camelot-forum.co.uk

It’s already happening and could become big.

If only we had a GOVT who could do joined up thinking........

spear

Been tried, failed. Consumers don’t want it.

Irrelevant now you can put 200miles worth of electricity in 30mins.

Battery scooter moped swap might work in "a few" big uk cities but that's about it for the time being.

UK is too car centric, in part because one, or "a few" cities have all the river ferries, 1000's of taxis, buses, underground trains, trains, trams, & even a skyway ..the rest have greater need for cars because of their location & lack of public transport (affordable or otherwise)

I cannot see a bunch of villages having folk "willing" to travel 8-12 miles to a market town simply to swap out a scooter battery via fast roads, or windy unlit longer routes to avoid fast dangerous passes by drivers who DNGAF or are simply ignorant as to road rules & compliance (either will get you punishment passes) ...no sensible parent in the countryside lets their progeny willingly ride a motor scooter / small motorbike these days for those reasons.

So in a throbbing metropolis it may work, if folk can feel safe about where they left & locked it.
It's a lot easier to heft your (illegal) e-scooter upstairs to your flat, ride on pavement (safer in law consequences if caught than riding on the road, ...look it up) & a damn sight cheaper.

How much is the RRP for the EU / UK market for these? because a 1/2 decent IP68 rated e-scooter is around £599

Not knocking them, just that we don't have mega-cities (yet)

However, if there were a big london scheme, paid for out of london taxes, with teens given training from existing instruction companies (NOT SERCO) e-m/bike riding skills lesson & tests the scheme might take off, you would also need to ensure that the design for the battery insert did not change to force people to buy a new ride, like apple does with its phones.

Then again, 5 e-mopeds will take up 1x car parking slot (id' guess) ..so why not simply add that to flats parking & bang in charge points? ...because the gov't likes to sell wholesale operational rights to big companies & deny folks easier cheaper, low wattage, lightweight travel options that typically go indoors (home, office, back of a shop) when you do, ...go figure.

I watched that yesterday, and the moped scale swapping looked excellent.

I'll admit to liking the basic idea of car scale battery swaps, but wouldn't be interested myself, since as Stinsy pointed out, range and recharge speeds are fine for me.

But here are a couple of major issues I've come across over the last few years watching discussions and programmes on the matter.

The first is from Sandy Munro, who seems to be 50:50 on the idea. He points out that electrical equipment is extremely reliable and trouble free as there are so few moving parts (if any), but if it's going to fail, it tends to be switches and connections. So he has concerns about the wear and tear on such components that would normally see, for example, 2 connections in their lifetime - plug it in when the car is built, unplug it when the car reaches end of life, v's 4 connections every time the battery is removed, charged and returned.

The second issue has my head spinning as it seems to be a nightmare to deal with - forward planning of the battery pack size! For the battery swaps to work you'll need a standardsized battery pack, that doesn't sound too bad, but it'll have to remain that size for the models entire life, again, not that bad - but also for other models, of other dimensions too. So a company may not be able to develop as freely going forward.

So, a company would have to decide today, what the battery compartment will look like, and into the future, and across all models, possibly even the battery technology (for example pouches v's cells). What about the wheelbase difference of a small v's large BEV, and the battery compartment size. And whilst the station may be able to handle a selection of sizes for extraction, charging and return, this will get ever more complicated logistically.


Have to say, I love that channel, and am subscribed to it, so not knocking the guy, but one thing I didn't really agree with, he said that the Tesla Superchargers were extremely expensive, but I'd have thought a battery swap station was pretty complicated and expensive too, and if it displaces say 4 chargers, then the 3 min swap is equivalent to 12mins of supercharging, which could be equal to 200 miles of added range. He also said that the infrastructure to support a Supercharger station was enormous, but I'd have to question that - for the same throughput of cars, the amount of leccy demand needed would be the same. And whilst he raises an excellent point about a swap station choosing the time to charge, the same applies to Superchargers with Powerpacks (large batteries), designed to spread the load.

Also essentially freezes in battery chemistry and battery cooling/thermal management design?

My first thought when reading Mr Gus’s comments was: How many instances of recharging connector failures have there been? I’ve never yet seen one reported, so changing batteries should present no greater risk.

I’m still in agreement with his other comments. One could be swapping a full capacity battery for one that is going to be taken out of service in the next few days/recharges.

This also clearly means more batteries than BEVs.

Personally, I would prefer to take care of my possessions. Question: Can these cars be recharged by the usual systems? If so, wouldn’t all the ‘rough’ batteries be exchanged until a good one was installed?

Even liquid cooling connectors should rarely fail, if designed properly (think hydraulic/pneumatic connections on tractors (Ag and transport).

Might soon be able to add 200mies range in ten minutes (probably already can?).

I agree with Oliver re the "looking after your own battery" scenario, but if you never own your own battery that solves that until you find locally, upon swapping "knacked out" range affecting batteries that have been ridden hard (on a scooter).

If you start off with your own battery, then perhaps having swap out & charger vending machines built into the frontages of cafe's / petrol stations / et al again give people the opportunity to hang around & retrieve "their battery" (losses will also ensue as someone swoops in & grabs it randomly)

As for cars? nope, I wouldn't use this service, & ignored the issue of larger vehicles on purpose, the flaws are there & mentioned by others, cooling would have to be raised & dropped into place every time, or designed with a self healing node to ensure correct fill without spill.

Battery connectors & sizes would have to be standardised & incredibly flexible (not likely) ..look at how it has evolved since EV in europe realistically over a 12 year timeframe, even in france which had (past tense) the charger connection market tied up but is now morphing, with that in mind I think connection, battery size & chemistry variants that will come, yes you can have a barcode recognition that sets the parameters of what will essentially be adjustable forklift type tines for insertion & extraction, but lack of ownership long term (even on a leased battery ala renault marketing failure) will result in idiots driving like they do & tired, knackered cells that everyone else has to pick up the cost for as part of the profitable delivery of service.

Swappable battery will also tie you to their power prices, rather than sip / gulp options we all utilise in the here & now.

If it's an automated 24hr service, then late night idiots will find something to jam the system, like a beer can (which knocks out everything compared to a single pre-existing charge point) requiring a high voltage service engineer to come out to reset.