Another slant to electric vehicles. Battery swap stations. (Page 3/4)
rinselberg DEC 09, 07:52 PM
Stellantis and Ample are partnering to create a modular EV battery swapping network for a small fleet of Fiat 500 subcompact EVs.

quote
The plan is to set it up in Madrid, in Spain, in 2024, for a fleet of 100 Fiat 500e’s within Stellantis’s "Free2move" car sharing service.



YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/7ks09xcWkr0?t=10

This is a three-minute "teaser" for the modular battery swap station experience. The battery swap is a fully automated process that only takes five minutes. Drive in, get "swapped" and drive out without leaving the driver's seat. The video was posted on YouTube just 2 days ago.

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 12-09-2023).]

Raydar DEC 10, 12:00 PM
This probably is worthy of its own thread, but in the interest of not spamming the forum...

Link
Congress Spent $7.5 Billion on E.V. Chargers. After 2 Years, None Are Built.

From the article...
The 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act included $7.5 billion to build 500,000 public charging stations across the country. Under the program, states can qualify for as much as 80 percent of the cost to build chargers and bring them online. But as Politico reported this week, not a single charger funded by the program is yet operational.

It's the latest setback as Biden attempts to change consumer preference by force rather than allowing the free market to innovate its way there.

What's the hold-up? "The slow rollout…primarily boils down to the difficulties state agencies and charging companies face in meeting a complex set of contracting requirements and minimum operating standards for the federally-funded chargers, according to interviews with state and EV industry officials," the article notes.

Even with federal funds, part of the problem may also be cost, because the chargers are quite expensive to build and maintain. The types of chargers mentioned in the law are either Level 2 or Level 3, also known as Direct Current Fast Charging (DCFC). Level 2 chargers use alternating current electricity and take between four and 10 hours to charge an E.V., while DCFCs use direct current and can charge an E.V. in less than an hour.

Any long-term solution would prioritize DCFCs—no road-tripper will want to wait all day for their car to charge when fueling up a gas burner takes minutes. But DCFCs are considerably more expensive to install: A 2019 study by the Department of Energy found that while Level 2 chargers can cost up to $6,500 to install, DCFCs can cost as much as $40,000. Depending on factors like hardware costs, other estimates have put the price between $50,000 and $100,000.

Maintaining the faster chargers can be quite expensive as well. Mark Mills, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, wrote in August 2022 that a single DCFC "requires electrical infrastructure equivalent to that needed for 10 homes." Emphasis is mine

And yet the Biden administration is plowing ahead, apportioning billions of dollars for states to build exorbitantly expensive chargers and requiring half of all cars to be electric by 2030, even as E.V. demand has softened in recent months.

[This message has been edited by Raydar (edited 12-10-2023).]

BingB DEC 10, 09:16 PM
It would be cheaper to make the roads electrified and have the cars run on metallic brushes like toy slot cars.
theogre DEC 10, 11:26 PM

quote
Originally posted by BingB:
It would be cheaper to make the roads electrified and have the cars run on metallic brushes like toy slot cars.

Have u even had Slot Cars? They have many problems even @ very low volts.

Philly & some others have Trolleys &/or Trolley Buses w/ overhead power that have huge problems too.
For 1 can't bypass/detour for road work or accidents.
Then fools will push "Hybrid" Trolley Busses but have very small batteries vs many reroutes can take many miles. Worse when dealing w/ 1-way traffic, size/weight limits, etc. to reroute.
Raydar DEC 12, 12:11 PM

quote
Originally posted by BingB:

It would be cheaper to make the roads electrified and have the cars run on metallic brushes like toy slot cars.



A couple of weeks ago, I read about an experimental road (don't remember where) that has an inductive charging grid buried under the road surface.
theogre DEC 12, 10:39 PM

quote
Originally posted by Raydar:
A couple of weeks ago, I read about an experimental road (don't remember where) that has an inductive charging grid buried under the road surface.

Any one of several "wireless" EV claim ~ same crap.

