How One Chinese EV Company Made Battery Swapping Work

The answer is massive government support. The cost of those stations has to be insane...imagine the inventory holding cost of those batteries

Imagine the cost of stations everywhere that would have tanker-trucks deliver fluid that you'd put in cars
- This is not comparable.
  The fuel is spent and sold. Gas stations usually only have a few days supply of inventory.
  This is like holding engines in inventory to swap without notice on the spot. But in this case the engines cost $10k+.
  The fee to swap is about $12...so you have to swap each battery about 800 times to break even. See how you're wrong yet?
Don't worry, the US government will support its automakers by banning the competition.
That is, if they make totally cool and totally legal campaign contributions.
Competing is for the working class, not the 1%.
I think swappable batteries could be a good solution to fires and probelms seen with long term battery health. Like if batteries were smaller and you swap it out rather than charging they could be inspected before being redistributed. In an ideal situation the cost of purchasing a battery would be removed from the vehicle price and shift to a subscription/interchange system. It could help consumers if their battery goes bad by not needing to buy a completly new one and prevent fires. Unfortunately, everything is terrible and I imagine this would inevitably turn to some kind of scummy, overpriced, preditory system. I am not sure if damage caused by batteries is enough to justify such a program but I think insurance companies and governments have or will look into it.
- They’ll make it illegal to charge your own battery. And enshitification will guarantee perpetually rising prices, lower and lower range batteries, or some combination of the 2.

Ah so this is about swapping the battery on-the-go so you can get rid of your depleted one and get a freshly charged one within minutes.

That's actually pretty cool then!

Not quite sure how this relates to Apple though.

It's a joke about how apple made their phone even thinner and the battery still isn't removable :P

I don't oppose the idea of battery station, but who owns the battery then? When I bought the car, am I leasing the battery? How about used car?

The company (NIO) owns them and you are leasing the batteries. The car is cheaper this way, as you don’t buy the battery up front, but pay a monthly fee (~200+ in Germany).
You have a fixed number of swaps per month, above that you have to pay extra.
Source: colleague uses a car like this and explained the details.
- What if they EOL the battery and stops the leasing program? Now the perfectly fine car is non functional because it's missing a battery. If I replace it, I'm just contributing more waste, not in materal but energy. Is that the "green" future we all after?
- I hope it’s not 200€ but it’s way higher than what I pay for the gas.
It's been a while since I've watched it myself, but remember them going into the ownership structure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNZy603as5w
There's basically no way for them to not make it a subscription model.
So I can give an example. Here in Taiwan, Gogoro has put up a lot of battery swap stations for their electric scooters. When you buy the scooter, it comes with removable batteries which you can charge on your own. Or, you can buy a monthly subscription on top of it that gives you access to those battery stations, where you can ride up to one and swap a pair of freshly charged batteries into your scooter. Subscription price is tiered by Ah per month, if you go over the limit you pay extra per Ah.
In this case, yes I think Gogoro is in charge of maintaining/replacing old batteries. Subscription is separate from the scooter cost, so buying used should not affect your ability to subscribe to the plan.
- I love that system
- it comes with removable batteries which you can charge on your own
  so it is your battery and got additional batteries you can swap on the road with a subscription? That looks promising.
  However, this works for scooters is because the battery pack is small enough for hand carry and install. It won't be on typical 4-wheel vehicles as those are about a thousand pound. Even if we can modular and miniaturize it like how Gogoro does, where to install it is a big problem. Obviously we can't install it in the front compartment as that will be a fire hazard when crash.
I guess it would either work like a subscription fee or a one time fee per swap
- Subscription for my car? Don't we have too much subscriptions already?
  And neither solve the ownship problem, and a tons of other problems.
- You pay a monthly fee (lease) that contains a certain number of swaps per month, above which you pay extra. The car is also cheaper this way, as you are not paying the full price of the the battery up front
- The model only works if users are forced to subscribe to a battery swapping service for the full life of the vehicle (or there is a large upfront fee to join with a used vehicle). Otherwise it would be too easy for a consumer with a worn out battery to do a one-time swap and get a like-new battery as a cheap alternative to very costly battery repairs. The dumped battery is likely to have very poor range and the battery swap company will need to dispose of it.
It's not just that, its what happens if you get a battery from a guy named roger who said he knows what he's doing and fucked with it?
Battery swapping sounds great, until you put it into a real world scenario.
- Battery swapping sounds great, until you put it into a real world scenario.
  Government regulation and standardization is the answer.
  You know, like fossil fuels also are. For example fuelpumps have to be legally calibrated so that they measure accurately, and there are a myriad of quality standards and ratings regarding what 98 octane or 95 octane or diesel fuel or whatever can contain.
- There are already plenty of shady car mechanics named roger who can swindle you out there...
I would guess a swappable battery would be separated from the vehicle, similar to a gas bottle for a grill.
The battery would be rented for a small deposit and on swapping you only pay the energy + service fee.
I guess you could also buy one to own, but then could not swap that.
That's how it would make sense, at least.
- I will take ownership over leasing as a 200 miles range is more than enough for me. But you will see if the leasing model works out, they will only have leasing left for you as that's a continous money flow. Or have the battery be super expensive to discourage you buy it.
Renault tried leasing the batteries in EV in an effort to lower the initial cost of the car while increasing their tail for future owners. They abandoned it only a few years in as it was a disaster for their used market that got worse the older the car got as nobody wanted the ongoing cost. Only the initial owner saved money, and only if they managed to use PCP finance with a balloon set before Renault realised that the battery leased cars would be worth significantly less.
Renault also did not like that with older cars they would be liable for the battery replacement far sooner than they planned as they (initially) had a higher percentage unusable before they had to do a free replacement vs. a normal battery warranty, made worse as a leased battery has a warranty as long as you are paying the lease.
Renault could repossess the car if you stopped paying the battery lease and refused to buy it out. Its like any car finance that puts a lien or similar on the car, you do not own it till its gone.
- Yeah, when I wanted to buy an electric car I look at the used market for the Renault Zoe but I quickly gave up.
  The idea of paying a monthly subscription on a used car quickly turned me off and buying the leased battery back from Renault was prohibitively expensive.
Not just about "who owns it?" but also how does it work with insurance if something goes terribly wrong and who will bear the responsibility?

