hello, I'm still a newbie when it comes to batteries but based on what I read so far in this post I figured I would post my thoughts...worst that can happen people will think : "This guy is crazy and they'll have a good laugh". Either that or Tesla will take the idea and I'll regret not filling a patent before discussing it here. Anyways...
Here it goes. I think that swapping the main battery cannot be done in a matter of minutes. For multiple reasons already mentioned here, that would also be complex to manage. This said, swapping an extra (secondary and optional) battery could be done in a matter of minutes. Think of that extra battery as something about the size of current 12V batteries in cars today. The only difference is that they would be Metal-Air (getting back to that patent Tesla already filed). This wouldn't frustrate those who paid extra for the 85 pack and it would complement longer trips for that 1% of the time when you need it. There would be a cost for that extra battery of course and therefore those who are fine with their 60 or 85 pack could spend years without using that feature (i.e. not going back to the oil dependency paradigm). However for those who can't afford to wait, they can pay the premium, leave the empty one if any (that the SC would refill), take a new one and pop it in in less than a minute i.e. "faster than filling your gas tank"!
This said, this doesn't answer the "charging" piece of riddle since it's just a swap... What I think they have in mind and that I haven't seen posted anywhere is that the extra battery could/would be used to charge the main 85 (or 60) battery while you drive. It's like having an extra regen (almost like an onboard electricity generator) while you drive and even when you're completely stop your mileage would still go up due to that energy transfer. This Metal-Air thing has a limited capacity and an extra cost of course (around between 30-50$ for 500 miles transferred) but keep in mind that this is only when you need that extra range. Might sound like a crazy idea but it's the only thing I can see that makes sense with the riddle. I hope that I'm not stealing Tesla's thunder but this would be quite revolutionary and worthy of being one of the last announcements of the trilogy...�
May 11, 2013
mitch672 The SuperCharger rollout has been exceptionally slow, that's for sure. The issue with the "SuperSwaper" concept is space & ground leases. They've had a hard enough time just procuring parking spots with high power availability nearby, can you imagine now they'd need a dedicated building/area. I'd speculate even if they do introduce battery swap, it's only going to be in limited/extremely high traffic/busy locations, and I'm betting that will be mostly in California only, since I seem to remember they sell nearly half the North American Model S in CA.
BTW, Better Place is in deep financial trouble and nearly bankrupt, the specialized car that was made for their swap stations in Israel by Renault has basically been cancelled by them, as they where contracted to buy 100,000 of them, they've taken less than 3,000 worldwide
Link: Renault Fluence ZE To Be Only Battery-Swap Car; One For The Books?
So sure, Elon can probably get a great deal on the Better Place's IP/technology, even if Tesla has developed their own method, Better Place already has it done, why wouldn't they use whatever elements they can to lower the engineering costs, especially since Better Place is probably inexpensive now.
I'm betting SuperChargers will still be deployed in areas they can't locate real estate or a big enough location, the SC is a "good enough" solution for most people, especially if at a highway rest stop where food/free WiFi is availble (that BTW describes the 2 locations on the East Coast to date)�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 ckessel. Let's say you have a favorite style of New Balance sneakers. You know you'll never like any other type of sneaker ever as much as these. Each given pair of sneakers has 6 months of life to it. You could pay $200 for 2 pairs each year of these NBs or $2,000 for 20 pairs today. If you buy the 20 pairs you pay no attention to which pair you put on each day, but throw away when it's useful life is expired. Whether you've bought 2 pairs once a year, or 20 pairs all at once, in ten years you'll drop $2000. The 6 months of useful life for each pair of sneakers corresponds to the 125,000 miles of useful life on the battery. Yes, you could factor in time value of money, but it's a fraction of the cost and you can pass it over to the customer if you like.�
May 11, 2013
ckessel Sorry man, you've completely lost me. One of your points was the waste of SC stations going unused frequently. I get the analogy, but it seems to completely skip addressing the fact that the swap strategy still leaves lots of capital (be it batteries or sneakers) sitting around unused frequently. If disuse was a knock on SCs it seems like it'd be a knock on swap stations too.�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms To develop the notion of "Buy the Car, Lease the Battery" a little more.
