Why are people buying electric cars?

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Pound Coin said:
Hot battery swap did sound like the holy grail, but car batteries, like laptop batteries, are currently designed around the car, rather than the other way round. Lower capacity.
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yeah i am not a fan of the swap thing, this was really considered in china to keep batteries smaller to make cars cheaper given the huge uptake of EV the savings were huge i think in the UK and the EU where we expect to pay more for cars, we are ingrained with getting fleeced by dealers we want to have our cake more, as EV tech settles we will see basic family EVs with 400miles for about £20,000 and it will simply be a no brainer. In China you can buy a decent EV with 200kms for the equiv of £8k
 
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Mr Bump said:
yeah i am not a fan of the swap thing, this was really considered in china to keep batteries smaller to make cars cheaper given the huge uptake of EV the savings were huge i think in the UK and the EU where we expect to pay more for cars, we are ingrained with getting fleeced by dealers we want to have our cake more, as EV tech settles we will see basic family EVs with 400miles for about £20,000 and it will simply be a no brainer. In China you can buy a decent EV with 200kms for the equiv of £8k
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But I live in the UK, so how much would it cost me to import it?
 
Battery swapping is a great idea where manufacturers are required to standardise, and you could refuel in 2min. You'd never own a battery (dealing with that bogey) and range would only get longer as the tech developed. Unfortunately car makers weren't interested, and it's too late to change.
 
gman said:
I thought some of the more recent Chinese EV's were meant to be very good, I'm surprised there's none on the list?
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The few Byd we got a taxi in while in Shanghai were all great.
The zeeker 001 and 007gt were stunning inside and out. Far above any German car ive been in.
If they come to the uk at a similar price (38/48 I believe) and had proper support they would wipe the floor with other brands
 
ancient_mariner said:
Battery swapping is a great idea where manufacturers are required to standardise, and you could refuel in 2min. You'd never own a battery (dealing with that bogey) and range would only get longer as the tech developed. Unfortunately car makers weren't interested, and it's too late to change.
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Yep, this would be key to making it work properly. Obviously cars that may have their batteries pretty much integrated within the chassis etc, I believe for weight distribution, would not be suitable for this, but that would be their choice and potentially their loss in this area. For those who want to take up the battery swap, if they had to adhere to a standard then I can see it being rather useful.

I would guess some of the cons would be potentially stifling innovation due to the restrictions imposed, unless it's a unified "upgrade" so to speak, potential for monopolisation and restrictions with design. But these could be addressed with those not wanting to be part of the battery swap segment?
 
Mr Bump said:
give it a couple of years and you will be able to.
ICE is dead in 10 years
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But it won't be. Plenty of ICE cars are still being registered, so they will likely still going in 10 years. Very few HGV 's and heavy plant are electric or anything else, apart from ICE
 
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gman said:
Yep, this would be key to making it work properly. Obviously cars that may have their batteries pretty much integrated within the chassis etc, I believe for weight distribution, would not be suitable for this, but that would be their choice and potentially their loss in this area. For those who want to take up the battery swap, if they had to adhere to a standard then I can see it being rather useful.

I would guess some of the cons would be potentially stifling innovation due to the restrictions imposed, unless it's a unified "upgrade" so to speak, potential for monopolisation and restrictions with design. But these could be addressed with those not wanting to be part of the battery swap segment?
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I've raised this several times on TP and elsewhere, and previously there's been significant push-back from existing EV owners.
 
Battery swapping is a great idea but, as has been pointed out already, not something that manufacturers would take to too happily! There's also a potential safety aspect - the electrics of an EV are pretty well waterproofed (many can be driven underwater once they've been persuaded not to float!) and that's not so easy to do if they're swappable. Some battery packs are also liquid cooled to reduce the chance of thermal runaway. Batteries are also quite heavy so not as easy to swap as even a 12V car battery.
Home charging (where possible) is the best option at the moment. Even IF the government sanctioned tax breaks are removed, the efficiency of an EV over ICE would make it cheaper to run.
For US, the main reason for an EV is removing point of use emissions from areas of population - and it's FAR cheaper to drive to town and park for an hour or 2 than to take a nasty smelly bus from 1/4 mile away from home to 1/4 mile away from where we want to be!
 
