I like Nio, and even though I consider the battery swapping to be kind of a weird gimmick, it does seem to actually be successful for them somehow.
They have sold basically 1M cars.
Which means every person has battery swapped at least 100 times.
You can only take part in the battery swaps in Germany if you pay 300 € per month for a battery rent. That is after paying 50.000 € (ET5) or >70.000 € (ET7) for the car itself lol.
Retrofitting current gas stations across the US to charge and perform quick swaps on standardized batteries would be an incredible use of existing infrastructure. So therefore it will never happen. It’s the perfect scenario for the average American who is already used to filling up at gas stations weekly. It would probably take an investment larger than the interstate highway program to convert, though.
Gas station *locations* themselves are probably a good fit for a program like this but the actual existing infrastructure reused will be next to zero. Not only will it require an astronomical level of buy in from multiple manufacturers to be worth it at scale, but most gas stations are individually operated and owned, meaning the program will likely need to do one of: incorporate reimbursement of loss of revenue during the transition (its own host of problems), negotiate individual buyouts to be government run (an laborious, time-consuming, inconsistent, and corruption-prone process), or go through an insanely unpopular eminent domain route.
Not saying it’s necessarily a bad idea, but calling it an “incredible use of existing infrastructure” is a stretch.
That will require buy-ins from many EV oems, which is not gonna fly. NIO built those swap stations themselves (just like how Tesla started with superchargers).
At that point, I would rather we put money into building high-speed rail connecting reasonable metros.
The biggest issue with them as far as i see it is that you need to lease the battery to be able to battery swap. Now last time i checked you had to have your car for 6 years for it to be more expensive than buying the battery outright, but leasing such a vital component of your car, with the risks that involves sounds icky to me.
They have also never managed to build out even close to enough swap stations around, with only like 3(i believe) in the entire Norway.
The biggest issue it the fact that it'll work for a single manufacturer, but there's no way in hell this would work across the entire market. EV batteries are not AAs.
It's really a convenience consideration than it is for battery performance. In theory it takes less time to swap for a charged battery than it does to charge the battery.
It seems to be like it would be a better use of resources to make batteries more robust and charge faster than it would be to design entire infrastructure around swapping the batteries.
This seems gimmicky at best.
It looks like you're posting about a currently popular topic. Your submission has been automatically removed and forwarded to moderators for review. **If** your post is about Tesla or Olympian, please see [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/9bjyvb/a_new_approach_to_teslamuskelectric_vehicle/) for details. See r/TeslaMotors and r/RealTesla for indepth discussion. Want to prognosticate about car prices? Head on over [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/askcarsales/). **YES, WE WILL REVIEW YOUR POST AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. NO, YOU ARE NOT ON A BLACKLIST.** You do not need to send us modmail immediately. Your call is very important to us and will be answered in the order it was received. No, seriously, we're all volunteers. We'll get to it as soon as possible. In the meantime, please check r/cars/new to see if there is a discussion already underway.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/cars) if you have any questions or concerns.*
20 Comments
elysiansaurus@reddit
Domyyy@reddit
Rodic87@reddit
Domyyy@reddit
Rodic87@reddit
FMJoey325@reddit
Aftershok@reddit
elon_free_hk@reddit
AznTri4d@reddit
Splenda@reddit
Content_Godzilla@reddit
nerdpox@reddit
Murky_Meaning2129@reddit
lordtema@reddit
JC-Dude@reddit
cat_prophecy@reddit
DracoDragonite@reddit
rg25@reddit
srtftw@reddit
AutoModerator@reddit