[pokerhobo]

Several big issues with swap stations:

- charging allows for parallel charging while a swap station would allow for 1 vehicle to be swapped, so you could have a line of cars waiting to swap that would take just long or longer than charging

- swap stations need full size battery packs that could otherwise be used to sell another BEV

- battery degradation would upset folks who had a battery with 100% range only to be swapped for a used battery with 80% range

- unless they carry different form factor battery packs, they are limiting their vehicles to same size packs basically forever, so forget about larger packs or smaller packs depending on vehicle size

[dale_glass]

What I think is of particular concern is perverse incentives, and a race to the bottom.

* Somebody with a pristine battery takes a risk by swapping. They probably won't, because they're extremely likely to get a worse one than they arrived with.

* Somebody ruins their battery in some way. A battery swap lets them with a high likelihood get something better. They'll probably do that.

* People doing a swap have a risk with getting something worse, and getting stuck somewhere. Every time that happens the reputation of the swap stations gets worse.

* All the above results in the quality of batteries being available at the station going down and down, until the entire system collapses.

What are the possible counter-measures? You could have user registration and punish people with a fine if they drop in a broken battery, but the batteries are expensive, so the fine would be large. That'd be a risky proposal.

[Nursie]

You’re not getting a worse battery than one you owned, because you don’t own it, you just swap again when you need to. Batteries that get too old get retired by the swap stations.

[dale_glass]

So who owns it? What happens when you cross countries or state borders?

And if people don't own it, why would they take good care of it?

[Nursie]

I'm fascinated by your responses, I genuinely am. And you're not the only one responding in this way. But it's so alien to me.

Here's a way to try to work around things like range limitations in EVs and long charging times, by setting up infrastructure to swap batteries in and out, and your first thought is about maintaining the value of your vehicle, not the utility of the system.

> So who owns it?

Presumably they are all leased from the vehicle company. Think "Battery as a service", not "This is mine".

> What happens when you cross countries or state borders?

I don't know, this seems an odd detail to fixate on though.

> And if people don't own it, why would they take good care of it?

Presumably these are going to be relatively robust, and there will be some sort of conditions of good conduct on participating in the scheme, or part of the lease payment constitutes insurance against maltreatment. And does that particularly matter to you? The swap-stations make sure batteries are in good order before swapping them into your car.

[dale_glass]

> Here's a way to try to work around things like range limitations in EVs and long charging times, by setting up infrastructure to swap batteries in and out

I think it's for the most part a non-problem. Most EV users don't wait to charge. They charge at idle times and start the day with a fully charged car. The need to charge quickly is far rarer for an EV user than going to the gas station for a gas/diesel user.

> and your first thought is about maintaining the value of your vehicle, not the utility of the system.

No, my concern is how is the system going to maintain its own utility without crashing and burning economically. Because a battery is an expensive component and ultimately has to be paid for somehow, there's no ignoring that.

> Presumably they are all leased from the vehicle company. Think "Battery as a service", not "This is mine".

The problem I see is that a battery isn't a car. With a car you can walk around it and say "you've clearly crashed into something here, we'll send you the bill for the repairs". A battery is a much more obscure component that's easier to abuse and harder to determine it's been abused.

Worse, it's a component that can suffer grievous damage by complete accident -- leave it discharged in the sun for a day or two and that'll probably hurt quite a bit.

> I don't know, this seems an odd detail to fixate on though.

How so? A car is for moving people around. People sometimes want to go far. So what happens when you take stuff you don't own into a country where that company doesn't exist? Is the company going to fine you for charging it with an unauthorized charger?

Is the utility compromised because a good part of the value was the battery swap proposition and you can't do that anymore outside of wherever this particular company has hardware?

> And does that particularly matter to you?

It matters for the survival of the system. If I don't own the battery, it's not my problem that it breaks. Therefore I have less incentive to take care of it. But the battery in the end must be paid for, so either the swap company eats the loss and goes bankrupt, or fines customers until getting a terrible PR and goes bankrupt from lack of customers.

