Recharging electric cars will never catch on, wouldn’t it be better to swap batteries at the “gas station”?
By Cars & Motorcycles on Apr 09, 2009 with Comments 13
estiben1 asked: The electric cars that are being produced expect us to park the car every 200 miles or so, and wait for HOURS for it to recharge. This will never catch on in a world where we can’t even wait 10 mins to boil rice. Is no-one working on electric cars having interchangeable batteries, so you drop off the dead battery at the “gas station” and pick up a charged one to continue your journey…?
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Electric cars are a thing of the past thanks to Hydrogen power ( Honda FCX Clarity). When you can power a car on hydrogen and only produce water with equivalent performance to fossil fuels whats the point using batteries?
I think you are ill informed. Batteries are now being produced that will double the miles you stated and could go even further. Most people don’t drive 200 miles a day. They commute to work and back. Business and local, state and federal governments have established programs where you park and charge your car, either at work, or at a park and ride or a public transportation lot such as light rail. If one harnessed the solar power and used it to power the cars then we also have a net affect of less pressure on the grid, less need for fossil fuels, less pollution and a better environment.
Not practical as batteries age they will hold less. It would be easy to swap for a battery that is old and can only hold about half a normal charge.
Excuse me? You can’t sit your *** still for a few hours every 200 miles???? What a spoiled brat – you and the rest of the people like you who can’t wait 10 min for rice to boil! Disgusting!
Swap batteries at the gas station? You probably don’t even change your underwear – that would take too much time! Totally impractical!
Nano technology will hold the answer. There are also chargers being placed within the wheels – check out what Volvo is doing.
My grandmother is 90 and still driving. She gets along pretty well by herself gardening and hauling fire wood and all, but I don’t see her lifting a 200 pound battery out of a vehicle every week or two instead of plugging it in each night.
I expect someone is working on that. The issue is, it probably can’t be self-service. A battery that can go 60 miles will probably weigh 200 lbs, a battery that can go 200 miles may weigh 500. The batteries will have to be lifted out with a machine, as is done with battery powered forklifts now.
If we had a standard battery design, this idea might catch on. But without a standard, it’s unlikely anyone will invest billions of dollars to install battery-changing stations at all the gas stations in America.
the size and weight are a little impractical at the moment.
Not to mention…do YOU want to be touching the teminals of 300-400+V battery?
Back in the seventies, one idea was to use wet cells such as lead acid batteries such that you could pump out the electrolyte and pump in new electrolyte at a “refill” station in a few minutes to have a quick recharge. Of course, eventually some poor “gas” station attendant will spill all that sulfuric acid over himself or over someone else.
Note that even with Lithium Ion batteries, the battery pack is huge so it isn’t a simple drop off and pickup.
What would be more practical would be to have the electric cars as part of a dual mode PRT system so that they could enter computer controlled guideways where they would not only be driven by computer but would be recharged from the guideway’s power rails either by contact brushes or inductively. The battery power would only be required for puttering around the neighborhood.
There’s a group called Better Place which is working on both establishing public charging stations and battery swapping.
However, I think the charging is a much better prospect. For one thing, many battery makers are working on rapid recharge technology which will allow a 90+% recharge in 5-10 minutes from special high voltage charging stations (using 3-phase power). Any business with 3 phase power could install these charging stations to allow their customers rapid recharge. Here’s one example:-
The problem with battery swapping is that EV batteries aren’t universal. There are lead acid, nickel metal hydride, and various lithium ion chemistries. EV batteries come in numerous shapes, sizes, and power capacity. You can’t just swap them because you would need every automaker’s battery type available at every battery station. If you require them all to use the same battery, then you’re inhibiting the technology development (for example, EEStor’s ultracapacitor technology wouldn’t be compatible).
Some of the facts surrounding current technology for your proposal should be examined. First off the visit to the gas station. There are people who presently have electric vehicles. Some are conversions from vehicles with ICE (internal combustion engines) and others are vehicles like the RAV4ev that were built and sold as purely electric vehicles. A fairly uniform comment seen from these people is that they like not having to stop at a gas station. One says that the time it takes to “fill up” at home is limited to the amount of time it takes to connect and disconnect the vehicle as no more of their attention is required, and it is save enough for the toddler to do it.1
Currently batteries might be estimated to weigh around 1000 pounds and cost many thousands of dollars. Do you think it practical to swap out a 1000 pound $26,000 part for another or would you rather keep it where you might be sure it did not get into trouble? (see below for details.)
There are several better alternatives to the curent problem of long range driving than swapping out batteries. One might be a generator trailer (aka genset trailer) that could be attached when going across country or to the next town.5 Another might be to wait for the technology to improve to the point where this might not be necessary. This might happen soon.6
There may also be the promise of capicitors. They charge and discharge very quickly and can be used as an intermediary to charging the batteries.
You have a strange definition of “HOURS”. I already own a 15-minute battery charger for my NiMH AA’s. You already spend 15 minutes at a gas station, by the time you go to the bathroom and buy a drink. Done.
Anyway, you seem to be thinking you’ll be taking long road trips in a pure electric car. I don’t see that happening. Either
- your electric car will have a small diesel or turbine regenerator on board, giving unlimited range @ 60 MPG… assuming you can afford fuel in the future.
- you’ll take the train and rent a car at the other end.
- your car will be on the train.
- nobody will want cars anymore because something better happened
Alex J.: Why does NEDRA exist? It exists because the electric cars were kicked out of NHRA for having unfair advantage. Fuel engines are obsolete. Why stop to shift?
It would probably work better if we had overhead wires like a trolley car.
Every time you disconnect a battery there is a potential for a spark and subsequent battery explosion. This is due to hydrogen gassing from charging and discharging of the battery.
Give me a choice between walking 200 miles and waiting hours to recharge; its waiting hands down.