Battery swapping is a technology that could solve one key barrier for EV adoption: consumers’ range anxiety and the long waiting time for battery charging. Wouldn’t you feel more assured on a weekend trip if you knew you could stop at a swap station and replace depleted battery packs with fully charged ones in five minutes? But this isn’t easy to do, as Tesla and Better Place’s past failures. In China, however, battery swapping has been a reality for a couple of years. How did Chinese companies like Nio make it work with 2,300 swapping stations nationwide? What can companies outside China learn from the Chinese experience?

See, Apple? Even cars can do it :)

  • @[email protected]English
    7•12 days ago
    1. Book a swap in the app
    2. arrive in the lineup.
    3. serves one car at a time like an oil change
    4. 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

    • @[email protected]English
      8•11 days ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•11 days ago

        neo is the ONLY company doing swap stations, and that is how they work… I also described current, available EVs with available chargers.

    • @Gsus4OPEnglish
      5•12 days ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]English
        5•11 days ago

        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 .

        • @Gsus4OPEnglish
          3•11 days ago

          One thing that would speed it up would be if you could just drop the 1-ton battery by gravity (safely, which I understant is hard on the edges of any hooks holding it, maybe they could use a raised floor, which is what they do in NIO) and snap it back on in 30s or less for a total of 2m. The rest is just your usual parking, pulling the gas hose. Maybe make it go-through so you don’t have to manouver into place.

    • @[email protected]English
      1•11 days ago

      More like install 8 to 12 DCFS at a minimum and some very busy stations have a massive amount of chargers.