Standardisation or Bust!

Someone really needs to step up to the plate here and get things moving, I don't know if that's auto-makers that need to work together or the government that has to mandate things...

If each car company builds there own battery pack size, style, etc, there is going to be chaos, and nothing will catch on. If there was one standardized pack, you could pull into a 'gas station' anywhere around the planet, and get a freshly charged pack plugged in within a few minutes. Then you could hop back in your electric car and keep on car-ing (looking for the synonym for trucking)??

I know it will take a while to flush out a winner, it always does. Think of the Beta tape vs. VHS, DVD-R and DVD+R, Firefox and Internet Explorer, and the list goes on.

Do you really think that the 'swap battery' station is a viable option?

What happens to your battery pack? If you buy an electric car, and it comes with a battery pack, why would I want to swap out for some other battery pack at a station just because it's charged? What's to say that battery will last as long, charge as well, and not be 10 years old?

I agree. I would not pull my brand new Nissan Leaf into a gas station and swap for someone's old and possibly mis-used batter pack. This would only work if you had some sort of subscription plan and never actually 'purchased' a battery pack, because then people wouldn't care about swapping it with a different pack at a pit stop.

Side note: is there a way you can 'misuse' a battery pack? if there is no memory and they can be charged at anytime, then I guess there would be no way to misuse it...

Evguy, misuse of a battery pack can become evident after years of charge and discharge cycles. So, let's assume you buy your new nissan leaf with a brand new pack and swap it for a one that has been for number of reasons been abused, left outside in the sun or who knows what other misuse "techniques" could be possible out there. So you get a semi-functional pack and it gets worse while you drive and then you decide to swap this crappy battery pack but the gas station staff find the problem and you're busted...I guess you wouldn't be too happy about spending another $10,000 bucks for a new pack lol...
My opinion is, keep the bloody pack in your car as you the real owner of the car can take a good care of your precious item, which is technically the heart of EV...
Yes, charging won't be as convenient and fast as if you'd swap the pack but there is a certain amount of pleasure in that factor too, planning your trips, driving carefully while observing your on board spaceship cockpit style computer lol, charging it every night etc...
Priceless...

I sort of agree TOkyoTony. People that are looking at buying the Nissan Leaf, and people that are on this forum, are generally all of the same mindset. They want an electric vehicle for lots of reasons, and it's definitely partly because of the novelty/experience of it!

However, once electric cars become more mainstream, I think there will be more and more 'careless' or in a hurry people driving them, and that's when the swappable battery packs will become useful and convenient.

Until then, it won't matter... except that for that to work, Nissan has to build their cars in such a way that the packs CAN be swapped at a station.

That's what she said. Ha! Just beating stupid to it.

Yep :lol:

You beat me to it, but that's what SHE SAID!!

Hey, try to keep it on topic, this is a Nissan Leaf forum!

(really I'm just annoyed that you managed to get he last word in haha!)

I think the Nissan missed the boat. The Leaf is already full engineered, and almost in production and I'm pretty sure the battery pack being under the floor boards in multiple locations isn't easily swappable.

I also agree with the posts above about how if the battery pack was swappable, you'd get some crappy battery that someone else had wrecked.

I think what's more likely is that battery pack technology will increase so that either the 100 mile range will increase, or the battery will have a super fast quick charge, like 5 or 10 minutes which really isn't much longer than filling up a normal car.

Hey, the Leaf does have 30 minute charge to 80% from a level 3 charger. That's certainly a start.

Faster can be done, but not with a pack like the Leaf's; it doesn't have sufficient cooling.

Swappable batteries are not going to make it. You need to duplicate the infrastructure across an entire country AND have a series of cars that can accept them.

First, there are no engineers ever born that don't firmly believe that they can do it better. One of the side effects is a multiplicity of designs. Second, cars have a complex series of demands to solve. It is virtually impossible, given current energy density in batteries, to design a standard pack that would fit a variety of cars. Third, the economics of staffing qualified 'battery swappers' in a variety of locations for a variety of cars is mind boggling. Finally, the current plug ins are gaining momentum and the standardized plug will proliferate in locations faster than the swappable battery can. It makes one weep at the cascade of money being wasted, but it is all part of the sorting out.

We have standardization.. it' called 60 Hz electricity. It's in a form that's very efficient to move around relative to fossil fuels or rental battery packs.
The Better Place battery swap notion may never be adopted here in the US but might make a go of it in other countries. Better Place has other approaches as well. Give away the car and sell you the electricity (even if you charge at home). Might work. If their car can go a good distance, accept 10 minute charges and they price it right.
I use/rent a lot of stuff I don't own; internet access, jet aircraft, hotel rooms... love using ZipCar in some cities I visit. It's gonna be an interesting and probably expensive decade. Looking forward to doing things more efficiently.