The original tesla model S was designed for battery swapping. Chargers made more sense then and still make more sense for most uses.

Battery swap is better for huge machinery where you want to have all day / 24 hour running so you'd have spare batteries that are on charge waiting to be swapped in when needed.

The main issue I see with battery swap being easy in the UK is scrotes. If you make it easy to swap then it's easier to get out. Scrotes would be stealing them all the time.
 
Swapping would need to be done by automated machinery, possibly from underneath. I'm sure it could have been done well, but it won't happen in the western world now.

Home charging makes more sense if you own the battery and it can't be removed, although swappable batteries should not prevent it.
 
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ancient_mariner said:
Swapping would need to be done by automated machinery, possibly from underneath. I'm sure it could have been done well, but it won't happen in the western world now.

Home charging makes more sense if you own the battery and it can't be removed, although swappable batteries should not prevent it.
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From what I've seen, it's similar to a garage lift from the floor and looks to be possible in 60-100 seconds. The other consideration is that swapping batteries mitigates the whole rapid charge to 80% thing (to preserve battery life etc). Instead, you'd get a 100% charged battery that can be charged overnight in advance, thus taking away stress on the grid as well.

I'm looking at the objections, yet China is apparently not only managing it just fine but it's growing as well. I appreciate China has advantages over the Western world due to their political makeup, resources etc, but from a technical point of view it would not appear to be a problem.

The ongoing elephant in the room is the amount of people who cannot charge at home who are currently subject to the high costs of rapid charging. Although like rapid charging, even battery swapping doesn't offer a level playing field because those with solar, home batteries etc will always have the advantage once their ROI goes positive. With ICE we all had to use the petrol station.

If battery swapping became widespread in the UK and the swap cost was reasonable, then it would certainly open the door to EV for me.
 
gman said:
From what I've seen, it's similar to a garage lift from the floor and looks to be possible in 60-100 seconds. The other consideration is that swapping batteries mitigates the whole rapid charge to 80% thing (to preserve battery life etc). Instead, you'd get a 100% charged battery that can be charged overnight in advance, thus taking away stress on the grid as well.

I'm looking at the objections, yet China is apparently not only managing it just fine but it's growing as well. I appreciate China has advantages over the Western world due to their political makeup, resources etc, but from a technical point of view it would not appear to be a problem.

The ongoing elephant in the room is the amount of people who cannot charge at home who are currently subject to the high costs of rapid charging. Although like rapid charging, even battery swapping doesn't offer a level playing field because those with solar, home batteries etc will always have the advantage once their ROI goes positive. With ICE we all had to use the petrol station.

If battery swapping became widespread in the UK and the swap cost was reasonable, then it would certainly open the door to EV for me.
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The problem with it for me is it will become just another "thing" that somehow has to be accommodated. AFAIK no car in the UK currently has a "cassette" type battery, and as some on here believe EV's will last as long as an ICE car at what point will rapid chargers disappear and be replaced with cassette type battery set up that will obviously take up a lot more space?
 
It really needed to be planned in from the start to be effective.
 
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Battery swapping sounds really easy until you are running a car which is obsolete. If the supply of batteries dries up there will be no swapping. People will hang on to their batteries as they don't want to wait for a month to get a battery which could be on its last legs. With no swapping of those batteries, they become unprofitable and the businesses drop them. I think there will be no classic EVs, just huge amounts of valueless scrap vehicles which no one wants.

To avoid this you need to standardise and stop development around the interfaces. This is not necessarily a good idea. Potentially, it would stifle innovation. Imagine all computers ran on USB1 interfaces.
 
