Another disadvantage seems to be that you can only recharge at a Better Place charge spot. I guess that is because, since you don't buy the battery, they have to earn money on the recharging.

The downside is that it reduces flexibility. You completely depend on their battery swap stations and charge spots.

The idea about designing EVs so that their batteries can be swapped in a few minutes could facilitate inexpensive repairs of the battery or replacements of an old battery. The Tesla Model S is a good example where they design it with the ability to swap the battery so that it is easy and fast to upgrade or downgrade to larger or smaller battery packs with longer or shorter range. However, I am skeptical that battery swapping will ever be used for faster charging of batteries like PBP imagine it will. That sounds very expensive to me and it is probably also a redundant option when it should be possible to charge most coming EVs to 50% in less than 10 minutes.

A reliable/affordable EV battery exchange system is a breakthrough and would work with any battery that oil companies allow to be produced.

Maybe I'm just a jerk, but I want no part of a swap system. I have started taking my propane tanks to get refilled instead of swapping them out at the gas station. I got really tired of paying full price for tanks that were 3/4 full or tanks that looked like they had been to h*ll and back. Give me a range extender or generator or it's a no deal.

PBP is an odd entity that seems to attract press, support, and resources, despite it just not being a very good idea, and not in the best interest of the consumer.

I am concerned that more than anything else, PBP is a CONTROL play, as the control of vehicles in a post-oil world will be much harder. Maybe the appeal of PBP to the powers-that-be is that it is a controllable infrastructure that is more easily regulated and taxed, versus, for example charging your own car at home with grid current or even your own wind/solar sources.

I don't mean to sound paranoid here, but something just doesn't make sense here.

Agreed that a one-size-fits-all battery pack also makes little sense in a market that seems to demand many sorts of vehicles.

I actually like the idea of leasing the batteries. Just because an old battery loses the capacity I need in an EV doesn't mean it's not still usable in some ofter application, so if someone wants to take it off my hands in a direct trade when I see fit, OK. It's the battery swap as SOP I see problems with.

As I understand it the battery swap would only be used for long highway trips. The car itself would have enough stored energy for your average daily trip and a fast charge capability for any surprize [but still local] trips.

That being the case I have a simpler idea that is already being used by EV owners - trailers. The only part of the car or trailer that needs to be standardized is the hitch, that makes the idea flexible. The switching *technology* would be no more complex than a parking lot; you just back up to the trailer you need. Any car could use any trailer and any technology could be used in the trailer - as appropriate. The only thing you the driver has to worry about is picking a trailer suitable to the needs of the trip.

Does the trip have hill climbing? Well a pusher trailer could give you more power- http://www.jstraubel.com/EVpusher/EVpusher2.htm
Going across country and you may be facing H2 in California, gasoline in Texas, E85 in the corn belt and SVO in NY? How about a multifuel genset?
Driving the hydrogen highway from LA to Vancouver? Try a fuel cell.
Just going from SanFan to Vegas? Well all you'll need is extra batteries.
Going out to the woods for the weekend? Rent a tent-trailer with a genset under the bed.

Can't find the right trailer in the lot because of too much oneway traffic that week? Maybe they will paid you to take one they need transporting to your destination.

Better Place is trying a new business model. They are hoping that people comfortable with buying cell phone service by the minute, in monthly committment buckets, will try the same thing with transportation miles, and they are tacking on leasing the electric car to boot.

It does get around some people's fear of committing to a new technology, or fear of batteries dying early.

For urban commuters, it gets around concerns about not having any place to recharge at night for apartment dwellers. Better Place is only focusing on a few metros where they can blanket the region with swap-out places, to provide the coverage users need (like cellular service) and get an adequate utilization rate on these expensive recharging/swap-out stations.

For a city car, maybe it makes total sense. Dunno. I think, for a city car, recharging all night, each night, is probably cheaper...but this could work for Tel Aviv or Copenhagen.

As always the best thing to do is stare at em and watch to see what goes horribly wrong and then proudly claim you knew that was going to happen all along. With something like this something is bound to go badly wrong.

International oil terrorists(religious or incorporated) and wars can be minimumized. Vehicle fuel(electricity) can locally, even renewably, produced. Power train part count(and proportionally, maintenance) can be reduced from thousands to a few moving parts - yeilds the response:

"With something like this something is bound to go badly wrong."?!?

Any other 'old wifes tales'?

'Green'/GCG isn't surrender and despair - it is innovation, sustainability, and even hope..

SJC
May 13, 2009 at 08:00 AM

Do people want to own cars, or just have transportation? Personal transportation seems to be the idea, but owning a car is rooted in our culture.

There are many people driving company cars. I do. I do not own my car, it is leased by my employer. I am generally regarded as a 'lucky bastard' for never having to pay for gas or servicing and the privilege of choosing a new car every 4 years.

If I could lease such a PBP car and there would be ample charge points/swap stations, that would certainly have been my next car instead of a Prius.

Would I still do it if an alternative (no swap, charge anywhere) was available? I don't know.

I think the problem with this is that a swappable battery will use up a lot of spacein the vehicle, like the whole boot (trunk).

So you will end up with a less useful car that you could have had if you were able to put the batteries in less accessable places, (and a higher centre of gravity).

On car swapping, the idea has merit, IF people keep their cars neat and tidy.
You could have a "swap and rent" model where you swap an electric car for an ICE, and they then rent your EV to someone else.

Or they just park it and charge (service) it (as suggested by Roger).

The swap and rent model is a better use of resources, the swap and park model would be easier to manage and have less chances of failure and complications.

With batteries in their current state, EV ownership will entail some kind of swapping - car or battery.

Also, leasing the battery sounds like a good idea - until the design and performance levels settle down.

@kelly
>"With something like this something is bound to go >badly wrong."?!?

>Any other 'old wifes tales'?

Well you know there IS that problem of EVs being so quite that blind people who try to cross the street can't hear them coming.

That may sound like an insensitive joke but I actually have heard this arguement used.