With how fast EV technology is evolving I get less and less interested in buying one right now, it seems like anything I buy will be obsolete in a couple of years.
Welcome to buying a computer.
Anyone still remembers the “battery swapping” trend? Nio claims that they can change the battery pack in about three minutes.
Compared with 2020 levels of fast charging, this was extremely fast. But with charging in ~10 minutes, a full battery swap doesn’t sound really useful anymore.
I feel like there’s still a use-case for swapping. I’m not an expert but I imagine superfast charging like this can be taxing to the battery and will shorten its life faster. The idea of getting a fresh, fully charged battery at a charging station without having to plug in sounds convenient too.
i believe the only problem with fast charging is when the battery gets too hot. if there’s adequate cooling, i think it doesn’t matter how fast you charge the battery
There will be some use cases of course, but the price is too high for most. Currently, the price is 169€/month for the battery rent alone, additional “swaps” cost extra.
At this price point, it doesn’t seem economical for me.
Pack swapping is a scam, you’ll own nothing and be happy
Even besides this aspect, it’s an idea that borders on fantasy because it would require every vehicle to have the same size and shape of pack (or perhaps a few different variations) which would require every manufacturer to agree to the standard and build all their vehicles around it.
Furthermore, it would also require a ton of labor to be swapping millions of packs every day with no end in sight. This also introduces a ton of liability because what happens when people fuck up and a car bursts into flames or the pack falls out on the highway, which even if rare, will be happening frequently with volumes this high especially in a job that probably would be considered low skill and low pay (like a fuel attendant job).
require a ton of labor to be swapping millions of packs every day
It’s fully automated. The swapping and moving batteries to charge is done without humans involved. Even the car driving into the swapping bay is automatic these days.
Isn’t NIO already operating a huge battery swapping network?
Yes, they are the primary drivers of this “lease your battery”
So still a lot slower than gas, and it’s not even 100%
Imagine having to drive to a station each time you need to fill up your tank instead of just plugging it at home and letting it charge while you sleep.
I would not want to go back to a gas car.
This isn’t even true. I’ve noticed gas stations seemingly slow their pumps down to show you more ads on those little screens. I used to be able to mute them but that seems rarer and rarer. It often takes me upwards of 10 minutes or more to fill my 20 gallon tank.
I would love to have an electric car I could charge to 80% in 10 min. Hell I’d love to have an electric car.
Who cares, we also used to ride horse and buggies that took months to get around. Wanna talk about that too?
And now we have much better technology
Like EVs 👍
Yeah, EVs that offer a superior driving experience with none of the pollution ICE vehicles have.
Better means different things to different people
Depends on how busy the gas station is, it’s also much cheaper to charge an EV than pump a comparable amount of gas.
If you’re driving an EV, you don’t care about money. A cheap man drives an old Toyota hybrid, not an EV.
The cheapest car to drive will almost always be the one you already have. When you need a new car, the used market is actually doing pretty decent. Used EVs can be about as cheap as a basic ICE vehicle now. 1 30-second google search and I found a used EV with 61k miles for $6k, and another for $4k.
Long-term, EVs can also be much cheaper to run, so it actually makes financial sense to make your next vehicle an EV.
And we’re getting more and more data saying that the expectations for battery life were pretty far off. They lasting far longer.
In Malaysia, we have cheaper gas than neighbouring Singapore. You should watch the Singaporeans cross the border and all the shenanigans they use to coax/ jimmy/ jank/ whatever their tank to take the last 0.5%. Takes much longer than 10 mins. There’s probably videos on this also.