Let's say Tesla does this. Wouldn't it make sense to only offer one capacity battery, if for no other reason, for storage purposes? One pile of batteries, all, say, the 85Kwh form.
Maybe at some point soon all Model S's will ship with a special revised battery pack that's more easily swappable. And all the existing owners can get a free (or fee?) upgrade to have their old battery packs made swappable?
I'm really intrigued with the idea that you might be able to buy the car without a battery, or, just one that's leased. And maybe you could start with a 60, and get an 85 later for a higher lease? Swapping seems to make a lot of these notions be seen in an entirely new light.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor This was already proposed earlier in the thread. As of yesterday Tesla has (quietly) announced battery swapping in their 10Q.�
May 11, 2013
DTB Missed that part... Thanks for pointing that out CapO.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 no worries ckessel. let's just say, as to the extent I think I understand it, the economics of swapping make way more sense to me now than they did a couple of days ago. We wont have to wait long to see what hey announce.
�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor I think his point is that the batteries will eventually wear out through use. There is certainly some degradation that happens purely through age however, so I don't know that we should use that as a model.
If batteries only "wore out" by using them then you could keep the batteries at the SuperSwapper until they had worn out completely. So a 200,000 mile battery would last until 200,000 miles had elapsed, regardless of the number kept in storage. The more batteries in storage, the longer before an individual battery needs replacement.
However, batteries also degrade with age. So there are real losses from just letting them sit. The magnitude of those losses in an optimum environment as maintained by the battery controllers and cooling systems is unknown.
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Do we know that they really have delayed SuperCharger rollout for these reasons? Or were they playing for time until SuperSwapper business case closed?�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 As to effect of battery life over time... this will be minimal if at all. Remember when these swapping batteries are in use they will have a substantial multiple of normal use... most of the time at least the 150 miles to the next station. I think they'd likely be used up in about the same time as an owner's battery. Secondly, I am not a battery expert at all, but second hand I'm pretty sure I've seen both on TMC and from JB or Elon that sitting on the shelf has VERY slow degradation, slow to non-issue point.
Edit: and yes, that was the point of the sneaker analogy.�
May 11, 2013
mitch672 Unknown why the rollout has been so slow, probably not 1 single over riding factor, but more likely a combination of:
Location procurement with availble power, near a major travel route at the "ideal" distance from other SC locations
Capital and Resources to deploy at the location above (they have been more focused on shipping product)
Or maybe they have been going slowly intentionally, if battery swap was always on the roadmap.
Updated: or the evil genius (we call him Elon) was waiting for a deal to be inked with Better Place, maybe they'll work together on it, for a practical use of their technology... There are already more Model S's in the U.S. than Renault Fluence ZE's ever produced�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 could be.�
May 11, 2013
neroden Regarding battery swapping, remember, those of us who have bought our batteries and maintained them carefully might not be happy with permanently swapping them for batteries of unknown states status or provenance. The first swapping station would have to store my battery and not lend it out. It makes battery swapping harder and harder....�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Yes, certainly possible. But there are basic unknowns. I've been seeing a lot of anecdotal chatter from a lot of different sources (not always talking about Tesla) which indicate that a temperature controlled battery like the Model S (especially the 85kWh model) might be the next thing to indestructible. But without actual lab data, its hard to model that without engaging in serious speculation.
I see value in a large battery inventory for surge capacity, and increased revenue from rate arbitrage. Equivalent surge capacity with SuperChargers requires vast parking lots full of chargers, vs underground stacks of 4" thick battery sheets. The incremental cost of the larger battery inventory is relatively small IMHO and the advantages are clear.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 I think they can work with this complexity, but it is part of why I think keeping the original SCs helps... helps them manage the size of the more complex swapping system. Keep it to something only in high use like holidays when they can require a reservation to help manage the kind of issue you've brought up.
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You've reminded me of one place I heard the longevity of the battery described. Again either Elon or JB making the point that ironically the cold is fantastic for battery longevity when discussing something like Broder's trip. I seem to remember they gave a gaudy stat as to how long battery can sit around. This is second hand and off memory, but to me more solid than speculation.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor There is probably a reason that Better Place originally set up in Palo Alto. I am operating on the assumption that Tesla jammed them, either because they didn't want to share the pie, or else because they wanted to extract favorable terms before committing to a swap strategy.
