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The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
$1 Billion Electric Car Charging Grid Planned For San Francisco

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The Analrapist: Half Analyst Half Therapist
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
What do we do with all the dead batteries; it's expensive to recycle them and creates a huge hazard right now for local dumps. I say we stick to gas or diesel and build engines that get 150 mpg. Until a viable solution comes to along.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/13/09

@Zeus: If only it were that easy...
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Russell Lynn
05/13/09

@Zeus: These are not supposed to be dead batteries, they are batteries that need to be recharged, taking like 6 hours. This place would remove the "dead" battery and hook it up to a recharge station then put a "Fresh" battery in your car.

Like swapping rechargeable AA's in your RC Car.
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acarr260
05/13/09

@Russell Lynn: Eventually (after x cycles), the battery will cease to hold a charge. Then it costs a ton to dispose of said battery.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
This type of idea can also be used in the extend the life of your hybrid implementation rather than just being used as a gas station replacement. If people had the assurance that when their battery eventually dies in their hybrid they can replace it rather than having to buy a whole new car, people would be more apt to buy a hybrid. It would also further make the myth of sport utilities having a lower carbon footprint than hybrids incorrect, especially if they find a viable way of recycling/recovering the batteries.
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ripfire
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
They're going to have to do more than that to replace our economy that revolves on fossil fuels. Just think of all the auto shops out there dedicate to oil change alone.
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2Wheelsor4: The Moto-Stig
05/13/09

@ripfire: Retool for electric motor maintenance, lubing the moving parts, etc could be a viable option. There is still stuff on those cars that needs to be maintained, they'll just have to evolve or die.

Anyways, I seriously doubt Internal Combustion is going anywhere anytime soon.
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ripfire
05/13/09

@2Wheelsor4: Ze Ümlaüt in Motörhead: Electric motor maintenance? AC or DC-brushless motors would last at least a couple years before you would need maintenance as opposed to every three months (or 5,000 miles whichever is sooner) with ICE maintenance. Regenerative breaking reduces wear on brakes. Then, there's transmission with ICE...

My point is, internal combustion engines have more maintenance, and the world makes money out of it. You switch to electric vehicles, and you're basically pulling the plug of our economy.
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EVEs_Mako
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
When does the first girlfriend/wife swap station go up? I want to invest.
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acarr260
05/13/09

@EVEs_Mako: I think those are called swinger's clubs.
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Ben Zvan
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
Lithium iron phosphate batteries are in the works that will charge very quickly.

[www.sciencefriday.com]
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GitEmSteveDave_IsSlacking
05/13/09

@Ben Zvan: Yeah, you hear about that every year. Never materializes. We can hope though.
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not_a_virus.exe.vbs
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
or just make clean hybrids and be done with it. Electric cars are nice but a better short term solution tell we get better batteries is a hybrid motor that runs on a clean fuel.
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sunshine06
05/13/09

@Life Is Eat And Die: Yeah, dude. Lets not look more than 10 years into the future. Lets continue to base our infrastructure on dying technology. Lets continue to give oil interests control.
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not_a_virus.exe.vbs
05/13/09

@sunshine06: What dying technology? Combustion engines will be around forever. Ones that run on gasoline won't be. Which is why I mentioned clean fuels.
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/13/09

@Life Is Eat And Die: What's a "clean fuel"?
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not_a_virus.exe.vbs
05/13/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: hydrogen and CNG are a couple.
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blash
05/13/09

@Life Is Eat And Die: There isn't enough CNG for everyone to transfer over to and hydrogen's a pipedream. We need a solution now, which is why Obama cut federal funding dollars from hydrogen tech and gave it all to electric vehicles.

