If cross-country road trips are the quintessential American journey of the 20th century, I’m a quintessential American. I’d ridden thrice between Seattle and Boston by the time I was eight. At 17, I drove from Boston to Palo Alto, then back a year later, in a beat up ‘62 Falcon. I crossed the US another eight times—including once respectively by train and bicycle—while a student at Berkeley. Three decades later, I’m longing to do it again. Unfortunately, the 20th century is over. Since it began, the US and world populations have quadrupled. We’re straining world oil production capacity, and the specter of global heating and acidified seas from CO2 emissions is causing cognitive dissonance in my car-loving head. Driving’s future seems uncertain. But a new company, Better Place of Palo Alto, has a plan.
Already, two tiny Massachusetts-sized countries, Israel and Denmark, have signed-up for Better Place’s plan. Another 25 countries, both small and big, as well as Hawaii, are reportedly interested. Better Place offers a few rays of hope for a healthy planet free from thrall to oil-soaked thug-nations. Nonetheless, in this brave new world, the romance of the open road is but a dream.
Why? Batteries. And don’t hold your breath for technological deus ex machina. “Electrochemistry is, by definition, hell on materials,” says John DeCicco, of the Environmental Defense Fund. Lithium ion phosphate, which will power the Better Place fleets, improves power density and charge-cycle endurance—to a claimed 2,000 cycles. Even so, some 500 lbs. of batteries will limit the Israeli and Danish Renaults’ range to 60 to 100 miles.
By 2011’s end, Better Place promises to blanket Israel’s 10,000 square miles with a grid of 500k charge spots, about 50 per square mile. Israeli customers will be able to replenish their battery at home, at work, and all over the place. If they must push the range limits, they can exchange their depleted battery for a fully charged one in less than five minutes at one of Better Place’s specialized battery swap-out stations—no extra charge. But these will number only 100 in this 290-mile long country. Nonetheless, Israelis and Danes will save big on the 70 percent and 180 percent taxes their respective countries levy on internal combustion engine (ICE) cars.
According to Dan Sperling, battery swapping raises some red flags. Its “many flaws” include “the issue of standardizing across model lines, never mind across car companies,” maintains the director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Davis (who erroneously thought Better Place might be switching to fast charging). Greg Nowell, of SUNY Albany, worries about the cost of transporting all these 500-pound replacement packs to the swap-out stations. He also warns of the possibility that peaks in demand—such as holidays—may present intermittent supply problems.
Should the program come to America, the cost for the mileage contract would run around $500/month. A Better Place spokesperson says the precise figure would vary with mileage. But a substantial monthly rebate would accrue, varying according to local costs and incentives. The EVs would be competitive with ICE cars. You would, in theory, save $10k-12k on the batteries. All this is very roughly equivalent to the cost of new car ownership.
Could it work in a country the size of the U.S.? Better Place says a “mass roll-out” of the infrastructure here would cost $100b. “When compared to the $500 to $600 billion the U.S. spends on oil imports annually, we’re talking about a five year plan that will change our economy,” the spokesperson says.
The EV company says that if 84 percent of America’s 200m cars switched to electricity overnight, no new power plants would be needed. Indeed, all those batteries could aid the transition to renewable energy sources, by storing excess coming off of wind and solar farms.
Competition? All else equal, the far simpler EVs should be cheaper than hybrids (or even conventional ICE) to manufacture and maintain, and potentially more reliable. From government’s point of view, Better Place is great for balance of payments and geopolitics. But “battery electrics won’t out-compete gasoline hybrids anytime soon,” Sperling admits.
That said, Sperling says Better Place is “all very doable,” adding that “there has to be resolve by government, risk-taking by companies, and willingness to change behavior on the part of consumers.” At current gas prices, which he says will not go higher long term without aggressive fuel or carbon taxes, he foresees a market potential of about 25 percent, chiefly among two car households.
Better Place may not be the dream of a high octane pistonhead, but it could well relieve pressure on all that we hold dear.
Seems like a good idea, but…….these Renaults must be pretty small vehicles and it still gives only 60-100 miles range….need atelast double that range to make it practical in US.
this has to be marketed as a second/city car option….trying to keep an inventory of batteries to swap out all over the US will likely be very impractical…especially with a 60-100 mile range.