If Tesla is going to license BP Swappers, then a mid 2013 announcement looks smart for many reasons.
1. You don't invest in swapping unless you can assure vehicle sales enough to make the business case close.
2. You don't invest in swapping unless you have the funding available to pay for it.
3. You don't invest in swapping unless you can build swapping stations for cheap.
All of those are reasons to give Better Place the cold shoulder and downplay swapping possibilities until ALL of the stars are in alignment. You certainly don't keep advertising it to customers without all three factors being satisfied.
If Tesla isn't going with Better Place, it just means they can do it themselves for cheaper. But Better Place is groveling in the bargain bin right now. Who knows what kind of deal is available.
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I totally agree with this. Tesla would have to perform some serious legal backflips and also sell customers on a completely unproven concept otherwise. Storing batteries looks to be massively easier IMHO.�
May 11, 2013
mitch672 This post probably belongs in the "investors subforum", but since we are talking about "Better Place", might be worth getting a few shares of their stock, you know, just in case something is announced shortly�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor They are traded on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. I've been trying to run down how to invest for at least an hour. All I can find on English Google is a Israeli story warning people not to invest in them, lol�
May 11, 2013
Jonathan Hewitt It makes sense to save the craziest idea for last.
The "demonstration" is probably actually going to be pretty cool. Anybody live near the Hawthorne location that can see if the hardware needed could be in the area? I think that's where the demonstration is supposed to be, right?�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms Another thing.
If you swap out a battery, there's suddenly no power to the car, right?
So, that's no good. So there would have to be continuous power to the car so it doesn't get "bricked" right? So would you have to plug in a charger into the charger receptacle before beginning a swap? Is the car wired so it (meaning the computers, the dash, the 17-in display, etc) can operate fully on charger-power only while the battery is removed?�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Christ, I do but I'm out of state, lol. This will be in the news soon. Hope they had their ducks in a row since they knew the news would be out with the 10Q. Elon needs to get ahead of this if he wants his announcement to happen before the MSM publishes 5 million stories.
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There must be an adapter that the robot plugs into. It probably needs to activate actuators inside of the battery to seal it prior to disconnecting the sealant lines. I really have no clue as to specifics of the engineering, but these are trivial issues to solve, and would have been designed into the car very early in the process.�
May 11, 2013
PureAmps I'm not a big believer in the whole battery swap idea. Compared to superchargers, the capital costs would be significantly higher, the operating/maintenance costs would be higher, and there are many unknowns that add risk including wear/tear on the batteries, the pack connectors (both electrical and fluid), fasteners, etc. I think it only makes sense with the leased battery pack model where there is a constant stream of revenue to offset those costs. And better Place has not been successful with that model so far.
Elon/Telsa have said a number of things over the years that they ended up bailing on. For example, the Model S (WhiteStar) was originally going to have a range extender option, they've clearly abandoned that. Elon has discussed battery swap for a very long time, and clearly not abandoned the idea. With regards to this being mentioned in the 10-Q, it has been there for a while. From the company's first 10-Q, filed August, 2010:
The formatting/wording has changed from time to time, but the language did not materially change until last quarter's 10-K:
Tesla is clearly still hinting (or misdirecting?) at this strategy. I personally believe they have some unannounced tech built into the packs already, which is why it is "under our nose". It probably required further software development, testing, etc. before they could enable it. What it is, who knows? Elon researched ultra capacitors, JB Straubel has done work with flywheels. They both have done creative research in energy storage systems. Maybe they've invented something new... Maybe, just maybe, this is the same tech that powers the hyperloop...�
May 11, 2013
mitch672 I think their symbol is: BETPLAP but I can't manage to even get any kind of quote/recent price.�
May 11, 2013
aronth5 Where I work our mantra is to make constantly strive to make the complex simpler. To me adding battery swapping does the opposite adding lots of complexity to Tesla's service model. Now you have to add a service component to maintain and service the robots when they break. And they will break. That adds cost and additional staff. Why?
One reason why Tesla has been so successful is the simplicity of the buying experience and of course everything about the car. Adding all the overhead to coordinate battery pack replacements across the country and around the globe just seems to contradict their current business approach. Give me a battery with close to 400 mile range and with one supercharging session I can easily drive 500 miles in day. Bottom line is why complicate the existing business model?