Battery interconnectivity should be very different from the ever-increasing need for data bandwidth. A British standard 3 pin plug from 1960 will fit a standardwall socket made in 2025. With careful engineering it should be possible to create a connector system that should last more than 30 years - it's not like batteries are going to have to deliver unimaginable amounts of power in the future, and for ordinary domestic vehicles peak power draw is unlikely to be enormous any more than we need IC engines putting out hundreds of horsepower for normal driving. There's no eeason interchangeable battery vehicles should not be able to plug in and charge AS WELL - the systems should not be exclusive - but we've badly missed a trick here.
 
Erty said:
People will hang on to their batteries as they don't want to wait for a month to get a battery which could be on its last legs.
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With a swapping system you wouldn't own the battery, and there would need to be standards set for minimum range with batteries being maintained by the provider. It's also very likely that as energy density is improved that a battery pack giving 200 miles now might well do 400 miles with sodium tech.
 
ancient_mariner said:
With a swapping system you wouldn't own the battery, and there would need to be standards set for minimum range with batteries being maintained by the provider. It's also very likely that as energy density is improved that a battery pack giving 200 miles now might well do 400 miles with sodium tech.
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You don't own the battery but you do possess it, so the good ones get kept by owners that can recharge. Minimum range would be hard to prove and there would be a commercial imperative to keep underperforming batteries going (particularly if replacements are hard to get). You say the battery was under spec, they say your driving style reduced range. If you get difficult, they just say it is not available any more and then you are going nowhere.

There would be little reason for a car manufacturer to give you type approval for a new type of battery for an old car. I'm sure they would offer you a trade in on your old vehicle if you want better range. They will make more money by selling a new car.
 
Fairly sure that MOT pass certificates can be bought on line with the vehicle never being seen by the "tester".
 
munch said:
The problem with it for me is it will become just another "thing" that somehow has to be accommodated. AFAIK no car in the UK currently has a "cassette" type battery, and as some on here believe EV's will last as long as an ICE car at what point will rapid chargers disappear and be replaced with cassette type battery set up that will obviously take up a lot more space?
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I'm not sure I really follow your first sentence, but isn't anything that is standardised something that needs to be accommodated? Apple have moved to USB-C etc.

Re. battery swap, as I say it seems to be growing in China, so presumably they are making it work.
 
IMO that doesn't take it far enough - move the plates from a dodgy vehicle to a sound one in moments! Harder to do with VINs.
Of course, there are plenty of vehicles on the road that don't need MOTs - sometimes those that really need some sort of safety test!
 
Erty said:
Battery swapping sounds really easy until you are running a car which is obsolete. If the supply of batteries dries up there will be no swapping. People will hang on to their batteries as they don't want to wait for a month to get a battery which could be on its last legs. With no swapping of those batteries, they become unprofitable and the businesses drop them. I think there will be no classic EVs, just huge amounts of valueless scrap vehicles which no one wants.

To avoid this you need to standardise and stop development around the interfaces. This is not necessarily a good idea. Potentially, it would stifle innovation. Imagine all computers ran on USB1 interfaces.
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Standardisation should mitigate things becoming obsolete too quickly. Besides, similar could be said for car parts after a certain period of time.

I have already mentioned the potential for innovation being stifled, but as I also said, battery swap doesn't have to be the only option and manufacturers could still provide cars that can only be charged and give people the choice.

Also as said, it could take pressure off the grid.
 
Nod said:
Only because they were forced to!
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And the reasons for doing so were.... ;)

I believe they had already adapted many of their other products to USB-C anyway. Personally, I think it was a good thing.
 
When guys were removing a battery from an ev for any reason it was my job to stand quietly nearby with a large wooden pole, my job was-in the event of a accident- to decouple the tech from the energy source, not quite how I described the process to the techs though,
 
mj4456 said:
When guys were removing a battery from an ev for any reason it was my job to stand quietly nearby with a large wooden pole, my job was-in the event of a accident- to decouple the tech from the energy source, not quite how I described the process to the techs though,
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You mean you were going to pry the connector out of the technician's rigid hand before he cooked?
 
