Charging is the key friction in uptake of electric cars (its not the only issue, obviously), so the news China's BYD is launching a luxury model in Europe next month that will 'flash charge' (full range charge in around 15mins) may be a game changer.
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@EUCommission
@BrianSmith950
I've been pushing this solution for years (possibly before Chinese came up with their PoT) but no one wants to hear. I wrote to European Commission, because standardized battery form factors & tech specs are a precondition and legislation in a large trading block is the only way to cut through proprietary, siloed designs, outside a prescriptive Communist block.1. Disconnect vehicle & battery longevity. For the sake of the planet, maximize both.
2. A global recycling infrastructure based on standard pattern battery is cheaper & more achievable
3. Reuse existing petroleum forecourts, rather than building a highly disruptive and maintenance heavy recharging network (still support home charging too, to exploit solar, etc)
4. Changing battery for a full recharge is the same order of time as current refueling not 'a long time'
5. Exchangeable batteries can be recharged in a more compact 'petroleum' forecourt type infrastructure, whether or not the vehicle is present. So much better than having a distributed charging infrastructure with enough charging nodes so that there's approximately no wait to get to one and STILL have a long charge wait time
6. Buying a car involves two costs.
a. Vehicle - pay/lease
b. Battery - deposit - you never own a battery but you put in enough to own one. The actual physical battery changes every refill but your deposit covers it while you're using it.
7. Being standardised universal battery units, all vehicles from all manufacturers can benefit from evolving tech improvements over time, even post vehicle sale.
@AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission battery exchange is expensive and makes vehicles heavier, larger and far less efficient. It really only works for very high uptime equipment.
A modern EV is basically an integrated flattish chassis, batteries and motor with a body stuck on top.
Batteries also outlive cars at this point and will do so ever more dramatically -
@AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 Nio is betting the shop on his but the reality is almost all EV owners home charge only and a lot of them just granny charge overnight. Most cars spend their life almost entirely idle. Charge speed is mostly a perceived barrier to ownership not a real issue
There are cases for battery swap - taxis, heavy machinery with high utilisation etc but not mainstream cars or trucksTo actual EV users it's just not a problem
@etchedpixels @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 This.
Our EV has been fast-charged only a handful of times in two years. It normally charges off a 13A socket at home. Either timed at night using cheap grid electricity, or for free during sunny days from our solar panels. It charges when we're not using it, so zero time wasted.
It has enough range for 200 miles in a day with juice to spare. More than enough for the longest trips, perhaps once or twice a year.
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Indeed - and an important point here is that the forthcoming BYD Blade Battery not only flash charges, but gives a driving range of 777 - 1,000+ km - and 10 new BYD models to include the new-batteries are planned, with prices from 155,000 yuan (less than 20,000€).
Very few journeys are more than a thousand kilometres (600+ miles), so I think evolving technology is likely to make charging at home, or anyway overnight, more rather than less common.
As you say, most of us already prefer to charge overnight at home (or at our destination) - it's easier and cheaper - so I foresee the disappearance of the whole 'filling station' infrastructure, except at services where there are also hotels, restaurants, etc, and in neighbourhoods of apartments etc where there's no room for home charging.
@GeofCox @etchedpixels @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6
As I say to my friends I don't have EV range anxiety, I have bladder anxiety. 300miles range (240 after an 80% fast recharge) is plenty for long journeys unless you use a colostomy bag and actively want to fall asleep at the wheel.
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@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission China is playing a different game. All batteries in future are digitally locked to the vehicle and serial numbered. They have to be accounted for when the vehicle is recycled. Only approved agents can tie an existing battery to a new vehicle. It's meant to control all the dodgy recycling going on but of course the rest of the agenda is making sure they control the second hand and recycling market globally
@etchedpixels @gregalotl @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission
Most manufacturers worldwide already software lock all the components on the car internal bus. -
@capnthommo @ChrisMayLA6
When you next change cars, check the price of older EV models (e.g. Hyundai, Kia. etc, but avoid the very old ones with small batteries and any with known battery issues (old Leaf's))
Prices seem to be coming down close to petrol / diesel equivalents.@BrianSmith950 @ChrisMayLA6 £1000 max? Cos that's our limit.