The fact is, something better than hydrogen could be found later on - that's the very nature of evolving technology. We would then have to transfer our new hydrogen infrastructure over to MiracleFuel infrastructure, which (like trying to switch over to either a hydrogen or an electric infrastructure now) is costly both in time and money. By investing in an electric infrastructure though, you would only have to invest in new power-plants: can my electric car run on nuclear energy? Yes, if the electricity came from a nuclear plant. Solar energy? Hydrogen? Yes - if the electricity came from either a solar energy plant or a hydrogen energy plant. Same thing with this hypothetical MiracleFuel - my electrical car will run on the MiracleFuel by virtue of running off electricity made by a MiracleFuel power plant. Electric infrastructure is future-proof since it's a hell of a lot simpler to just upgrade the power plants instead of upgrading all the gas stations.
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climbman27
05/13/09

@blash: I agree with you that electric infrastructure is definitely the way to go in the future, but as for saying that it is simpler to upgrade power plants instead of gas stations, I disagree. Everyone needs to remember that electric cars will still produce carbon emissions, unless the electricity is generated cleanly. Thus, we need to invest in carbon neutral power generation technologies like nuclear, solar, wind, and geothermal. Building and implementing all these plants, though, will be mach harder then retrofitting gas stations.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/13/09

@blash: Hydrogen is more than a pipe dream. The problem with hydrogen is more that it's viability is so far down the road that most people find spending money on it to be frivolous. People don't want to spend money on a technology that won't be coming until 10 years down the road when there is a technology that can be ready in 2-3 years, even if the 10 year solution is more permanent. Unless we replace our plants with cleaner plants and make batteries that last forever, electric/hybrids will continue to be a temporary band aid to the problem.
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ripfire
05/13/09

@climbman27: @ceilingFANBOY: You guys are forgetting about one crucial factor to hydrogen: it's renewable. Unlike fossil fuels, price of the resource will not change over the course of its life. Ever think about how most post-apocalyptic themes are always based on dependency on fuels that will eventually run out?

@kagekiri: No need to run power lines to stations. You just have to make electricity transportable. How? Turn it into chemical.
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climbman27
05/13/09

@ripfire: Hydrogen is great, but I think you are forgetting the process and amount of energy needed to create hydrogen. There is no such thing as a hydrogen "source". Since it has such a low density, storage and transportation are also big issues. One of the more promising technologies I have heard about is using electricity from wind turbines to power hydrogen production. Then you have a completely carbon neutral process. It is definitely a promising fuel source, but as far as price, I think that will fluctuate greatly with how it is produced.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/13/09

@ripfire: I'm on the same side of the argument as you are. I was just stating that it is currently too expensive cashwise and energywise to obtain hydrogen for it to be viable. However, down the road it will be viable when better methods of obtaining hydrogen are discovered. Who knows, in the future we may even be able to find a way of extracting hydrogen from water that is so efficient that a car could run for years without any external input by using the hydrogen and then re extracting it from the water that is produced.
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ripfire
05/13/09

@climbman27: Yeah, I agree hydrogen production is inefficient now, but its all I could think of that's transportable. Who knows, maybe later on we'll discover a way to produce hydrogen cheaply through organic means (ie, photosynthesis).
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GitEmSteveDave_IsSlacking
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
Ah, nothing improves resale value like a failure of a lifting mechanism, and then a acid spill.

Of course, this thing will become a moot point once a storage device is designed that can be charged quickly and hold the charge. Then solar panels and energy capture devices on cars would actually do something significant.
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ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
there is a plan in Israel that involves owning the car and leasing the battery, then implement this exact plan. I think it sounds genius.
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/13/09

@odnet: I know someone who went to Israel to build electric car integrated parking/charging stations. Seriously, people in that country REALLY want to cut their dependence on oil, for obvious reasons.
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
Replace non-removable car batteries with standard ones that can be recharged separately? This is another of those brilliant obvious things that no one thinks of.
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ripfire
05/13/09

@Hello Mister Walrus: But then they're going to make it different sizes like HH or the smaller HHH or J-Cell or K-Cell, or the ever so useless (except for critical vehicles like a firetruck) 18-volt size.
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Software_Goddess
05/13/09

In reply to The First Battery Swap Station for Electric Cars
Sure, take my stock battery and replace it with some cheep after market used crap! I don't think so!!!
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Hello Mister Walrus
05/13/09

