Jun 24, 2012
NigelM Mods: I couldn't come up with a better sub-forum for this, please move if you think it belongs elsewhere.
Theory is clear - Model S battery packs can be exchanged, and under the right circumstances it could be done relatively quickly.
However, I've consided the current reality with some friends and the practical difficulties make it seem unlikely to happen in the near future:
* Battery exchange on the Model S is only quick if there is the proper jig available. I believe there are 26 bolts (exact number?) to be removed and re-inserted, as well as the coolant hoses which need to be clamped, disconnected, reconnected and then do an air bleed.
* The above would require not only a car lift but also the correct hydraulic platform for lowering the battery and replacing it with the new one. Could be quite an investment in hardware, the costs for which need to be amortized, for something that doesn't happen frequently. Arguably Tesla service centers will have this anyway but there's not many of those as yet.
* Who carries the capital investment involved in the spare battery packs? It's probably fair to say this is the single most expensive component of the car - $20k cost? 30k, 40k? - What about insurance? Who is responsible?
* Combine the first 3 points above and we are probably looking at costs much higher than a rental car and maybe an hour to swap out the battery at each end of the trip. Questionable if anyone would really want to pay?
* I'm buying my Model S and I intend to look after it and charge appropriately, limited range mode charging etc. Now, I'm going on a long trip and want to swap batteries along the way. Well it's probably faster to just use a supercharger. But if I do swap batteries how do I know that the one I'm getting has been treated as carefully as the one I'm giving up - how old would it be? Etc.
* If I'm leasing the car, do I have a different point of view? Maybe, but I might still be concerned that I'm giving up a new battery for one that has degraded substantially?
* Supercharges make the whole idea of battery swaps redundant don't they?
Theory was fine, but I don't think battery swapping/rental is going to happen.
Discuss?�
Jun 24, 2012
ElSupreme I think battery swapping only makes sense in a few circumstances.
The first is fleet vehicles, where the fleet owner buys extra battery packs and a changing jig. Think Taxis. But then supercharging may be more appropriate. Unless you would see accelerated wear on batteries super charging them all the time.
The second is for small battery owners wanting to road trip. You could got to a Tesla service center, have them swap the pack you rent (sure costs would be similar to renting a whole car) and drive 300 miles. Questions come up here about supercharger equipment and not being able to supercharge your rented 300 mile pack. But this also allows Tesla to build 700 mile packs (whenever that becomes feasible) and rent them to people. This might help offset some battery pack development costs in the future.
But in reality I think Tesla is being smart. They have designed the car to quickly swap packs, even though the need isn't really there. But if the need arises they wont have to get a bad solution, or no solution at all.�
Jun 24, 2012
dsm363 I agree with ElSupreme. I can see people one day going to local Tesla service center to rent a big pack. Tesla would store your specific pack to return to you when you were done with rental pack. For most travel though the Superchargers would take over.�
Jun 24, 2012
jerry33 A simple changing jig doesn't have to be particularly expensive. A few pieces of tubing welded together, accurately, and a jack to raise and lower the battery. You would also need a car lift. Of course, you could spend more and make it fancy with power jacks and 46 motorized socket drivers, which would cost a lot more.
I agree with ElSupreme that there are only a few instances where swapping would make sense, and I'll add one: Jurisdictions where installing superchargers would be very costly or prohibited by some odd regulation.�
Jun 24, 2012
BYT_P1837 I can see battery swapping getting more popular down the road as the chemistry get's better, they get denser and our current packs start degrading!
Edit Note: Can I also say that I love posting here because I can edit!
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Jun 24, 2012
doug Tesla talked about this feature back in 2009, but they have stepped back from it, or at least have been quiet about it lately. Perhaps for marketing reasons.�
Jun 24, 2012
SCW-Greg I don't think it needs to be as complicated as you make it out to be Nigel. I could see the coolant system as completely self-contained with many of the management systems on pack... where only a data connection in addition to power are the only connections needed.