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@capnthommo @ChrisMayLA6
When you next change cars, check the price of older EV models (e.g. Hyundai, Kia. etc, but avoid the very old ones with small batteries and any with known battery issues (old Leaf's))
Prices seem to be coming down close to petrol / diesel equivalents.@BrianSmith950 @ChrisMayLA6 thanks. We will.
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@BrianSmith950 @capnthommo @ChrisMayLA6
It's well worth looking around. Mrs Walrus has a '24 reg Peugeot that had stood in a showroom its whole life, much cheaper than a new car, and delivered with 6 miles on the clock. I drive our '24 MG4, which was also very well priced. Both from Cinch.
The people who worry about range make me laugh. I am unable to drive even 100 miles without stopping for a pee.
@Walrus @BrianSmith950 @ChrisMayLA6 yes. When we've driven 70 or 80 miles we're definitely ready for a break anyway. And the dogs need relief too. So we'd be topping up charge then anyway. Simple purchase price is our limiting factor.
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@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission I don't think swappable batteries are a good idea. It adds cost and complexity and weight to the car. And it locks every new car to a standard battery pack that was probably technologically dated before the standard was signed off.
What for? The charge times are getting closer and closer to a swap time, so there's marginal time benefit. And most users just slow charge at home anyway.
But I do support enforced repairability.
@guigsy
See all the other benefits I listed. Plus you could say that about industry standards of all sorts. There are benefits of scale, safety, etc because of industry standards. Also, aren't faster recycle times at the cost of battery longevity?
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission -
@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission China is playing a different game. All batteries in future are digitally locked to the vehicle and serial numbered. They have to be accounted for when the vehicle is recycled. Only approved agents can tie an existing battery to a new vehicle. It's meant to control all the dodgy recycling going on but of course the rest of the agenda is making sure they control the second hand and recycling market globally
@etchedpixels
Didn't know that. Would hope there's a legitimate Blockchain solution for that. Rendering Blockchain finally useful, so batteries just end up in an open and free (but auditable) chain of use/recharge/audit/recycle
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission -
@Walrus @BrianSmith950 @ChrisMayLA6 yes. When we've driven 70 or 80 miles we're definitely ready for a break anyway. And the dogs need relief too. So we'd be topping up charge then anyway. Simple purchase price is our limiting factor.
@capnthommo @BrianSmith950 @ChrisMayLA6
Same here, dogs have to be drained, even if I don't (unlikely).
Lots of other sellers will also have bargains, but we like Cinch for ease of purchase, and good service.
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@BrianSmith950 @capnthommo @ChrisMayLA6
It's well worth looking around. Mrs Walrus has a '24 reg Peugeot that had stood in a showroom its whole life, much cheaper than a new car, and delivered with 6 miles on the clock. I drive our '24 MG4, which was also very well priced. Both from Cinch.
The people who worry about range make me laugh. I am unable to drive even 100 miles without stopping for a pee.
@Walrus @BrianSmith950 @capnthommo @ChrisMayLA6 Not that many years ago on our regular 375 mile journey we see, when we stopped for all the usual reasons, queues at the tiny numbers of EV chargers that were actually working.
That's changed. There's usually now a choice of unoccupied working chargers. The build-out of infrastructure over the last decade or so does seem to be making a big difference.
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@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission battery exchange is expensive and makes vehicles heavier, larger and far less efficient. It really only works for very high uptime equipment.
A modern EV is basically an integrated flattish chassis, batteries and motor with a body stuck on top.