Nod said:
IMO that doesn't take it far enough - move the plates from a dodgy vehicle to a sound one in moments! Harder to do with VINs.
Of course, there are plenty of vehicles on the road that don't need MOTs - sometimes those that really need some sort of safety test!
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There are obviously those cars about out there, but I don't know anyone who has the same cars in the same colour as me, my wife and my kids or her kids too swap plates with.

I don't agree with the no MOT thing personally. I keep my Escort MOT'd ever year. If not an MOT, there should be some sort of more basic test imo
 
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Just a modified/simplified MOT. Hell, the test for a motorbike isn't complicated!
 
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LeeRatters said:
There are obviously those cars about out there, but I don't know anyone who has the same cars in the same colour as me, my wife and my kids or her kids too swap plates with.

I don't agree with the no MOT thing personally. I keep my Escort MOT'd ever year. If not an MOT, there should be some sort of more basic test imo
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Don't go to the Isle of Man then. No MOT requirement there.
 
Erty said:
You mean you were going to pry the connector out of the technician's rigid hand before he cooked?
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Impossible to do while the DC current was live and running through them.
 
munch said:
Don't go to the Isle of Man then. No MOT requirement there.
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I won't :) I'm more than capable of mechanical work, the Escort has had multiple engine and gearbox swaps plus most other things over the years including a restoration, but I still like to have another set of eyes look over it even though it only does little mileage.
 
Steep said:
Impossible to do while the DC current was live and running through them.
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If I hit them hard enough and often enough that was the theory, I was just hoping for an excuse to batter one or two of them, Kia supplied stick btw, I wanted to upgrade to the improved version, part no baseballbat. ;)
 
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gman said:
Has the testing procedure changed?
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Not a tester or in the trade now but the guys would tell me can’t stop or change routine, I’m logged on. There must be a method of bypass as my cars braking test is done with a Tapley device rather than on the rollers.
 
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Erty said:
Minimum range would be hard to prove and there would be a commercial imperative to keep underperforming batteries going (particularly if replacements are hard to get)
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There's no magic in this technology, and battery capacity can also be measured readily. A business might choose to supply duff batteries, but they would get a reputation for poor performance. And the car makers would not get to type approve the batteries alone, but rather a regulator would do so.
 
ancient_mariner said:
There's no magic in this technology, and battery capacity can also be measured readily. A business might choose to supply duff batteries, but they would get a reputation for poor performance. And the car makers would not get to type approve the batteries alone, but rather a regulator would do so.
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Sure, but where else are you going to go? The only alternative is to buy another car. The exchange model works best when there is only one company (the car supplier) supplying the battery. What reason would they have to let you use someone else's battery when they can lock you in to coming back, time after time, to use their product?

We see this in cameras where what is essentially the same battery has different connectors on different brands. But camera batteries are tiny, don't burn for hours if they go wrong and are not put into a vehicle that has to comply with all sorts of legislation. If EV batteries were removable, the manufacturers would ensure that only their ones are available.
 
Erty said:
Sure, but where else are you going to go? The only alternative is to buy another car. The exchange model works best when there is only one company (the car supplier) supplying the battery. What reason would they have to let you use someone else's battery when they can lock you in to coming back, time after time, to use their product?

We see this in cameras where what is essentially the same battery has different connectors on different brands. But camera batteries are tiny, don't burn for hours if they go wrong and are not put into a vehicle that has to comply with all sorts of legislation. If EV batteries were removable, the manufacturers would ensure that only their ones are available.
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It would require legislation of the kind that forces Apple to fit USB-C charging or the kind that the Chinese Gov can simply impose. The car makers could not be allowed to lock out others. You would no more be discouraged from buying their car again by this than you would be discouraged from buying a Volkswagen when filling at a Shell garage.

There's no magic in battery tech, only understood engineering and technology. There is no reason why a car maker must be a battery maker too.
 
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