Like most other announcements by Elon this is over-hyped.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor I've been watching their SEC filings now for the past year. The change is that previous comments were always a qualified statement that Tesla "might" pursue battery swap at some point.
Yesterday's filing was clear that they WILL announce battery swap in the near future. It's a done deal.�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms "Why complicate the existing business model?" If for no other reason, to give the wider public One More Reason to Buy. One more reason to at least think about going electric.
But you make valid points, and raise valid concerns. I agree, simple is the way to go. So perhaps Tesla tasked a bunch of engineers to figure out a solution that uses as few moving parts, as few complications, as few potentials for breakdowns, and see if the impossible could be achieved? Or, to come up with a solution that may not be perfect, but is so compelling while staying within economic boundaries that it's time to green-light the project and get it out into the world, damn the torpedoes? We'll find out soon enough.�
May 11, 2013
andrewket The car's control systems are all 12V, and there is a 12V battery on-board. The you should be able to disconnect the main battery without the control systems losing power for many hours.�
May 11, 2013
voidptr Bricking doesn't happen because the computers power down, it happens because lithium ion cells break down when the charge goes below a certain level and won't take a new charge.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 This all just keeps making more sense, and I think it is complementary to SCs. The Swappers could be at the 100 or so locations they feel are needed to cover NA with 120-150 mile spacing. Keep Superchargers there as free offering and back up.
If they really want to go big, they could spend another $30 million to double the amount of SC locations (or perhaps spend more for an even higher multiple). If SCs were 70 miles or even 50 miles apart, it would balance demand on the system, allow more flexibility in choosing your route, and make it extremely unlikely to be caught in a range pickle without intentionally doing so.
We may get more clues about the plan this Friday (I believe that's the planned day to announce re Supercharger).
fwiw on a point of earlier discussion... with swapping, I think the batteries within the system would run up a life's worth of miles (say 125K) in about 3 years, much quicker than I thought before).�
May 11, 2013
Jonathan Hewitt I bet Elon is reading this thread and thinking "Superswapper! That's catchy!"�
May 11, 2013
aronth5 The 3 most things Tesla can do to promote sales are 1) better batteries, 2) more supercharging stations and 3) Gen3. Focus on those and everything else follows. And of course continue to improve the Model S and start delivering the Model X late next years are a given.�
May 11, 2013
PureAmps Yes, I've been reading them for a while as well. But, that was a good catch, I did miss the *will* part in your quote from the latest filing (which I haven't read yet).
I still remain skeptical of the whole battery swapping concept. They must be partnering with somebody who has a lot of locations (and car lifts) to do this. I just don't see them rapidly rolling out a bunch of automated battery swap centers nationwide any time soon.�
May 11, 2013
SteveG3 I think your tempered approach is on point. As someone wrote on another thread, they may be announcing that they are rolling out a test program in CA. As other poster noted, it's where half the cars are, and it's close to all the engineers at the beehive to make sure the whole thing doesn't run amok.
edit: plus with a test program, they'll probably get a lot of feedback that tells them if it's something the public wants from discussions like this (not to mention the feedback from CA test case).�
May 11, 2013
brianstorms As a reminder, there's this 2011 mention of Elon discussing battery swaps and the Model S:
New details emerge on battery swap plans for Tesla Model S
�
May 11, 2013
yobigd20 Might I remind you all about last June's annual shareholder meeting Q&A session:
Musk: "the Model S was intentionally architected to support fast battery swapping, in under one minute". He also said "I think we will show you something interesting in that regard."
Gee, we have a demonstration upcoming in a week or two, right? I wonder what that could all be about ..... putting 2 + 2 together here...I will be absolutely SHOCKED if it is not battery swapping.�
May 11, 2013
bollar The combination makes sense to me, as least as an interim technology while we wait for longer range batteries. There are some long legs in the center of the country where stopping for a 30+ minute charge just isn't ideal, especially if you're trying to cover very long ground and will be making these stops every 150 miles.
In the Texas forum, there has been a lot of discussion about possible locations for Superchargers -- Like between Dallas & Houston, a commute I know well. Though I'm willing to stop for 30 minutes for a top off, it's not ideal -- there's no destination worth stopping at [and the Buckees in Madisonville doesn't count] for that period of time.