How the coolant releases it's heat I'm not exactly sure, but if you look at today's refrigerators, they don't outwardly show any radiator like the old ones. They're very modular/self contained in design. Perhaps Tesla is doing something similar? If they have that solved, then a 5 minute change becomes possible.
And I agree with Jerry, the battery lift doesn't necessarily need to be expensive, or overly complex.
The pack costs are definitely an issue, but if you're swapping, that means a driver is coming in with one of his/her own, so inventory maybe more of a managed inventory "fleet" thing. I wouldn't doubt that Elon and team have the funding allocated for this in their plan.
My 2cents.�
Jun 24, 2012
doug umm.. you don't need to speculate about stuff that is known.
There are coolant lines, data lines, and power lines all with quick connect fittings at the top of the battery pack. There are three heat exchangers at the front of the car.�
Jun 24, 2012
SCW-Greg Also...
I read a year or two back about some testing going on in Japan with drive through stations - think Jiffy Lube - where they were testing some cars with swappable battery packs to alleviate the charge time issue. I don't know how the results of that went, but I like the "drive through" concept.
Further, if *many* people swap their packs on a regular basis (means there are a lot of cars on the road with a lot of people opting for this charge option), then the issue of "bad" packs in the field would likely go down, as bad drivers (pack abusers) have less time to influence a single pack. So packs in general will find their own life/range average. So this might be something that rolls out in two or more likely three years, vs next year. Also works well with Tesla profitably models too.
Back to that Jiffy Lube idea... Do you think Tesla might create/allow battery pack service/swap center franchises?�
Jun 24, 2012
SCW-Greg On the S... Did not know. Thank you Doug.�
Jun 24, 2012
jerry33 Although this video is old, it clearly shows the heat exchangers.�
Jun 24, 2012
SCW-Greg Great vid. Interesting, so while you might be able to swap a battery in under a minute (with pit crew efficiency), Nigel's original assessment of bleeding lines etc, might not be that far off base then.
It's all stuff to be ironed out in the coming years for sure.�
Jun 24, 2012
jerry33 My understanding is that there are quick connects (probably similar to those in a pneumatic hose) so bleeding the coolant lines shouldn't be required.�
Jun 24, 2012
TEG I got this from talking to Tesla:
- Model S remains designed to accept pack swaps if they ever need it to. (Useful for service at a minimum.)
- Original target was trying to get 1 minute swap capabilty, but it is more like "under 5 minutes" now.
- They currently don't have a business case to offer customer pack swap stations, but could change if it starts to make sense someday.
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Jun 24, 2012
jerry33 Compared to every other car-with-a-battery that I've heard about, under five minutes is wonderful. It means, at a minimum, that the cost of replacing the battery will really be just the battery cost.�
Jun 24, 2012
dsm363 Replacing the battery in the Roadster requires hours of labor I believe so at a minimum, the design is smart for that reason as TEG said. It truly is a wonderful and well thought out design.�
Jun 25, 2012
Mark Petersen well the swap time from 1m to 5m is probably because Project Better Place have changed there statement
and battery swap only really make sense if you lease the battery
witch is where Better Place come in, as there hole business model is bild up around battery leasing
and they have said that they have designed there systen to support different battery types, s� maybe they are working together�
Jun 25, 2012
CapitalistOppressor I wrote an extensive takedown comment on an article that slammed Tesla's service strategy (ie mobile technicians vs service centers) as hazy, overly expensive and not well thought out (those were the reporter comments in the story). I think I did an effective smack down on all of those points (and other negative comments in the article), but the basic logic I used to refute him is the same here. There is no economic case for major centralized support infrastructure of any kind (such as service centers, or battery swap stations) for an an automotive fleet that does not yet exist.
In any given geographical unit there needs to be a sufficient density of existing cars to support any proposed infrastructure, or the costs involved in setting up and operating that infrastructure will be a financial drain on the company. Tesla is predicting 25k cars on the road, worldwide, by the end of next year. If all of those cars were located in Los Angeles it might make sense to have a service center with some kind of rump battery rental system. Unfortunately, they are going to be scattered all over the world, in unpredictable locations and density.