Batteries also outlive cars at this point and will do so ever more dramatically@etchedpixels
It's a design problem where a solution is to keep the cost & complexity down for a drive-over solution, to reap all the other benefits. A standard design can reap the benefit of getting corporations out of the enshitification loops and proprietary lock-in on batteries & charging. Plus, consider the holistic costs & sustainability, not just the customer purchase cost.
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission -
@guigsy
See all the other benefits I listed. Plus you could say that about industry standards of all sorts. There are benefits of scale, safety, etc because of industry standards. Also, aren't faster recycle times at the cost of battery longevity?
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission you can make batteries recyclable without making them swappable.
I would make cars heavier, it would constrain their designs, probably make them larger, less innovative, with less advanced batteries. So less efficient. More to buy, more to run.
And swap stations are a massive investment in land and the required robotics and servicing. It's far easier to just keep adding a transformer box next to a parking spot.
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Charging is the key friction in uptake of electric cars (its not the only issue, obviously), so the news China's BYD is launching a luxury model in Europe next month that will 'flash charge' (full range charge in around 15mins) may be a game changer.
Tesla also has a similar technology but we might expect BYD's to flow downwards from luxury models to 'normal' e-cars more quickly?
There's also an infrastructure issue, but interesting to see how this plays out.
#ElectricCars #batteries
h/t FTI accept that non-EV-drivers perceive charging as a problem, but it very rarely causes a problem for us.
Consider: almost all the time, we charge at home. Unlike a petrol car, which needs frequent trips to a filling station, we just plug in the car when we get home.
What about long journeys? Well, my car has a 64kWh battery and it charges at up to 135kW. So any reasonable charge will take less than half an hour. A driver should take a break every so often, and everyone needs to eat and the toilet. So, on the very rare occasion when we need to use a commercial charger, we schedule it to coincide with a bio break.
For people who can't charge at home, I accept that an EV is a less attractive proposition. We need to bring down the price of commercial chargers, we need to make prices clearer, we need to ban chargers that require customers to sign up for an account or use a creepy smartphone app, and we need to invest in small roadside chargers so that people who can't charge at home can charge within easy walking distance of their houses.
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S suneauken@mastodon.world shared this topic
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I accept that non-EV-drivers perceive charging as a problem, but it very rarely causes a problem for us.
Consider: almost all the time, we charge at home. Unlike a petrol car, which needs frequent trips to a filling station, we just plug in the car when we get home.
What about long journeys? Well, my car has a 64kWh battery and it charges at up to 135kW. So any reasonable charge will take less than half an hour. A driver should take a break every so often, and everyone needs to eat and the toilet. So, on the very rare occasion when we need to use a commercial charger, we schedule it to coincide with a bio break.
For people who can't charge at home, I accept that an EV is a less attractive proposition. We need to bring down the price of commercial chargers, we need to make prices clearer, we need to ban chargers that require customers to sign up for an account or use a creepy smartphone app, and we need to invest in small roadside chargers so that people who can't charge at home can charge within easy walking distance of their houses.
I only realized the advantage of home charging when I bought an EV. Not having to go to the gas station is such an advantage.
I have lived without a home charger for a few months now, and even that isn't so bad if you plan ahead a bit.
But I do look forward to getting a home charger again.
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I accept that non-EV-drivers perceive charging as a problem, but it very rarely causes a problem for us.
Consider: almost all the time, we charge at home. Unlike a petrol car, which needs frequent trips to a filling station, we just plug in the car when we get home.
What about long journeys? Well, my car has a 64kWh battery and it charges at up to 135kW. So any reasonable charge will take less than half an hour. A driver should take a break every so often, and everyone needs to eat and the toilet. So, on the very rare occasion when we need to use a commercial charger, we schedule it to coincide with a bio break.
For people who can't charge at home, I accept that an EV is a less attractive proposition. We need to bring down the price of commercial chargers, we need to make prices clearer, we need to ban chargers that require customers to sign up for an account or use a creepy smartphone app, and we need to invest in small roadside chargers so that people who can't charge at home can charge within easy walking distance of their houses.
