Electric Cars - a ridiculous product

What amazes me, is that those in favour of EVs, haven't all rolled in behind NIO's battery swap, and BAAS concept.

For anyone not familiar with the background - NIO are a Chinese EV manufacturer, who went with a different business model - you "rent" a battety, and simply swap your empty battery for a full one, in less than 5 minutes, as needed. Just Google NIO battery swap, for more info.

That concept does away with long delays, while people wait for their battery to be recharged, and also provides for cheaper EV sale prices.

Sure, it requires large capital investment, but if motor vehicle manufacturers are serious, and political leaders too, then it's gotta be the better option, if we're really going to see EVs replace petrol and diesel vehicles.
 
Clamball said:
In China with your electric vehicle you drive to the garage and they swap out your battery for a charged one in 2/3 minutes. Just like getting a fill of fuel. No one has a home charger. Maybe this is the way Ireland should go, as the countrywide charger network is not happening quickly enough?
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You got there before me, albeit I was busy typing a longer post ;)

NIO cars are already for sale in Norway, and due to be rolled out in other European countries, but I fear the likes of Ireland will never get a look in, unless we put money into helping to build the infrastructure.
 
Clamball said:
In China with your electric vehicle you drive to the garage and they swap out your battery for a charged one in 2/3 minutes. Just like getting a fill of fuel. No one has a home charger. Maybe this is the way Ireland should go, as the countrywide charger network is not happening quickly enough?
Click to expand...

Renault tried this a decade ago as have other companies.

insideevs.com

Renault Evaluating Getting Back Into Battery Swapping

Electric vehicle battery swapping seemed like a great idea, before it was abandoned some 10 years ago, but it could make a comeback.
insideevs.com insideevs.com
 
Clamball said:
In China with your electric vehicle you drive to the garage and they swap out your battery for a charged one in 2/3 minutes. Just like getting a fill of fuel. No one has a home charger. Maybe this is the way Ireland should go, as the countrywide charger network is not happening quickly enough?
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Have you a source for this? Battery swapping is niche compared to standard charging and not possible on the top selling models. Most Chinese EV owners charge at their housing complexes according to this article in Reuters
 
MrEarl said:
Sure, it requires large capital investment, but if motor vehicle manufacturers are serious, and political leaders too, then it's gotta be the better option, if we're really going to see EVs replace petrol and diesel vehicles.
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It can be a bit of both

Almost all e-bike users like me charge at home.

Deliveroo cyclists are clearly swapping large battery packs to maintain speed over an evening.
 
Clamball said:
In China with your electric vehicle you drive to the garage and they swap out your battery for a charged one in 2/3 minutes. Just like getting a fill of fuel. No one has a home charger. Maybe this is the way Ireland should go, as the countrywide charger network is not happening quickly enough?
Click to expand...
Wouldn't work in Ireland with expensive labour, compo culture etc. The service stations would need a huge premises to facilitate this. Think about all the expensive and heavy lifting gear you would need to do this. No service station in their right mind would go for this, it's a battle just to get them to put in the fast chargers. In china the state is fully behind the electric car business since they see it as a way to jump over the western automobile industry, it's not about environmental concerns but geopolitical, it's a way for them to get ahead of western technology.
 
joe sod said:
The service stations would need a huge premises to facilitate this.
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Service stations already each need several hundred million of investment with underground tanks, etc.

If there is a market for battery swapping the private sector will figure it out and it doesn’t need much state intervention.
 
It's a proprietary system from one company in China. I doubt it will catch on. As by the time you'd do it, you'd have high speed charged the battery anyway.

You don't charge 0-100% unless you need it either. Even on a long run. So the charging time isn't as long as the inexperienced assume.
 
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Gordon Gekko said:
This is the nonsense of electric vehicles summarised.

The fact that journeys need to be planned in advance illustrates the ridiculous nature of the product.
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Range "anxiety" is a reality and a feature of the product. However - is the product ridiculous? Why, of course it isnt, au contraire. Your comment, imo, is ridiculous.

Electric vehicles are the future and for many a good reason.

What Mr Gekko is ridiculous about electric vehicles, tell us.
 
MrEarl said:
What amazes me, is that those in favour of EVs, haven't all rolled in behind NIO's battery swap, and BAAS concept.

For anyone not familiar with the background - NIO are a Chinese EV manufacturer, who went with a different business model - you "rent" a battety, and simply swap your empty battery for a full one, in less than 5 minutes, as needed. Just Google NIO battery swap, for more info.

That concept does away with long delays, while people wait for their battery to be recharged, and also provides for cheaper EV sale prices.

Sure, it requires large capital investment, but if motor vehicle manufacturers are serious, and political leaders too, then it's gotta be the better option, if we're really going to see EVs replace petrol and diesel vehicles.
Click to expand...
We used to have removable batteries in phones and laptops. That disappeared.

EV charging and battery life just isn't the problem on a big enough scale to need this. That said who knows what will happen.
 
It's a bit like the water troughs for stream engines, they didn't need to stop to take on water, they just scooped it up from the water troughs between the tracks. By the time the steam engines were using this steam power was already past tense
 
Why not a purer truly 'green' model, whereby kinetic energy created by the car's movement could be converted into enough to power itself, no plugin required? Isn't that what the first hybrid models were supposed to do? Not sure why that went by the wayside as surely that's something we could all get behind.
 
Arguably it's the trend for bigger batteries
LLB123 said:
Why not a purer truly 'green' model, whereby kinetic energy created by the car's movement could be converted into enough to power itself, no plugin required? Isn't that what the first hybrid models were supposed to do? Not sure why that went by the wayside as surely that's something we could all get behind.
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That's not how physics works. At least in cars.

Regenerative breaking does this but you only get back some energy. Too many in losses creating it..

Sailing ships can use their prop when sailing to recharge batteries.
 
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I bought a second hand ID4, Charge it for free at home for free every saturday on an electric ireland weekend tariff. This easily lasts the week. Longest drive is to visit family 241km away. It does this easily with fully packed car, 2 adults+3 teens, recharge it on their home charger. Never had range anxiety. Rarely use a public charger.
 
AlbacoreA said:
What do you think about the solar powered house using batteries
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It would be better to feed surplus energy back to the grid. The feed in tariff should be at the same rate that is charged to purchase energy.
At least with a battery in a house it is fixed.
The idea of transporting a ton of batteries about in cars is a ridiculous idea.
 
S class said:
It would be better to feed surplus energy back to the grid. The feed in tariff should be at the same rate that is charged to purchase energy.
At least with a battery in a house it is fixed.
The idea of transporting a ton of batteries about in cars is a ridiculous idea.
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Consider the distance the energy transported has to be less with EVs as there is an ever decreasing reliance on fossil fuel in electricity generation. In the best case it's from solar at house to car then used locally.

Compared with vast quantities of oil transported vast distances around the world in super tankers then around countries then to the garage. Image how much weight of fuel is stored in vehicles at any one time and carried everywhere.

The difference in weight between a eGolf and ICE Golf is barely two people. Because your off setting the weight of the battery with the weight of an engine and associated drivetrain.

A Range Rover Sport is something like 25% heavier than a Tesla Y. eUp is 10% heavier than the petrol one.

After saying all that, I think there will always be a case for ICE car.
 
LLB123 said:
Why not a purer truly 'green' model, whereby kinetic energy created by the car's movement could be converted into enough to power itself, no plugin required? Isn't that what the first hybrid models were supposed to do? Not sure why that went by the wayside as surely that's something we could all get behind.
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Thermodynamics
 
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