[latchkey]

In the case of VinFast, they own it. You can't even buy the car itself, it is a lease from the start. You'd be correct in the economics not making any sense and of course people are ripping on that in their forums. Hopefully, they figure it out eventually. Luckily for VinFast, the entire Vietnamese government is backing them.

What you're imagining though is that you own the battery. In the case of NIO, it is a lease the entire time. When you sell the car, you're selling the lease on the battery with it.

[flappyeagle]

The station could test the battery and charge you/give you a credit depending on the capacity difference. Every battery would have an audit trail as well

[dale_glass]

A Tesla battery seems to cost around $20K per Google. So if your is at 50% life, do you get a bill for $10K?

That doesn't sound like a thing a lot of people would want.

[flappyeagle]

Yes you're right. So maybe the policy would not be exactly as you outlined.

[irjustin]

The first point barely makes sense if you can have more than one bay. Also it's about how many can you swap in an hour vs charge? The base expectation is you'll be able to do way more cars since they don't have to sit and wait for an hour just like gasoline cards today.

Battery degrading is only an issue if I own the battery instead of getting it like a subscription. A 10% swing in range shouldn't matter in most scenarios as long as I only pay for the energy used.

All these problems here are solvable. I think there are way bigger issues for the company like now they need to own a bunch of batteries and house those on the books.

[sbradford26]

So I think a part that is forgotten about with battery swap station is that those batteries still need to be charged. Which gets into how many additional batteries does each station need stored to be able to keep up with demand. If it takes 1 hour to fully charge a battery and you want to be able to serve a car every 5 minutes then you are going to need to be able to send out 12 batteries within an hour. So now as a consumer you are going to pay for the electricity to charge those batteries, 12 charging stations, plus the overhead of 12 batteries sitting doing nothing but charging.

Companies could reduce that overhead cost by reducing charging times, but as charging times reduce it becomes more likely the consumer will choose to simply just choose to charge their own vehicle instead of swapping a battery. How much are consumers going to be willing to spend to save 5-10 minutes? I drive past Sam's Club every day after work where people wait in line easily 10-20 minutes to save 5-10 cents per gallon of gas.

[irjustin]

not sure if you'll see this, but agreed!

This is what I'm referring to as "housing on the books" you've got this insane infrastructure that goes beyond simply charging.

I also agree, how much time are people willing to spend to save money and the answer is, a lot. Grows quite rapidly lower on the economic ladder you go.

To be fair, it's not saving 5-10 minutes. A Tesla supercharger still takes ~15m for only 200mi. To go to full charge, you'd be saving an 30-45m easy. If all the bays are full, 2-3 hours?!

But to agree with you, if you put the battery swap next to a charging station and charged less for the charging station (because less infra), how many people would be willing to simply take the lower cost and wait a bunch of time? Quite a lot I'm afraid.

[sbradford26]

So the car I am most interested in is the Ioniq 5 which is rated at a 10-80% charge time of 18 minutes. Sure it is not a completely full battery but largely that isn't necessary. But I think the major issue is that technology advancement necessary to reduce overhead costs for battery swap stations will only make charging more appealing, because the only way to reduce the number of batteries required in stock is to be able to charge them faster. So even though right now it might save you 30-45 minutes right now for a full battery, it would cost significantly more. As charging times decrease it will start saving less and less time but still will cost a premium.

[clouddrover]

> they are limiting their vehicles to same size packs basically forever

Nope. Nio's current pack sizes are 75 kWh and 100 kWh. The 75 kWh pack replaces the older 70 kWh pack.

Nio is soon to introduce its 150 kWh pack:

https://cnevpost.com/2023/02/12/nio-150-kwh-pack-costs-as-mu...

You forgot about improvements in battery chemistry. Nio has thought about this more than you have.