25% market seems about right, I think….especially if gas prices go higher.
Personally, I think it’s brilliant and wish we’d just do it.
Hey, our bingo the evil clown politicians are just now dumping $700 billion on the ultra-rich to make sure they’re bailed out; $25 billion on the big 3 (that money’ll be evaporated in a matter of months, at their burn rate) and the Dummycrats want yet another $56 billion for homeowner relief, gas prices relief, anything for a vote relief… never mind that people didn’t have a gun to their heads when they bought houses twice the size needed with adjustable rate mortgages…. “it’s not MY fault” and “I want someone ELSE to pay for my benefits” are the mantra of the Dummycrat politician AND public alike.
Not that the Repugnicans are any better…. but I digress.
Aren’t the initial cars based on the mid-sized Renault, about the size of the Kia Optima? I think so…. not “that” tiny.
If changing batteries on EVs were as easy, fast, ubiquitous, and safe as filling up with gas, this effectively solves the EV range problem, without the need for an extra ICE.
The fact that these battery “gas” stations could potentially charge their inventory of batteries with solar, wind, nuclear, and other zero carbon (and terror free) forms of energy is icing on the cake.
The infrastructure cost would be massive, but this is an energy independence “Manhattan Project” that people could get behind.
So you could still drive cross-country, if, say, that country was Chile, and you went width, not length.
With apologies to Kevin Nealon.
How wonderful and ironic it would be if Denmark and Israel would become the countries that would make this plan work.
Replace 500 lbs of batteries in 5 minutes? They will have to spend quite a bit of time working this out so that it could be done safely. If the batteries were arranged into a standard size pallet and inserted/removed from the vehicle with a well-designed hand truck, this could work. You would need to have a battery-jockey on hand to do this – I could not imagine my wife or daughters doing this safely.
Here’s a decent primer on the whole better place idea. Some interesting ideas regarding cars figuring out battery energy/mileage and then realizing it’s a no go and directing you to the nearest battery swap location.
http://www.wired.com/cars/futuretransport/magazine/16-09/ff_agassi?currentPage=all
Edit: Decent – in a hazy love struck Wired.com kind of way.
I have a hard time believing that our current electric grid could handle the increase in demand.
I hear that today’s wind farms have a serious problem connecting to the grid, because it is so convoluted and in gross need of an overhaul.
Wouldn’t a massive rollout of electric cars simply exacerbate that problem?
Matthew Danda :
September 26th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I have a hard time believing that our current electric grid could handle the increase in demand.
Demand is not an issue, for two reasons:
1. Any switch to plug in hybrids or pure electric vehicles would be so slow that it would be factored in to power plant replacement schedules.
2. There is plenty of power at 3 AM. A car that charged from midnight to 5 AM (via a timer) would put absolutely no additional strain on the existing power grid.
One thing I’m in favor of, which doesn’t happen in the United States for the most part, is peak-hour pricing. That is, in July in California, a kilowatt hour at 3 PM should cost triple the same amount of electricity purchased at 3 AM (lots of A/C use at 3 PM). This would be a very good free market solution that would help balance the power load a great deal.
As for the swap-out-batteries-at-chrage stations, I dunno. I doubt that will work, mainly because of the whole standardization problem (for other reasons), plus there’s a certain chicken-and-egg issue as well.
Standardization is possible accross the manufacturers, however likely it would evolve into several different battery packs based on different needs. A simple manual crank window corolla would have different energy requirements than a high electronic roller like a Lexus LS…that problem would turn the replacement stations into clusterfarks.
I see it starting as Battery one for everything. two years down the road it’d turn into A for small cars, Battery B for suvs’/trucks, battery c for trucks, battery D for sports cars, battery e for over electrified audi’s, etc etc,
Think of the battery swapouts like those quick lube drive through oil places. Small(ish) buildings with three bays, drive up, swap drive out. An intriguing concept, but as ususal concept. vs reality….
I like the idea in principle, especially for places with high population density and compact geography.
Two problems I see with this system as a Big Solution type endeavor however. One, this scheme only works in highly developed first-world countries with excellent pre-existing infrastructure like generating stations and power-grids. Not gonna work in Zambia. It also won’t work in Russia, India, Brazil, or China. Those four countries, especially the Big Asians, are going to be far and away the biggest carbon emitters in the world within a couple of decades. Any “solution” to carbon-freedom will only work if it can accommodate the realities on the ground in those countries. This scheme at present will not.