@Software_Goddess: If this ever happens, they'll probably make it so you don't own the batteries but have fuel company lend them to you.
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ceilingFANBOY
05/13/09

@Software_Goddess: It sounds to me more like everyone would be sharing their batteries. You don't get a cheap aftermarket battery, you get one from someone else's car that has been charged up to replace your dead battery that will be charged up and eventually put into someone else's car in place of their dead battery which will eventually be charged up and put into someone... I think you get the idea.
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bobman1235
05/13/09

@ceilingFANBOY: The OP still has a point, though. Batteries for these cars are (at least, right now) ridiculously expensive, and they have a shelf life. If you have a brand new electric car with a brand new battery, and you swap it out, yo ucould be getting someone's 3 year old battery that's on its last legs. Who covers the cost of replacement once that battery dies? The only way this would work is if the charging / battery swap station owned all the batteries and lent them out, which is a VERY large cost for them to assume (considering the station itself costs 500k).
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ceilingFANBOY
05/13/09

@bobman1235: My guess is that the way that they would prevent you from getting stuck with a crappy battery is to require you to register with the company to use the service. That way they could keep track of how many miles/years you have put on your battery so that whenever you go to exchange your battery you get one that is of similar wear and tear. Then, if you purchased a new battery, whether it be through your car dealer or through this company, you could have the date and miles reset to reflect your new battery.
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350z-Racer
11/21/08

In reply to $1 Billion Electric Car Charging Grid Planned For San Francisco
California is already in enough debt as it is... :/
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sos10
11/22/08

@[x7productions]: in time of crisis you have to invest in the future.
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GiltProto
11/21/08

In reply to $1 Billion Electric Car Charging Grid Planned For San Francisco
Sounds like a great idea if the units would also dispense gasoline, ethanol, and diesel. That would make for some great free market competition, eh?
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Kaiser-Machead
11/22/08

@GiltProto: That's all we need. Posts on the street that can spew flammable liquids! :D
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frigg
11/21/08

In reply to $1 Billion Electric Car Charging Grid Planned For San Francisco
Paying for the grid seems like a reasonable government expense, just as building highways was a reasonable expense in its time. If there's going to be an auto industry bailout, it'd be nice if some of it, in turn, went to developing gridobiles (grid-friendly cars).
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purple-pillows
11/21/08

In reply to $1 Billion Electric Car Charging Grid Planned For San Francisco
i dont fully understand how this will work... i buy a discounted car from Better Drive... then buy miles (like a lease)... and then i dont own the battery... so will battery upgrade be free?

Is the beta culture coming to the car industry?
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s0crates82
11/21/08

@purple-pillows: No. The lease is because the automakers know that if they sell you an electric car, batteries and all, once you pay for the car, you aren't beholden to them for anything. Engine parts are a huge part of automaker's business, and it easy to make them with specifically shortened life cycles. Electric motors don't work that way - once they're in and they're working at spec, they continue to do so MUCH longer than those in their ICE counterparts. If you lease the vehicle, or lease the batteries, you no longer can become self-sufficient and you have to keep giving them money.

Electrics also terrify auto mechanics because there's nothing for them to do anymore. No more oil changes, no more oil filters, no more coolant, no more transmission fluid, no more transmissions at all... it's a working mechanic's nightmare.

What's good for the consumer, and probably good for the planet, is terrible for auto companies and ancillary occupations.
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MrBlahBlah
11/21/08

@s0crates82: actually the battery is very expensive for the consuer to replace, so having it leased means you can replace it for free with a new one whenver it shows wear and tear. as opposed to having to pay thounds and thousands for a new battery a year later.
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os_2
11/21/08

In reply to $1 Billion Electric Car Charging Grid Planned For San Francisco
I rather they spend that money on better public transport.
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sos10
11/22/08

@os_2: they should do both, spend money on n "electric" infrastructure and public transport, one doesn't exclude the other.
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