Or, for long road trips, like along the I 40 corridor in NM, AZ & TX, maybe you'd want to have Superchargers near Amarillo, Albuquerque and Flagstaf and battery swap in between those cities (Santa Rosa, Winslow & Kingman). That will force a longer stop every other stop and that seems to very complementary to the concept of a grand touring car.
Having Superchargers in big cities is also a nice benefit to the local Teslas.�
May 11, 2013
jerry33 No way would I ever trust Toyota with my Model S. They can't even change the oil correctly in a Prius unless you bring them a pre-measured amount of the correct oil. But it might make a good plot for a horror movie.�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor They are planning on $200m in CapEx for 2013. That seemed like a big number.
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At least big in relation to things we expect them to do. Makes perfect sense if there is a large SuperSwapper component.�
May 11, 2013
mitch672 I just want to credit CO with the term "SuperSwapper", lets see if that's what Elon calls them, you might be due a nice "thanks" from Elon�
May 11, 2013
Nixx Do we know how much of the model s manufacturing line will be used for the model x? Do they have to ramp up a pile of machinery to get the model x going? I assume if they started buying that equipment now (or 2013 that is), it could be setup this year and testing / beta models could be produced next year before they start delivering in 2014q4?�
May 11, 2013
CapitalistOppressor I'd be happy to take a P85+ in exchange for the trademark on it :biggrin:�
May 11, 2013
ModelS8794 Better Place is still a private firm. There is an Israeli holding company that is publicly traded and has made a significant investment in Better Place, but that investment is a tiny portion of the holding company's value, so investing in it wouldn't get you much in the way of exposure to BP.�
May 11, 2013
Jonathan Hewitt I don't think they will go for that. :O FYI, the T-shirts and Hats are pretty cool, too.�
May 11, 2013
deonb How do you consolidate this with:
"throughout the country"
"worldwide"
"under your nose"�
May 11, 2013
Royal TS(LA) I'm not convinced about the battery pack being tied to your personal car. You buy the car to drive electrically, not to have a specific battery pack. The packs are just necessary baggage to keep the thing moving. If there was a way to quickly exchange a vehicle's gasoline tank with a preloaded one in 5 secs, would you reject it just because it's not your old tank? Quality management of those things is something Tesla must be concerned about, not the customer. Looking at images of the car's underside, swapping must have been designed in from the start. It's the only logical explanation, alongside certain more or less official statements about swapping capabilities.
I don't get why the super chargers would get redundant with swapping? You still need the power electronics to do a regular super charge anyways. I think that when the SC hardware is not used by clients, it simply charges the handful of packs stored underground and keeps them in an optimal state. And remember, the packs would be almost fully charged. A regular super charge takes half an hour and only brings like half the battery capacitance back. Maybe the underground charging could even be faster by means of cooling the packs while charging. Maybe they can even go up to 200 kW without damaging or overheating them with cooling, which is not possible when attached to a Model S.
If a client needs a preloaded battery pack, the touch control could display where and how many preloaded packs are available. Maybe there could even be a simple reservation system that can be used on the road.�
May 12, 2013
DonPedro Let's remember that at this time, an investment of, say, $100-200 million is not enormous for Tesla. Around 2% of market cap, less than 10% of annual sales. They could easily pay for it tomorrow by issuing 2M shares (there may be a link here).
I think PR-wise, it will be important to launch this in a way that makes everyone see it as "pure upside", so that nobody who is already a believer today starts doubting. Also, as people have pointed out, peak demand for swapping could be a bitch. If the swapping is launched as an extra, they might get away with not promising that it will always be available. A reservation system could solve that, by the way: If you reserve in advance, you are 100% certain of getting a swap. If you do a drop-in you will get a swap, except at some very rare peak times. If that happens to you, you have the SC as a backup.�
May 12, 2013
Ben W There's been quite a bit of speculation about swapping the 1000-pound battery pack, and also speculation about sticking a 50-pound aluminum-air battery in the frunk for non-rechargeable extended range.