Also, there is the basic physics of energy generation. Moving your oil-burning car to an electric one that charges itself using an oil-burning (or coal, or gas) power station is kinda redundant for freeing yourself from carbon. Whether you make the energy on the car with an ICE, or just store it with a battery, you still need juice and that’s the problem. Reshuffling the cards doesn’t help you win the game. If I have to drive a crappy electric car that still has a carbon footprint, I may as well have a nice car with a carbon footprint.
Interesting idea and for those relatively small countries it probably will be able to work after enough time and money is invested. I just don’t see this as a great solution in the US when it involves such a huge reinvestment in infastructure, like a 20th century idea when we should be moving into the 21st century.
If we are going to go through all that trouble why not just reinvent the entire system and not base it one hauling around 500-1000# of batteries. I see no reason that we couldn’t get a think tank of engineers, car companies, power companies and genious inventors to work out a way to power the cars/truck directly from the road surface in a way that wont zap people dead when they have to get out of their cars. Just put a meter in the car and send people a power bill every month.
The cars could be much lighter and safer than they are now, no batteries, no ICE, just a decent sized motor and maybe a very small battery pack or 250cc engine/generator to power the car for a very limited range on a dirt road when you get off the powered roads. Instead of carting around batteries in our cars we could just make huge batteries warehouses to store the excess power from solar and wind generated locally. Why not start making power generation a requirement for new homes and businesses and just dump the excess into the grid when no one is in the house during the day or businesses are closed at night. Over time we will be able to use les and less of the huge power plants for our needs. I’m talking like a 30-50 year infastructure change here
I really think we need to start thinking outside of the box, I sometimes get the idea it’s not happening. But what do I know with my crazy idealist ideas.
@carnotcycle
Even a coal plant is far more efficient than an automotive ICE. You’re probably halving (or thereabouts) carbon emissions by driving an electric car using coal-fired electricity as compared to an ICE car.
ICE is i believe 15% efficient, coal plant 40% but you do loose in transmission (a little), battery(20%), in running the electric engine and the car is heavier. In total it uses less energy (but probably carbon as coal is 100% carbon and gasoline is not.
Red:Electrifing the main roads is a real possibility but not every road, not even the roads in a suburb. But it does allow driving as a train which is much more efficient
David Holzman: Good thing you brought up the holiday season. Gasoline and diesel are easily storagable but electricity isn’t and it is also the time when consumption of electricity is high (summer-airconditioning, christmaslights) and people drive a lot
I don’t get the swappable batteries idea. It seems incredibly clumsy and completely lacking in the elegance of a really good solution.
If hydrogen fuel cells can be made to work and be cost effective they make much more sense. A fuel cell is really just a different kind of a battery. A battery is, by definition, a means for converting chemical energy into electrical energy. A fuel cell is a battery where the chemical storage material is swapped out rather than being recharged.
Hydrogen fuel cells are a much more elegant solution than the battery swap idea. Hydrogen can be a universal interface to any vehicle while batteries would need to be standardized, greatly limiting the types of vehicles which could be accommodated.
I expect that many hundreds of millions of dollars will go down the Better Place rat hole but that the effort will fail in the end because it is a matter of trying to force fit existing technology into a new solution.
I came up with this idea in high school when the electric car bug bit me. Of course, I have since seen the error of my ways.
First of all, all those batteries run into deep discharge are going to fail at a high rate. If they’re not run into deep discharge, either the burn rate has to go down or the distance travelled goes down drastically. No matter which battery you pick, unless you pick one of the iron-based ones, you have tons of toxic waste to contend with even when reconditioning. The cost of this is pretty high, and it is also energy-intensive.
There has been a fuel for some time now that has excellent properties for reducing dependence on foreign energy, and that is methanol. Methanol can be cheaply reformed from natural gas, somewhat less cheaply from ethanol, gasoline, even coal.
For those who prefer the ICE, methanol can be run in both diesel and gasoline engines at the expense of some remapping and improvements in the fuel handling hardware. Methanol allows a higher compression ratio than gasoline, which means higher specific horsepower, although lower specific power in the fuel, meaning lower fuel mileage.