Yes, this is much of the consensus that has emerged in this thread I think
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I only realized the advantage of home charging when I bought an EV. Not having to go to the gas station is such an advantage.
I have lived without a home charger for a few months now, and even that isn't so bad if you plan ahead a bit.
But I do look forward to getting a home charger again.
Yes, we lived with a granny cable for a month or so, charging at 2kW. It was manageable, but tedious.
One big advantage of a proper 7kW charger is that it made available an electricity tariff designed for EV drivers. We now charge at £0.07/kWh, rather than £0.25kWh as before. I calculated that the charger would pay for itself with 16000 miles (26000km).
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@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission you can make batteries recyclable without making them swappable.
I would make cars heavier, it would constrain their designs, probably make them larger, less innovative, with less advanced batteries. So less efficient. More to buy, more to run.
And swap stations are a massive investment in land and the required robotics and servicing. It's far easier to just keep adding a transformer box next to a parking spot.
@guigsy
Reuse of petrol station land & infrastructure that's already zoned for this use. I'd suggest costs are little more than a petrol station already invests in pumps & tanks. Offset against cost and disruption to communities, wildlife, traffic of wider installation and maintenance of many many charging points, sufficient for there to be near instant finding one to use, only to then have to wait for the charge. I disagree with that whole heavier, costlier, less efficient and less innovation schtick. The innovation isn't frozen at the point you buy your vehicle, it continues. And the rest is just being open to design and engineering innovation to implement a solution that ISN'T heavier or costly (or at least the cost is significantly outweighed by economies of scale for design, tech, recycling innovation) and freedom from proprietary lock-ins.
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission -
@guigsy
Reuse of petrol station land & infrastructure that's already zoned for this use. I'd suggest costs are little more than a petrol station already invests in pumps & tanks. Offset against cost and disruption to communities, wildlife, traffic of wider installation and maintenance of many many charging points, sufficient for there to be near instant finding one to use, only to then have to wait for the charge. I disagree with that whole heavier, costlier, less efficient and less innovation schtick. The innovation isn't frozen at the point you buy your vehicle, it continues. And the rest is just being open to design and engineering innovation to implement a solution that ISN'T heavier or costly (or at least the cost is significantly outweighed by economies of scale for design, tech, recycling innovation) and freedom from proprietary lock-ins.
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission to switch a petrol station to a swap station is a massive change. Rip out the underground tanks. Remediate the contaminated land. Install new power infrastructure. And a few million pounds of robots.
That's ignoring the fact that petrol stations tend to be in towns. Whereas EVs mostly need refilling away from stop over points. Look at Tesla infra, it has a similar use case, it's all on motorways for a reason.
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@guigsy
Reuse of petrol station land & infrastructure that's already zoned for this use. I'd suggest costs are little more than a petrol station already invests in pumps & tanks. Offset against cost and disruption to communities, wildlife, traffic of wider installation and maintenance of many many charging points, sufficient for there to be near instant finding one to use, only to then have to wait for the charge. I disagree with that whole heavier, costlier, less efficient and less innovation schtick. The innovation isn't frozen at the point you buy your vehicle, it continues. And the rest is just being open to design and engineering innovation to implement a solution that ISN'T heavier or costly (or at least the cost is significantly outweighed by economies of scale for design, tech, recycling innovation) and freedom from proprietary lock-ins.
@BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission@gregalotl @BrianSmith950 @AndyDearden @ChrisMayLA6 @EUCommission if your battery pack pops out of the bottom of the vehicle, the vehicle needs to be designed to allow that to happen. It means you can't use the battery as structure. And it seriously limits the packaging.
Battery, power inverters and motors and controllers are all tightly integrated. It'll be very hard to plug in a newer battery. You'll be stuck with a standard.