Considering the lead time to identify, obtain and prepare locations for anything like battery swap, along with the need to have proper customer density to make it economical, I can easily see a potential battery swap network slipping into the next decade. And based on likely improvements in range and charge time, in conjuction with the expansion of the inexpensive turbocharging locations, I would guess that the need for battery swap will be eliminated long before we ever see a network built.�
Jun 25, 2012
GSP Are the type or suppiler of quick connect fittings known? I would be concerned about insuring a good low resistance connection on the high current connections for repeated connect/disconnect cycles.
I also would fret over crossthreaded bolts, coolant leaks, air in coolant, and price for this service. The cost to providers will be high do to capital for spare battery packs, and limited customer base will limit revenue.
I think supercharging is the way to go, and there is no real need for full charges in < 1 hr. There may be a perceived "need" however, but as more people realize what is possible with 300 mi range and 300 mph charging, the public will forget about "needing" 3000 mph charging like ICE cars (and the Volt) offer.
GSP�
Jun 25, 2012
wycolo More likely the inverse, with old geezer holding onto original batt in 2022: "my Ideal Range is down to 45 miles, but the foodstore is only 20 miles away, you do the arithmatic, sonny!"
--�
Jun 25, 2012
richkae To examine the fleet scenario in particular:
If you have multiple locations that you need to stock with batteries, how many do you keep at each?
If you have several empty batteries dropped off in a very short period you have centralized your charging bottleneck - now you need a big power source or the batteries will wait in a long queue to charge.
The battery in the 85kWh Model S is about 50% of the cost. I think this works against battery swapping instead of arguing for it because that means for every 2 spare batteries you have sitting around you could instead have another car.
An additional car in the fleet can be more easily sent to where it is needed and can go to where a charger is free.
The ideal situation for battery swapping would be two locations - separated by a distance of one charge - and cars that constantly cycle between the two locations.
I think if you have a fleet of cars, battery swapping is very likely to be the least cost effective approach - unless the situation was very close to that ideal.�
Jun 25, 2012
daniel I've been saying this for a long time. Most charging will be done at home, where it will be much cheaper. Public charging or battery swapping will only happen when people make long trips. And some will choose fast charging rather than swapping, reducing the demand for swapping further. Big investment for a small amount of business.
The owner of the swap station carries the capital cost of both the swap station and the battery inventory, and passes that cost along to the customer. And the cost for batteries will be huge, because they need to have adequate inventory to assure that they can service every car that comes in. And since different cars have different battery types, they need to have an excess inventory of every type.
This is another issue I've talked about for a long time. I don't want to replace my brand-new battery with someone else's old, abused battery. And since most people will charge at home most of the time, there will, indeed, be much-abused batteries in the system. In fact, the availability of swap stations will encourage people to abuse their batteries, because all they have to do is go to a swap station to get a different one.
Agreed. Though it's great that the Model S battery is easily swappable, for service or eventual replacement or upgrades, if available.
This creates a whole new problem: If you lease your battery, and the leasing/swapping company goes bankrupt, the creditors can take back the batteries. Now you have a car with no battery. And if the battery is proprietary, patent protection may prevent you from being able to buy a replacement. Your car will be worthless. The only way around that is to lease the whole car.�
Jun 25, 2012
Robert.Boston Such regulations are common, but how strictly they will be interpreted is another matter: if you buy power for resale, you are an electric distribution company (=utility) in many states. So far, though, regulators in every state with such restrictions have waived the rule for EVSEs.
Further, we know that there is at least one charger in every state, thanks to Nissan.