For those enamored of eletric vehicles, the methanol fuel cell is very nearly ready for prime time, a lot farther along than the hydrogen fuel cell. Also, methanol is a liquid at room temperature, which is a simply massive advantage over hydrogen. It also has a lot higher energy density for the overall system, given the much lower weight of the storage vessel and the carbon in methanol, which stores more energy than hydrogen.
The fun thing is that the existing gasoline infrastructure would be useful with minimum modifications for deploying methanol. There are concerns over the toxicity of methanol, which is high, but our current infrastructure requires containment vessels and so on already due to MTBE, which is much worse.
The hydrogen guys are just nuts; the thermal cycle of production, compression, decompression, combustion or use in a fuel cell is really quite inefficient and hydrogen’s specific energy is low, coupled with large and heavy equipment to handle it safely.
The battery guys are nuts. No system in the near future is going to even approach the efficiency of the gasoline engine when the big picture is considered. Take a 40 mpg compact; Toyota has one, as well as many other makers. Now, factor in the yearly energy cost of replacing a large stack of batteries. Add the 20% line loss to the 40% efficiency of generation. Then consider how much heavier the battery-equipped car is than the gasoline car. And all of this is beside the point when you start inspecting the disaster that is a punctured set of batteries, with, ie, lithium all over the place. And all this is ignoring the fact that the energy likely came from coal or natural gas in the first place.
The simple fact, imho, is that if the market is left alone and subsidies to grain companies cease, rendering ethanol the horrifically expensive idea that it is, eventually the market will switch to methanol, or something not invented yet. Even hybrids make little sense when the entire system is analyzed.
My impression is that some countries believe in big infrastructural projects, but the U.S. does not. And belief is the first necessary step towards fruition.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but where is the U.S. in terms of modern airports, modern high-speed automotive highways, modern public transport, a ubiquitous information infrastructure, and transmission of electricity? I’d say some of the Asians are first-rate, some of the Europeans are second-rate, and the U.S. is often third-rate.
American universities are the envy of the world. No place is better for starting a company. The power of the U.S.’s military is overwhelming. But a system for enabling long-distance electric-car transportation? Sounds like 100% wishful thinking.
My big problem with battery swaps has been the cost of the battery. Think about how comfortable you would be with some minimum wage lackey replacing a $5000 piece of your car a few times a week.
This article gives me some hope for the idea, though. If I’m just leasing my battery from Better Place, I don’t care if they happen to give me a rotten battery. I just trade it back in for yet another and they say “sorry about that.” Since Better Place owns that part of the car, I’m not so worried.
There are still big engineering questions, but the economics questions are now solvable.
John Horner : Hydrogen is also a battery. If you make it from electricity it is less efficient than a battery and if you make it from gas then the question is why don’t you use a “hydrocarbon” fuel cell (which is probably a black box that converts carbonhybrids into H2 and than a H2 fuel cell).
The nozels need to be standardized and if you make a battery for more than one make of car than it is likely a square box placed under the front seats. The weight of it is so high that it needs to be moved mechanically anyway so a simple robot arm should be used who places it automatically.
Another issue with electric vehicles is that their requirments are completely different from direct ICE transmission vehicls. For example rear wheel or four wheel drive would be would be much easier with a car build on a platform specially designed for electric vehicles and if a sigficant number of cars are electric driven than the probability that the big roads will have an “electric rail” system for getting the electricity from the grid is about 1
Redbarchetta is on to something. While battswap might make sense in small lands with (as Martin points out) good existing electric infrastructure, or maybe in cities in big lands like US, what about the vast rest of the world just getting into cars? Ultimately battswap is a kludge for a 19th century invention that blossomed in the 20th but threatens to overwhelm the 21st.
Not waiting for any techno breakthoughs is the notion of automated cars operating on an intelligent, energized infrastructure. Places ready to build anew — or indeed mostly from scratch if their automobility is still nascent — could pull this off. And — heresey I suspect for most TTACers — won’t driving really be a waste of time for most of a new generation of 21st century folk growing up in a crowded, resource-poor but IT-rich world? Get in your pod on a grid and tell it where you want to go (and what kind of experience, virtual or otherwise, you’d like to have along the way).
Beware of the Project Better Place scheme!
