Why not have battery CHANGING stations instead?

Why not have battery CHANGING stations instead of charging stations? Make the battery easy access and when out of power, just replace with a fully charged battery?

Where? Why not start with all Nissan dealerships? Sure there is still not enough dealerships compared to gas stations, at least its a start =).

SAVE THE EARTH!

Interesting idea.

I don't know that there are even that many Nissan Dealerships that could provide the service, although I guess the Nissan Leaf itself is more for big-city people with less than 100mile regular commutes.

Then I guess they couldn't charge for the battery when you buy the Nissan Leaf because you'd be paying lots for a new battery, then the first time you swap you end up with a used battery!

Meh.

There will never be good enough standardization across brands, across models, across luxury levels, across energy consumption demands (motorcycle versus freight truck), across shapes, across weight distributions, and so forth. And tech advances will require stocking each generation of battery to boot. And there's all sorts of other lesser issues, such as the durability of connectors when you're dealing with such high currents and voltages.

Rapid charging is the way to go, and thankfully, Nissan is doing that.

Plus, I really don't want my battery pack to be easily removed in 5 minutes. Yes it will be big and yes it will be heavy...but it is also expensive. And when something is expensive, well people like to steal it. Go into Appleby's for dinner and come out to find your LEAF on blocks and the battery removed...eeek.

Now that is an extreme example. A simple example is just this...as Karen says: Fast Charging.

I drive 20 miles a day, most days. So I don't need to worry. The LEAF will always get me to work and back...with plenty of battery to spare if I need to run to the store and hit the gym (and man do I need to hit the gym ). So I charge my battery at home every night and all is good.

Now on the rare times I need to drive over 100 miles, well I can borrow a gas car, or rent a car, or, if the infrastructure is there, I can fast charge my LEAF. Now fast charging isn't great for the battery long term if you do it often. But once and a while for long trips (for me, maybe a few times a year), no biggie. So what we need is gas stations to have fast charging. Or Denny's...more reason to hit the gym...grrr. You drive 80 miles or so and then stop for a grand slam while the car charges and then off you go again.

And this will only get better over time. One: more charge stations will crop up. Businesses will want you to stop a while at their store. Two: battery pack range will increase. What is 100 miles today will be 200 miles in 5 years or so. And with 200 mile range and fast charging, what more do you need? And in 15 years...well the range is likely doubled again.

And for the people with really long range needs, well we still have gas and hybrids till electric really grabs hold.

Gavin

But once and a while for long trips (for me, maybe a few times a year), no biggie

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Yep, that's exactly the issue. Fast charging should be the rare case, not the common case. And as the rare case, what's the problem?

Even for people who wouldn't consider 30 minute charges sufficient for, say, cross-country drives, it's very easy to work into a scenario where it basically doubles your range. Going to a beach 150 miles away? Got a rapid charger halfway, near a restaurant? You eat breakfast and dinner at the restaurant and park at a regular public charging station at the beach while you enjoy yourself. Zero sacrifice, clean, low maintenance, and no stops at gas stations to breathe in those lovely hydrocarbon fumes.

KarenRei said:

But once and a while for long trips (for me, maybe a few times a year), no biggie

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Yep, that's exactly the issue. Fast charging should be the rare case, not the common case. And as the rare case, what's the problem?

Even for people who wouldn't consider 30 minute charges sufficient for, say, cross-country drives, it's very easy to work into a scenario where it basically doubles your range. Going to a beach 150 miles away? Got a rapid charger halfway, near a restaurant? You eat breakfast and dinner at the restaurant and park at a regular public charging station at the beach while you enjoy yourself. Zero sacrifice, clean, low maintenance, and no stops at gas stations to breathe in those lovely hydrocarbon fumes.

Click to expand...

Those fast chargers are amazing already because when I need to go to the beach and can fast charge half way, I do not have to do a full charge but only enough to get me to the beach. There I can charge up for the return trip. So my fast charge will be really fast.

There are several reasons to go with fast charging instead of battery swap.

The battery is the most expensive part of the car. If you have extra batteries for swapping in... who pays for those? And how do you keep them appropriately distributed where they will be needed? It is likely the extra cost (do we need 2 per car? more? less?) of redundant packs that will be the ultimate show-stopper on this one.

Check out a company called Better Place http://www.betterplace.com/. They are already doing battery swaps in t several countries. Soon they will be doing a test program in northern Calif.

I see it good for fleets but not the public.

Not now when electric cars are still not the main stream cars. But 5 to 10 years from now when there are enough EVs around, I think the battery swapping idea will start to take hold more.

Battery swaps are a meh idea (sheez take a 30 minute break for a fast charge), but if you must have speed then a battery lease system is one of the few ways that its practical to do swaps, you dont own the battery.

The Renault Kangoo BEV van just started production in Europe, you buy the van but you lease the battery for 75 euros per month, it works out to be cheaper than fuel. Renault offers a "Quickdrop" system to swap the battery as needed. Renault/Nissan makes the cars and batteries for Project Better Place and they definitely use a battery swap system plus a network of public fast chargers for their customers.

The Renault/Nissan/PBP batteries will go a long ways in standardizing three battery form factors for future cars. They have a flat pack similar to what the Leaf uses for the van, and a square pack that goes behind the rear seats in the Fluence sedan BEV plus an unknown third battery type for a very small city car.

The car would need to be designed for battery swaps from the beginning; it wasn't. Nissan's partner, Renault decided to go with Project Better Place and use battery swapping. Nissan decided to go the quick charge route using the Chademo protocol. There are good points and bad points to each. However when we consider that LEAF was never meant to be driven long distances between cities I believe they made the right call. I would NOT want my well cared for battery to be swapped out for some battery that someone constantly deep cycled, was in extreme heat all the time, was ancient, and/or was subject to very many quick charges. At least the battery I have is the one I know. Swap it out and who knows what you would get.

I agree that it doesn't make much sense the way you seem to be looking at it, where you have a battery that you charge yourself most of the time, and only rarely (say for summer vacation) swap. But it makes a lot more sense if you live in an apartment and can't charge at home or at work, so you swap batteries every day or two; or if you are running a taxi, and swap batteries a couple of times a day.

Ray

I believe that if battery swap stations expand past fleet services, the Nissan LEAF could probably be modified to perform swapping. If you're familiar with the battery adapters that allow you to put a AA battery in a D battery spot, that's kinda what I'm thinking will happen. The swap stations will have their "battery," but it will go into an "adapter" that is already mounted where the original battery was. Electronics and such would be a part of that adapter.

Anything is possible, just a matter of time, money, and resources.

It's happening now and for the general public:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/automobiles/a-plug-and-play-plan-for-ev-batteries.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;