EV battery swaps will be tested with the Fiat 500e in 2024
EV battery swaps will be tested with the Fiat 500e in 2024
Ample's technology replaces the existing EV battery pack to allow battery swaps.
Only took a decade -_-
How does the business half of battery swapping work? Obviously you'd pay for charging the battery but who actually owns the battery? Who is responsible for the battery degradation?
Subscription's 🤣😭
Has to be a subscription or a per-swap fee. Probably subscription to account for the degradation point.
But, you essentially have a subscription for car energy now, you probably pay weekly for gasoline. If they can make it competitive to that I think they have a shot. Say $50/week in gas, means $200/month...seems like that could be profitable. And at least some of the money goes all to the car company, not a million different GA stations, which is a good incentive for them to try to make it work.
I don't think a subscription would quite work for this. Somebody traveling 10k a month isn't going to consume the same amount of batteries as someone who's commuting 1 mile away each day. I certainly wouldn't want to pay the same amount. Kind of an all you can eat shrimp situation, if you will
I don't really get this. Swap and go gas cylinders have existed for ages. You buy the bottle initially, and then it costs x amount to swap for a full one. And when it reaches its expiry its replaced by the company doing the swapping
Battery degradation just needs to be factored in to the cost of the swap
Gas cylinders do not cost ten grand though...
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A small fleet of rideshare Fiat 500e electric vehicles will become testbeds for battery-swap technology in 2024.
The experiment is being conducted by Ample, a startup working on battery swaps, and Stellantis, Fiat's parent company, the Verge reported today.
This isn't Ample's first test of its battery-swapping technology; in 2021 it started a small trial in the Bay Area to demo its modular battery, which replaces the existing traction battery in an EV and allows Ample's automated swap stations to switch out depleted packs for charged ones.
As we detailed last time we looked at Ample's technology, the EVs require some engineering work for this to all be possible.
Ample has to design a structural frame to replace the existing battery pack that will instead contain the swappable modules, while still conforming to the engineering requirements of the original pack—down to the same fasteners, bolts, and connectors.
The test, scheduled to begin next year in Madrid, will involve Fiat 500es that are operated by Free2Move, Stellantis' car-sharing mobility venture.
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Fun fact, until recently, Tesla batteries were made to be swappable at stations. (According to Monroe live) They have minimal screws all their connectors facing upwards so they can be removed by a robot.
Here's a video of a Tesla demo of a battery swap. https://youtu.be/HlaQuKk9bFg
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