When 52% of all trips made are less than 3 miles and less than 2% are over fifty miles, I don't think battery swapping is something any individual needs on a regular basis.

I could get on board if manufacturers were making $10,000 sub 50 mile vehicles that were compatible with a swap station so you could switch to a larger battery for the weekend. This would have to be a standard adopted by all however, and even before that, they'd have to make small cars. Which they won't, because we all know they are too busy making trucks and SUVs.

The whole "but what about the one journey a year you make that's outside the normal battery range?" is such an obvious fossil fuel industry boondoggle. It's up there with "but what about that one time you had to move a fridge?" when convincing people that a Ford F150 is a normal sized family car.
- It's almost like they knew in the sixties that they were in for some problems and have since been devising ever more complicated methods of disinforming the public in order to maintain their wealth. Does my head in sometimes.
- I'm also thinking that way wrt to "we need more fast charging for EVs to work", I recall that plugging into a standard outlet will get you something like 5-8 km an hour, slow charging is totally acceptable for most people's usages. If you're in an area where block heaters are the norm you already have outlets at parking spots, if I could commute to work and plug it in, covers most commutes in a 8 hour day, even those of us who rarely go in and live 70k away I'd be getting most of my range back. For the amount I drive, level 1 charging is more than sufficient.
  I think a compact with 2-300 k range would suit me just fine, would cover the odd longer trip and I'll totally grab a rental for anything longer, like I already do it I need to move a fridge.
Do people even need a car for a 3 miles trip? You can cover that on a bike in 15-20 mins at a chill pace... Also, 28% of trips are less than a mile? People can't walk a mile?
- Not speaking for other places, but America is not made for bikes or pedestrians. It is actively hostile to them in the best cases, and filled with explicit murderous intent in others.
  Drivers will actually, actively, try to hit you for daring to take to the roads. And you have to take the road because we have sparse or missing pedestrian sidewalks.
  I wouldn't wish biking 3 miles in most American cities on anyone used to a properly designed nation.
- Not everyone is child free and lives where it doesn’t rain
- Would be good for hauling large objects
hear hear for small cars
PS: and walkable/cyclable cities
I could get on board if manufacturers were making $10,000 sub 50 mile vehicles that were compatible with a swap station so you could switch to a larger battery for the weekend. This would have to be a standard adopted by all however, and even before that, they’d have to make small cars. Which they won’t, because we all know they are too busy making trucks and SUVs.
they make $10k ev's with 250 mile ranges that are for sale everywhere except the united states & canada. you can get them in australia or western europe for a 50-75%-ish tariff depending on which country you're in..
- Without knowing any examples of the vehicles that are for sale everywhere except, roughly, half the world, I can't really say much them. What I can say is that compared to the monstrous subsidies the oil and gas industry recieve, it does seem like those tariffs could be done away with. At least on the face of it, perhaps the issue is more intricate than that but I'm sure you grasp my meaning.
- I was looking at the Volt a couple years ago but the only ones around were over 25k. Then I started looking for a BMW i3, but, like so many of the cheaper EVs, there's not many for sale. It's a shame these smaller vehicles, even a hybrid, aren't pumped out the factories left, right, and centre.
  It'd be so much safer - and quieter - in the city if smaller cars were more pervasive.