Many of you have wireless charging phones but most have no clue how bad they waste power using it & that w/ phone directly on the pad. When add 1 to a few mm for aftermarket phone case, pad built into whatever, etc. & you waste more power to charge them.

Street Coils have to go thru some pavement & required air gap because Fed & State rules/laws regulate road clearance.

Plus power lost converting 60Hz power to coil freq then convert to whatever in the phone/EV to actually charge/power anything.
E2A... Test Vehicle(s) for various schemes can Fail road clearance because the coils under a car. SUV etc have higher ride height but likely raises the coil causing power lost.

That just to charge X thing.

Installing the coils is Not Easy or Cheap even w/ 100% asphalt roads. Worse when you have concrete pavement or thin skin asphalt over concrete.
Far worse will be dug up & likely soon When utility & contractors have problems w/ power, gas, etc, to fix right now.

Depending what unlicensed radio band used to charge an EV.... many other things can likely will have huge problem when street coils are active.
Examples:
● 2.4GHz is known to many as WiFi b g n(low) etc, some may know that band is F'd in big cities etc because of So Many users/devices & few channels... BUT isn't just WiFi using the Band. Many have problems every time a Microwave oven turns On because that is using same Band & worse can flood nearly every channel because how they work & made.
● Similar problem w/ 5GHz used by WiFi a, n(hi), ac, ax. In most places you only get a few Channels because Weather Doppler Radar blocks much of that Band in much of the U.S. & some other counties. That only 1 problem. Other devices can use same band w/o using WiFi causing RF Noise to WiFi.
● You have several other unlicensed band, Common ones like 433, 800 & 900MHz are still used by many things & most are required to use "weak" radios like most old cordless phones or current devices on LoRa, Zigbee & other networks.
E2A... Weak = transmit power is restricted under FCC & others worldwide. So receivers often get flooded anything strong near them.

[This message has been edited by theogre (edited 12-19-2023).]

Raydar DEC 13, 01:29 AM

quote
Originally posted by Cliff Pennock:

I agree. Swapping stations will become obsolete very fast as safe, fast charging batteries (as in seconds to minutes) are just around the corner.



Is this what you were talking about?
https://www.wired.com/story...licone-ev-batteries/

Panasonic’s New Powder-Powered Batteries Will Supercharge EVs
A company working with Tesla’s main US battery supplier has silicon-based tech that could soon give electric cars 500-mile ranges and charge refills in just 10 minutes.
BingB DEC 13, 06:39 PM

quote
Originally posted by theogre:

Have u even had Slot Cars? They have many problems even @ very low volts.




Let me guess. Driving with huge metal brushes attached to the bottom of my car is illegal in most states and police will use this as a reason to pull me over?
fieroguru DEC 13, 09:49 PM

quote
Originally posted by Doug85GT:

Battery swap stations are a bad idea. The concept has its merits until one considers what a bad actor could do. Such bad actors have all the time in the world or pull the battery pack, tinker with it, steal parts off of it or even sabotage it.



Propane bottle swaps work because the bottles are cheap and besides cosmetics, they really don't impact the performance of the gas inside them. This is not the case with battery packs

If I had a brand new EV battery that cost $30K, the last thing I would do is take it to a swap station and give it up for an unknown condition battery that could be 5+ years old and only hold an 80% charge.
Now if I had a 5+ year old battery pack that was on its last leg and was facing a $30K replacement expense, then I would definitely want to find one of these battery swap areas hoping to get a better one.
maryjane DEC 14, 03:30 PM

quote
Originally posted by Raydar:


A couple of weeks ago, I read about an experimental road (don't remember where) that has an inductive charging grid buried under the road surface.



There have been all kinds of 'experimental roads' over the decades. Some with a wire buried that emitted a special signal a modified car would follow, others that checked your speed, one with ground up rubber tires in it (did they make tires out of concrete since the road was rubber?) and at least one in California that had ribs on top of it that 'played' a short (sort of) musical thing if you drove on it at a specified mph.