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Comment by rdiddly | Hacker News Reader

I dunno, battery swapping sounds like a good idea actually. If only the batteries were swappable...

It does. But in practice you'd have people trading their 6+ year old battery for a nearly-new one (even if it took them a dozen tries) to avoid the $12k expense of replacing it. You'd have to build that scenario into your business model somehow.

I think a better business might be battery pack refurbishment. Buy dead/worn out packs from mechanics, replace any bad cells or fuses, reseal them, and sell them with a 90 day warranty.

Why not treat it like a propane tank exchange? The company owns all the tanks(1); you don't own the tank(1) and aren't paying for the tank(1) (other than maybe a deposit to ensure you'll return it someday). When you swap it, you pay only for the propane(2) inside; you're just buying more of the contents.

(1) battery

(2) electrons

You'd need the deposit to be the price of buying a battery, because unlike a metal tank a high capacity lithium battery is pretty useful if you never use that company's charge facility again, but if the status quo is that the company only swaps their own serial numbered batteries within certain time frames, the whole notion of swapping an old one for a new one is meaningless. Sure, sometimes people will wreck a battery but return it anyway, like any lease business, but there's no way of using them as a general bad battery disposal service

Swapping old for new IS meaningless and not the goal. In fact some swaps would inevitably be new-for-old. The company would own both, so who cares. This idea is only about swapping depleted for charged, so you don't have to wait around while it charges. Obviously the only way it would work is if swapping were made easier and faster than charging. As for abnormal or unusual occurrences, if a battery is nearing end-of-life the customer can do the company the favor of reporting it, or the company can find out themselves by testing it. If you demonstrably wreck one, or just keep it, the company has your deposit (which I agree should be close to the price of the battery), and you just bought a battery.

It's early and people still fetishize the batteries a bit, but they're really just containers for the thing we actually want - the charge.

A propane tank can have a useful life over 20 years, while a battery pack will wear out quicker than that. Or become obsolete because new technology is developed, or the vehicle manufacturer changes the design making older ones incompatible. So you'd have to account for that possibility in what you charge.

Battery swapping could have been a good idea, if instead of telling a story:"We'll replace all the cars in the world, we are already talking with heads of state", they've said:"As a first step, let's concentrate on a small niche best fitting for battery swapping, like Taxis[1], Build a network/business, and expand from that".

[1]Taxis drive a lot, so the savings from battery swapping are much more compelling compared to the car costs. And many taxis drive only within city range, so no range anxiety.

Battery swapping was a bet against battery energy density improving to the point that battery swapping wasn't needed. Turned out to be a losing bet.

For how Better Place blew it, see the Wikipedia article.

It’ll happen, just elsewhere first:

https://www.cnet.com/google-amp/news/china-ev-swappable-batt...

Good overview here:

https://youtu.be/2-xWYScsvts

Elon Musk / Tesla were leaning into it heavily for a while, before they changed strategies.

edit: Here it was, from 2013: "Tesla Shows Off A 90-Second Battery Swap System"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5916980

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5916451

https://www.tesla.com/videos/battery-swap-event (it's still on tesla.com!)

Tesla beta tested this in California a few years ago - between LA and Santa Barbara. I received an invite to try it out but never did. They shut it down a year or two later.

I think they are making good strides on fast charging and decided not to lean into the swap.

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