So, I think I'll agree with everyone here: battery swapping doesn't make a lot of sense commercially. Which is too bad, really, because the batteries would be much more useful to support the power grid if they were all conveniently located in centers that could be connected to the transmission system.�
Jun 25, 2012
Zextraterrestrial I have some plans for a fleet with potential for battery swapping and I hope to be able to get 10-20 spare batteries. Of course after they sell the curent res line and I get some things together :wink:�
Jun 26, 2012
WhiteKnight The nice thing for Tesla is they're hedging their bets. If Better Place takes off and is very successful then Tesla can be their immediate luxury tier supplier. Tesla can sell them the cars and the packs and Better Place can worry about the rest.�
Jun 26, 2012
KBF One place that would benefit from quick swaps is the racetrack. I know that for dirtbike racing, Zero motorcycles have made their battery packs easily accessible for those long days at the track for their racing models (but in my DS the battery pack is more hidden). But I think you'd need some wealthy sponsors to provide multiple Tesla packs!�
Jun 27, 2012
daniel As a postscript to my last post, I think that fleets are the one place where battery swapping might (maybe, not necessarily) be feasible, since a corporation with a fleet (or multiple fleets) could schedule swapping and charging, and manage battery inventory based on knowing in advance the precise usage, route, location, and charging needs of each car, thus maximizing both spare battery inventory and swap-station usage, as well as battery time on the chargers and electric supply service to the swap/charge station.
A public swap station will lose business if the customers cannot count on availability of a pack when and where they need one on very short notice, and the customers will worry about the condition of the pack they receive. But an in-company fleet system manages all packs and keeps possession of them, and can schedule swaps to coincide with availability.�
Nov 26, 2012
mulder1231 Battery swap option coming for Model S?
From today's article in Forbes:
How Two Billionaires Are Supercharging The Electric Car To Upend Big Oil - Forbes�
Nov 26, 2012
JohnQ While Tesla may have used the word "swappable" in the past in relation to their battery packs, I think "replaceable" is a better one. It's nice to know I likely can upgrade my pack in the future.�
Nov 26, 2012
mulder1231 The bigger news in the article that has me scratching my head is this:
Battery swap option coming for Model S?�
Nov 26, 2012
Babylonfive This sounds like rumors dredged from forums or very old newspaper/blog stories.�
Nov 26, 2012
mulder1231 From Forbes, you'd expect a little better than rehashing rumors.�
Nov 26, 2012
Babylonfive Yea, agreed. Didn't meant to say it was, only that it sounds like it. Interesting, if it's true...�
Nov 26, 2012
mulder1231 Pure speculation, but a battery switch option at service locations may be offered by Tesla to those customers who have 40kWh packs but need to make the occasional road trip. Similar idea to Nissan dealers offering a limited number of free rentals to Leaf owners for longer road trips.�
Nov 27, 2012
Adm Maybe not. A Dutch political/business delegation visited the Tesla Factory for a factory visit and I am pretty sure I read they were demonstrated a quick swap. So maybe there is something to that story.�
Nov 27, 2012
dhrivnak Yes the model S battery is designed to be swapped in just a few minutes. I think Tesla was hedging their bets during design and decided on the supercharger route.�
Nov 27, 2012
JRP3 I think it's a few more minutes than some might think. You've got cooling lines that need to connect and disconnect without introducing air bubbles in the system, and 20-40(?) bolts, plus connections. I've heard everything from 10 minutes to 40 minutes.�
Nov 27, 2012
mulder1231 That's why I'm thinking battery switch option at service locations could be offered by Tesla to 40kWh owners who make the occasional long road trip. I'd be willing to wait more than a few minutes, for example, to visit friends in Southern California over the holidays. I'd even be willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars for that, if I could avoid having to fork out an extra $20K for the 85kWh pack, just for one or two road trips a year.
Too late now, because I'm already getting the 60kWh pack with Super Charging support.�
Nov 27, 2012
brianman For the record, at some point they touted doing it in 1 minute:
Tesla Motors - Model S
Click on the "Range" button. Observe the 4th bullet.�
Nov 27, 2012
JRP3 I recently read somewhere, can't find it now, that a Tesla rep said that would not be possible because of the different parameters of the different packs, i.e. you can't just drop a 40kWh pack and stick in an 85kWh pack.
Yeah I never believed that would happen.�
Nov 27, 2012
mknox That's true here in Ontario, Canada as well. A few years ago, third-parties wanted to start individually metering and billing apartments in what had been bulk metered buildings. These entities had to be licenced by the regulator (Ontario Energy Board) to do this.