What if the two ideas were combined? Suppose the entire 1000-pound battery pack were replaced with an equivalent aluminum-air battery, or a combination lithium-ion / aluminum-air / distilled-water, designed specifically for long-distance road trips (e.g. lower peak power, high energy density)? Might it be possible to swap a self-contained 1000-mile NON-rechargeable battery pack into the existing modular battery space, just for a road trip? This I'd like to see.�
May 12, 2013
Mayhemm This reminded me of something. People taking advantage of the hypothetical battery swap service would be road-tripping, yes? So would the battery they receive be range/max charged to enable them to continue on their trip with the maximum range? Or would they have to swap packs and then plug in somewhere in order to maximize range?�
May 12, 2013
Royal TS(LA) Although a 1000-mile pack sounds nice, it would add a lot of complexity, and thus cost, to the system. You'd need a facility for refurbishing the used up metal-air battery. I think that the more uniformly the whole system can be handled, the better for everyone.
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A freshly swapped battery pack should be fully charged and ready for immediate use to give the customer maximum convenience and reach. The half-hour charge is only an example for a typical stay to eat and refresh. Half charge would perhaps force additional stops taking half an hour, while full charge means half the stops in theory. So, if you want to shave off a couple hours on a long-distance trip, swapping is the way to go IMHO.�
May 12, 2013
Johann Koeber The battery swapping would allow Tesla to market a Gen III car without a battery, as does Renault. Renault sells you a car, but you must lease the battery.�
May 12, 2013
Royal TS(LA) That would be the most cost efficient solution for the customer. Like, the car costs $20k plus battery lease for $1500 a year.�
May 12, 2013
CapitalistOppressor Everyone needs to keep in mind the $200m in CapEx that Tesla announced in the conference call on Wednesday. That a a fairly huge sum of money for a company that to all appearances has relatively modest capital needs, while having a pressing desire to stay profitable.
In the mid 80's Tom Clancy published "Red Storm Rising" which was, by far, my favorite book while growing up. A major factor in that book was the "maskirovka" that the Russians implemented to fool NATO. Later, when I was taking all of my Security Studies classes for my IR degree, I learned that a "maskirovka" was a real thing, and that basically it amounts to having a plausible cover story to explain your visible actions, so as to conceal your true intent.
My current thesis is that the widely discussed expansion of "service centers" which was supposed to explain the $200m in CapEx, is actually the Tesla maskirovka to conceal their SuperSwapper scheme until they are ready to announce. If you think about it, its not even lying. Tesla probably does have problems with service that they will need to invest in to fix.
But a SuperSwapper might well be considered a type of "service center". And you can even interpret previous halfhearted reports that they might let Model S drivers swap batteries at "service centers" as just a part of the maskirovka that has been being implemented for a year now.
Reality check: This thesis is based on conjecture whose foundation is pure speculation. Tesla might announce a minimal "swapping" system like they described a few months ago, where cars with smaller batteries could go to a service center and swap in an 85kWh battery on a rental like basis. That made some sense when 40kWh cars were still a thing. Except of course, that program was cancelled, and all cars are SuperCharger capable. And its completely inconsistent with Elon's tweet.
Reality check 2: Battery swap is not planned and will not happen. Seems to be clearly contradicted by the 10k filed yesterday.
My momma taught me to go big or go home. I filed a report on Seeking Alpha on this, so if they decide to publish it I am going to look like an utter fool if Tesla announces something completely off the wall.
But on the bright side, I am going to go visit my mom tomorrow. So I'm covered either way.�
May 12, 2013
Yggdrasill That's what I suggested here. Assuming a little over 1 kWh/kg, the Model S battery pack could be replaced by an aluminium-air battery pack with around 400 kWh, which should be enough to propel a Model S for more than 1000 miles.
This is a business model I can support. Regular battery swapping won't be as fast as filling gas, no matter what Musk says, but swapping 1000 mile batteries can be as fast. That means that driving San Francisco - New York, one would have to stop three times for 10 minutes or so. The entire US could probably be served by 10 battery swapping stations. (While to cover the US with sufficient battery swapping stations using regular batteries, you'd need hundreds of battery swap stations.)
The biggest downsides with aluminium-air is that they aren't rechargeable, and the energy cost is more than twice as high. This matters very little when you ditch the battery at a specialized battery swap station, where they can put in new aluminium, and you'd only use the batteries for the occasional long-distance trip, so the cost is largely irrelevant.