I think an automated battery swap system would work best for OTR trucking. Pull in, battery packs swapped, off they go. The charge for much larger batteries would take longer, or at least would be better done not attached to a vehicle for maintenance or in case of thermal problems.

There’s a company doing this already. Giant battery sits behind the cab. They drive up, unplug it like a LEGO with a huge robot arm, plunk in a new one and good to go.
I think an automated battery swap system would work best for OTR trucking.
Yes, that and other commercial vehicles that put on a lot of miles in a day, every day.
Not to mention, most of these trucks are very standardized in their dimensions and parts already. This is probably the biggest thing that will hurt small vehicles is picking a subset of standardized dimensions that will fit multiple models.

I think it's great to see this happening. I've always thought this option makes sense. I still wish the solution was a drone that comes right to you and drops a battery into a port on your roof while you are still driving, but I guess that is going to have to wait.

I want to see someone try.
Not because it's practical, or because it makes sense. But because it sounds like it makes sense but I'm practice would be so impractical and hard that the solution would be absolutely hilarious.
You're driving along the freeway at 70 miles an hour, and a jet powered super drone rockets along side the car carrying a 2000 pound brick of lithium and drops it on top of you like a fucking dump truck. The shock crushes the cheap Chinese car like a can of soda and the sudden change in weight sends the drone careening off in to the air at a reasonable percentage of mach 1. The last thing you see on this earth as your brain matter is squeezed out of your eye sockets like toothpaste is a wide eyed driver in the car next to you.
The resulting pile up kills 4 people immediately, and several more later as they get caught in an expanding wave of lithium battery fires that either burn them to death or suck all of the oxygen out of the air.
- Sounds good. Let’s work on the business plan. ;)
- Gotta start somewhere right?
I can see so many issues with what you're proposing, but hey auto grenade dropping drones have great military application

I stopped reading the article there.
Either the author is voluntarily misleading or he has no idea of what he is talking about.
Here is the map all the fast charging stations (>100kW) along the way between Paris and the Mont St Michel.
The Tesla model 3 in Europe uses the standard combo CCS plug so it can use all of these stations.
I did not count them but at a first glance the number of charger is higher than "none"
Edit: OK I read the article after all but I really don't see what problem battery swapping would solve.
I could see a use case for public transport that has to go a specific road and need to run non stop every days but even then I suspect that having overhead cable on a short section to charge the battery while running would be more appropriate than battery swapping.
The article is talking about the lack of charging station but battery swapping just make the problem way way worse. A battery charger is just a parking spot and a high voltage AC - DC transformer connected to the grid. It's relatively cheap and easy to install, does not take much space and work for all electric cars compared to a battery swapping station that can only work for one specific brand (specific model too ?) need robotics and plenty of storage. Its much harder and expensive to install and you need one charging station per brand. This means less stations overall.
Finally there is the speed of charging, this is true that battery swapping is probably faster than fast charging but honestly I don't find charging an electric car that inconvenient.
On long highway trips I need to stop around 20 minutes every 2 hours, a 20 minutes break every 2 hours is not that bad, just enough time for a toilet break, a quick coffee before going back on the road.
- The cost to install stations would dramatically reduce if you had one stations that could supply 20 parking lots instead of one station for each two lots.
  It also shuts up all the complaints about batteries going dead and the cost of replacing them.
  I do agree ice vehicles are already very convenient and most people complaining are mostly just parroting oil propoganda, but making them even more convenient isn't a bad thing.
  I don't think many run their batteries to the ground but it's nice to know someone can just bring you a spare if you do.
- for one specific brand (specific model too ?)
  Probably one platform (used for several models, sometimes shared between brands. For instance VW Polo, Audi A1, Seat Ibiza and Skoda Fabia are all based on the same platform).
  Unless you have cars with modular battery packs, which do not exist right now.
Tesla drivers are c*nts anyways :p Focus on proper EVs.