The fact that they use the perverse cell phone business model is an indication that there is something very wrong with this scheme. Unless you believe of course that the shiny highspec cellphone your operator provides you with is really “free” and that your monthly payments actually reflect the costs of your provider.
This scheme is about big capital luring you into a scheme of monthly payments for network costs and battery hire -hell, they’ll even throw in a “free” car if you want- which real monetary value is obfuscated from the public. It wants to bypass the real and presently high costs of electric motoring this way, by hiding them behind a scheme of monthly payments. In the short run this may help to speed up the introduction of electric motoring but in the long run when technology advances this scheme will loose it’s technological and economical relevance.
For instance, the concept of cumbersome battery swapping stations is ridiculous and will soon be overtaken by advancements in battery technology. A123 batteries already claims 80% recharging in less than 15 minutes for it’s Li-ion chemistry. Safe bet that once PBP has grabbed hold of a country it will try to block out new technology. They can only survive if everybody is made dependent on their grid. It’s typical how they work closely with governments of the target market to ensure (monopolistic) exclusivity. They cannot exist alongside newer and more efficient/cheaper technology.
The only sensible element of this plan is a network of recharging points. This should be complemented by a network of high power recharging stations for “quick refills”. To keep things transparent consumers should pay per charge rather than an all inclusive monthly payment scheme.
Beware of the rise of the evil grid lords! They will destroy the promise that electric motoring holds of freedom of dependence of Big Oil by hooking you to a new kind of dependence, this time on their monopolistic power grid.
Entirely practical in Israel, with the limited distances involved.
Sadly, it’s not as if they can choose to go on a long road trip to Tehran or Baghdad.
Oh, be serious, Patrickj! Bombers, fighter-bombers, ICBMs and cruise missiles don’t use battery power!
Israel won’t be going by ROAD to Tehran…
If anyone wants to “skip to the end of the book” (so to speak) re: how the Iran vs. Israel argument will play out, you have to understand that Persia is the old name for Iran, and that Gog = Russia. Read Ezekial Chapter 38 (all of it). But you’d better be sitting down.
This seems like a great thing to try and see what kinks can get worked out of it. Regarding the recharge issue, Intel has developed wireless power solutions that hopefully will be available in the next few years:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/processors/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210200085
Gotta wonder if this can be modified to provide quick charge or “limp home” charging if one gets stuck. In fact, perhaps anytime you’re parked you are simply “on the meter” and the car is fully charged after a few hrs.
Wishful thinking?
@chinar
Seems like a good idea, but…….these Renaults must be pretty small vehicles
They are talking about Renault Lagunas for the initial fleet, which is the Nissan Altima’s platform mate. Not small at all.
@cracker
Replace 500 lbs of batteries in 5 minutes? They will have to spend quite a bit of time working this out so that it could be done safely.
Apparently, they asked Renault/Nissan to come up with a practical solution for fully automatic swap station, and apparently the engineering work on that is finished already.
Great idea! Decrease the demand for gasoline so I can fill up my car for less $$$. I’m for it.
“The EV company says that if 84 percent…”
I won’t even look at the math before crying bullshit on this number. Why? The whole part about excess solar and wind power. If your premises includes a statement like that, how can we trust your conclusion?
The cost to convert the US is just stupid fishy as well. If he says 100B, I would budget 300B.
@Landcrusher
I didn’t check the 84%, but if you figure that much of the charging will take place at night, it seems plausible to me. The excess solar and wind electricity is really a separate issue, the point there is that here is a way to store some of the excess electricity coming off of solar and wind plants. There is NO implication that the 84% depends on new solar and wind. Again, we’re talking about our current electricity supply, not any future electricity supply.
As for the $100B, you may well be right. I don’t vouch for that at all; I’m just reporting what they said. I did check the $500-$600B, and that is roughly the amount of money that’s going abroad for oil annually.
More generally, I find Better Place to be an interesting idea, and a lot of money and big companies (Renault-Nissan) are buying in. But you’re making it sound as if I am taking everything they say at face value. Reread for example the last sentences of the second and third to last paragraphs, and all of paragraph 6 and you will see I am not.
Let’s not forget the supply/demand laws. When transportation is dependent on electricity, the demand for electricity goes up. Then the price or electricity goes up.
So many vital things already demand electricity: (this is where I would list those vital things, but nowadays virtually everything you can think of requires electricity).