Policies and regulations just need to catch up with charging scenarios. I've seen for-pay cell phone chargers at the airport, and I doubt those kiosks are licenced electricity distributors :smile:�
Jan 17, 2013
Greg An Idea That May Get Rid of Range Anxiety
One of the big drawbacks of having an electric car is the range before it needs to be recharged. Even though the Model S can go 300 miles (265 per the EPA) before needing a recharge people still have hesitation because a recharge takes time. They are thinking of the big road trip they take anywhere from once every other year to perhaps a few times a year. I realize this is not a very rational fear to have since 99% of their daily driving could easily be handled by the 40 or 60 KWH battery, but it is still there. Has Tesla ever thought of having an extra battery pack that you can rent to increase your battery range. The idea is that this extra battery pack could be secured under the car out of sight or perhaps in the trunk and/or frunk. When you are ready to take that trip you go to your friendly Tesla service center to pick up your battery pack that you previously reserved, they install it in 10-30 minutes and off you go. When you are done with the trip you go back to the service center to for it's removal.
Does anyone know if something like this is even technically possible? Two challenges I can think of are: 1) can the battery pack and computer system can handle extra batteries being added then removed from the car and 2) weight distribution issues that would affect handling.
This is just an idea I thought about the other day!�
Jan 17, 2013
TEG I have heard ideas like that proposed before. I am sure that Tesla has at least considered something like that, but seem to have chosen the "Supercharger" network as the solution.
People talked about buying a 160 mile range model, and then renting a 300 mile range pack when they want to go on a longer drive. I don't think Tesla plans to offer that.
There is also the whole "pack swap" idea where you drive to a depot and quickly trade your depleted pack for a full one. Tesla doesn't seem to be offering that service either even though they mentioned that some parts of the car were designed with something like that in mind.�
Jan 18, 2013
Adm There is one humongous reason why Tesla didn�t do this: It�s a HORRIBLE business idea. Imagine how many people who now get a 85kWh battery would choose to take a smaller battery resulting in less revenue. Renting out batteries for an occasional road trip will not make up for that.�
Jan 18, 2013
mknox I had once thought that a small ICE-powered genset trailer for road trips would be a good idea. Then I realized that I may take one or two long road trips a year, and the cost and storage hassle (not to mention ICE maintenance) of this would be far more than just flying and renting a car or taking another ICE-powered car on those occasions.�
Jan 18, 2013
RDoc According to Tesla it won't be possible to replace the car's battery with a different sized one, so that would preclude renting a larger battery for a trip.�
Jan 18, 2013
ElSupreme They never said it isn't possible. Just they wont do it. Big difference.�
Jan 18, 2013
Doug_G I don't have an ICE car in my garage. If I need an ICE car for a particular road trip then I can rent one. Given that this might happen once a year it will be far more economical to just rent it.�
Jan 18, 2013
JRP3 You cant add a large enough secondary battery pack to the car to make a reasonable difference without adding significant weight, and frankly there is no place to put it. An add on pack that would be towed on a trailer would be more practical, or a genset trailer. Or just take a different vehicle.�
Jan 18, 2013
Todd Burch Or instead of driving to a Tesla service center and waiting 10-30 minutes for the install, just use a Supercharger.�
Feb 3, 2013
DavidWexler In an interview I once heard Elon say that the S battery can be swapped out in one minute. Tesla's version of Better Place may be coming some day. I won't be surprised.�
Feb 4, 2013
yobigd20
This wouldn't surprise me. It's probably slightly exaggerated. It might take one minute to swap out the packs after thes dissassembled. Probably more likely an hour to get to it, swap it out, then put it back together. The funny thing is that I know they said you can't upgrade from 40 to 60 etc, but their facts page still hints otherwise. 'While technically possible to upgrade to a larger battery, we recommend configuring your Model S with the battery that meets both your present and future needs.' http://www.teslamotors.com/models/facts�
Feb 4, 2013
JRP3 Better Place is turning out to be big failure, and with Tesla's investment in Superchargers, I wouldn't expect to see Tesla battery swapping. I'm also fairly sure it will take much more than one minute to swap a Model S pack.�
Feb 4, 2013
mknox I would think so as well. It's not like changing out the batteries in your TV remote... there are liquid cooling connections as well as electrical to consider.�
Feb 4, 2013
jerry33 That was quite a while ago. More recent interviews say under five minutes [ed. under ideal conditions]. My thought is that battery swapping is a very poor business plan due to the inventory and labour costs. It might work for local fleet use (e.g. taxis) where a company has their own facility to do the swap.�
Feb 6, 2013
brianman Worth a listen.