"Battery Station" vs. "Gas Station" should've been a no brainer from day one.

Next best plan should be "electric roads" that are powered by green tech.

Of course it all would be massively expensive. Sadly, it's clear that the powers that be to protect Earth's climate do not give a shit.

Highways could totally have power lines overhead...the problem is just finding the best way of getting it to the car safely (I don't like the trolley-style solution).
- Not sure what the "trolley style" is.
  My exposure to electric roads are electro-magnetic rails under the road that provide a constant electric field that cars drive over.
  Honestly, I think it may be possible to build entire roads with enough crushed metal elements in the asphalt/concrete and a slight low power charge throughout the entire surface would be able to keep any vehicle battery at a steady charge.
  But, I'm not a scientist/engineer/electrical specialist, etc ...
It's a no brainier, until you deal with standardizing the battery and attachment mechanisms across many manufacturers. Then figuring out the machines necessary to automate the process of removing the battery and swapping in a new one. Then dealing with people who abuse their battery and bringing them to EOL early. Then deploying all of that nationwide.
Oh, and it limits where you can place the battery. You can't integrate it into the frame, which has some big advantages in reducing weight.
Conversely, charging stations are relatively easy. You need to standardize the plug, which ain't nothing, but it's far easier than an entire battery release mechanism. The charge stations themselves aren't much more than a transformer, some high voltage electronics, and some controls. Again, not nothing, but way easier than an automated garage for battery replacement.
Charge stations were always going to be able to race way ahead in deployment timelines, and we still don't have enough of them. If we had focused on battery swap stations, we'd be even further behind.

Book a swap in the app
arrive in the lineup.
serves one car at a time like an oil change
the station has to constantly be charging the used batteries.

Or

Install 4-6 high speed chargers in the same spot and clear more cars faster .

Essentially the swap station is only better if you arrive without a lineup. The swap takes 7-10min and is manned. If you are one or two cars deep waiting you are better to have just found a charger

Why wouldn't you compare like situations? It appears you chose a rather well set-up charging station vs. a poorly setup swapping station.
I didn't picture an oil change when I imagined a battery swap station, I am not sure that should be the default or starting point.
- neo is the ONLY company doing swap stations, and that is how they work.. I also described current, available EVs with available chargers.
True, mass parallel charging can fulfill more peak demand faster, but from the point of view of the user, it would still be good to have the option to fill/exchange the battery quickly.
- An EV6 on an capable fast charger can do 10% to 80% in 17 min
  They need to make the swap faster / higher throughput or charging is still going to make more sense .

There was a scooter sharing company that drove around, swapping the batteries. It went out of business and now there are only the Bird style scooters.
If there were battery swapping stations, I'd definitely by me a bike.

My colleague has a NIO car like this, he really likes it and uses the battery swap weekly. To my knowledge they have patented the tech.

If I bought an electric car, I would definitely consider NIO, as this option is great for long trips. In EU they have a couple of swap stations in Germany, but it’s still a long way to go in other countries.

Was waiting for Nio to make it state-side. Now, not so sure they will be allowed.

Youre going to buy poor QC american made giant electric monstrosities and you're gonna like it.
- Or just save a couple bucks and go to a scrap yard and buy a car with a fucked engine, or no engine at depending how far into the process of being scrapped it is. Then convert it to electric.