Edit: I occurs to me that you would probably want to keep a small portion of the regular li-ion cells, maybe 10-20 kWh, lest the customer having rented an al-air battery would become stranded far away from a battery swap station with no way to recharge.�
May 12, 2013
yobigd20 The way Elon keeps telling us not to worry about the battery packs and that it's 100% guaranteed by him really makes me think that this battery swapping idea is legit. Any issues just "swing by and we'll swap it out" sort of thing. I mean they haven't followed any other typical car tradition other than having 4 wheels so why start now? It's this "thinking out of the box" paradigm that led them to be successful in the first place.
Battery swapping would not only solve "fast charging", it would also solve any "degradation" doubts that people have (this assuming that you don't need to come back to get your own battery back, that the swapped battery is just as good as it was when the car was bought). It doesn't really make sense to mass produce millions of cars (e.g. Gen III) with a technology (Li-ion) knowing that they just might degrade too low simultaneously in 15 years or so. If battery swaps were free, hell - if battery swaps were even under some sort of "yearly lease", all of the sudden both problems are solved. Every time someone doubts something that Elon says he can do, it drives him more to prove them wrong. While a visionary, he is also practical. I really think this battery swapping idea is what the demo is going to be. It certainly makes sense business-wise to do this (increasing 4 to 7 ZEV credits). I mean if someone said to your business "hey, if you prove you can do this easy thing that you said you already designed the car to be able to do in the first place, then you'll get millions of dollars for free" uh well doh, hello, why not?�
May 12, 2013
Kaivball Still very expensive.
SC's do not require a human presence.
Swapping a battery requires at least on full time person 24/7 available that confirms that all fittings are done, screws are tightened, etc.
Quickly moving 1000 pounds and the storing it in racks is not trivial.
Especially if logistics are needed to return the original battery to an owner.
I very much doubt they are ready and/or have a practical solution.
Just think of the math:
How many batteries of $15k each?
What happens when all batteries are taken?
This is too expensive of a solution for such a small fraction of vehicles that will need it. Removing and reinstalling a structural chassis element is not done in haste and without supervision and confirmation.
I don't think it's practical or needed.�
May 12, 2013
Johan One aspect of this whole swapping thing is that if EVs prove to be much lower maintenance as is believed, and the drive-train has outstandig longevity, then you might have a very nice car with a crappy battery after 10 years. So instead of owning a battery it's better to have a lease. This way, not only is the degradation issue solved (for the customer) but also in 10 years you might have a 120kWh or 150kWh pack as a standard. My thoughts are that as battery techonology progresses the first thing we will see is them still filling the whole pack with better and better cells until you reach a certain level (for example 150kWh). After that level has been reached there really is no point in keep improving the total energy of the pack further, even as techonology progresses, but instead you would start cutting down on weight in the pack while keeping the form factor. Over time this could mean that you are only filling half of the pack with cells, cutting down on weight and perhaps also on cost eventually, something Tesla might be able to let the customer get the benefit from (lower lease costs).
I could also see a model where you either have unlimited swapping or another subscription with a lower montly lease where you pay-per-swap but still get to swap once in a while for free when new battery technology/chemistry is being rolled out. (it would be in Tesla's interest that people swapped when the batteries are upgraded, as the "old" ones would have considerable residual value for other uses, and also to make the "new" batteries they would probably take the old ones and re-use many parts of the pack while changing out some - especially the cells themselves). Also, if supercapacitors become practical in the future I guess you could keep the form factor and create a hybrid battery within the current pack.
One problem for them right now would be that they have sold the 60kWh and 85kWh cars and they would either have to carry two different types of batteries in the swapping stations. Alternatively, if they go forward with just one battery pack for swapping, they would somehow have to differentiate between the 60 and 85 owners so that either the 85 buyers are compensated somehow (lower lease fee, free leasing for 8 years) or the opposite - 60 owners "punished" with higher lease, only 4 years of free leasing etc.
Even with swapping the majority of charging would take place at home, overnight. However, swapping would enable those who are unable to charge at home to own and drive an EV (think Tokyo, Hong-Kong, Manhattan etc.).�
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