Stanford Seminar - Dave Duff, Tesla Motors
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Mar 7, 2013
Blurry_Eyed Tesla released their Annual 10-K report - (If anyone wants to read it, you can get it here: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/1748600199x6426338xS1193125-13-96241/1318605/1193125-13-96241.pdf).
This little tidbit about battery swapping was under the section about factors that might influence the adoption of electric vehicles. So the context is about different things that might help or impede the public perception of wanting to buy an electric car. It's on page 28 of the document:
'our capability to rapidly swap out the Model S battery pack and the development of specialized public facilities to perform such
swapping, which do not currently exist but which we may introduce sometime in 2013'
The 'we may introduce...' language gives Tesla a broad swath of latitude here, but at least they allude to the possibility of introducing a battery swap option in 2013.�
Mar 7, 2013
dsm363 I could see them offering this in very few areas (California basically) where you would drop off your personal pack and rent one then come back and pick up your old pack. I think they need to focus on the nationwide Supercharging network first.�
Mar 7, 2013
stopcrazypp I think the only reason they may do it is they can get extra CARB ZEV credits (7 credits vs 4 credits right now for 60kWh and 85kWh packs) for the car if they build even one battery swap station in California. A battery swap would qualify the car for the fast fueling requirement (285 miles of UDDS range in 15 minutes).
Battery swapping still has too many problems in the economics side. The only thing that might work is a rental scheme, but even that might discourage people from buying a larger battery and it may not make economic sense for Tesla for that reason.�
Mar 7, 2013
JRP3 With more and more EV's being built aren't ZEV credits going to drop in value? Is the cost of a functioning swap station and a stack of batteries going to be worth it?�
Mar 7, 2013
Banahogg There's this interesting bit on page 6 as well:
�
May 26, 2013
cwerdna For those who may have missed the news...
Better Place files for bankruptcy | The Times of Israel
Better Place to be liquidated - Globes
Israeli electric car venture Better Place seeks to dissolve - Business - Israel News | Haaretz Daily Newspaper
Death of Better Place: Electric car co. to dissolve | JPost | Israel News
Better Place CEO: A missed opportunity - Globes
An issue that hadn't really occurred to me, until it was written:
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Jun 23, 2013
smorgasbord Well, here are after the swapping announcement, and it is a rental scheme. Those that got the 40KWH battery are probably pretty happy right now, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that Tesla canceling that option and the swapping announcement were related inside Tesla HQ. We're still years away from swapping being readily available, but if the 40KWH battery does your daily commute with change to spare, then you can save $20K and instead spend $60 to swap in an 85KWH battery for road trips.�
Jun 27, 2013
dsmith2189 I got this link in an email from Tesla a few days ago Model S Battery Swap but haven't seen any discussion or details here on TMC about it.�
Jun 27, 2013
bob_p Tesla hasn't provided details on the battery swapping costs & policies or for the promised battery protection plan, and until they provide those details, we're all just guessing about how the battery swapping will impact us.�
Jun 28, 2013
brianman They haven't given specifics, but they have given details. About the price of 15 gallons of gas, sensitive to local gas pricing. Estimated $60 - $80. These are nearly direct quotes from Elon at the Q&A.
As for the costs to keep the swapped pack, the brush strokes are definitely much broader.
So if you want to do cost and value modeling, use $40 as the low and $100 as the high and you'll have significant coverage for margin of error.�
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