Now, add in the extra cost of using electricity for EVERYTHING you do as the price rises with demand. My guess is that gasoline, even at $7.00 a gallon, would still win out. There is a reason gasoline has been the fuel of choice in vehicles for 100 years.
I like the idea of a powered highway, but I’m having trouble grasping the gauge of cable required for the stupendous amount of electricity that a major freeway would require during rush hour. All those Airconditioners running full blast as the cars cruise at speed down the freeway.
One car may take 15-20 kWatts to move at 60mph. So 50,000 cars will take… 750 megawatts of power. Here in Ontario, I think that would be about 1/4 the output of one of the major nuke plants. And that is only 50,000 cars. How many cars are there running in the US during the day?
Cool idea, though.
David,
I am not doubting your skepticism, just their credibility.
Having been on both sides of the sales table, I can tell you that rarely does a good idea need BS to sell. Given the recent fiscal crisis, I can’t see why anyone would think that the interest of large companies lends credibility to an idea anymore either.
Your idea that charging at night would make it workable is believable, but also underlines the BS involved. Solar and wind can’t be the main source if you’re charging at night (unless you have 2 sets of batteries at any rate).
If every flat parking lot in the US was refitted with solar cell carports then we are talking. But then we aren’t talking about mere hundreds of billions either. Also, there are skeptics about the actual efficiency of solar. AFAIK, there aren’t presently any manufacturers who use only solar power to make their solar power collectors.
How efficient is solar after all? I don’t know, but the payback is so long on home solar installations that you have to wonder.
The reason gasoline has been king all this time is that batteries spent a 100 years catching up. Now they are getting close to being the right answer to gasoline for short range driving.
I think folks will need to adjust their expectations to adopt the technology right away.
When I lived overseas the Americans I was stationed there with reacted in different ways.
For those for whom the American way was the only way to live, their time in Italy was a long, long three years. They could not adjust. Some WOULD not adjust.
In the other direction were people like me – rolling with the punches. Live like the locals. Go to the places the locals did and make the most of it. Learn to appreciate the sidewalk cafes and the Italian coffee (OH so much cheaper than Starbucks who I still won’t patronize). Learn to appreciate the siesta and learnt he reasons for its existence.
We were flexible and found Italy to be a real adventure of the best kind. We drove their tiny Fiats, we ate their foods, we visited their cities and mountains, and we wrote home long letters about the fun we’d had and sent pictures to prove it.
I meet alot of the first kind of American today here in the states. They have their lifestyle and they won’t do much that might alter it. There is only one way to progress in America and that is towards more luxury/opulence/spending at whatever cost.
I still find myself in the second group. Ready to adjust where necessary.
I have no idea where the cost of energy is going but I do see the cost of new technology to power my car coming down. At some point the battery cars will be cheap enough to find their way into alot of garages. I’m cheering them on.
To me it is not just about the cost to move a family down the road. To me it is also the value of not having a tailpipe spewing toxic fumes into our air. Yes the powerplants will be busier but we can also offset their load with solar on roofs across the country. We can offset their load with wind wherever possible. If this means some long term grid upgrades then great. More jobs for us. If that means fewer dollars to the oil suppliers around the world then that’s an extra boon to us Americans – helping ourselves help ourselves.
We have the ability to make battery recycling cheaper, cleaner and more infrequent – if we want to. We could do alot more for our environment than we do and we ought to do more.
The cheapest price does not make the right choices. Wal-mart might have the cheapest prices but at what cost? More money out of our country to a communist run country? Cheap goods that don’t last?
It would be cheaper to let our sewage run across the roads and to dump our garbage into the lakes and rivers but fortunately we’ve long seen the mistakes in that. That wasn’t the case in the 60s and even 70s in parts of the country.
What we are seeing now is the possibility that we are going to have a major shift in how we move around the countryside or haul ourselves to work. I’m all for it. Anything that lasts and reduces waste I’m all for.
I hope this change comes without too many business people setting up the process to better benefit them than us the citizens of America. I don’t want this to become a get rich quick scheme for somebody – but real lasting changes for the better.
Oh and for what it is worth, changing those batteries by robot would be really, really easy. Standardized batteries, standardized hardware, and possibly a few targets the look and size of the backup sensors on large SUVs would be enough for the robot to find and replace a vehicle battery.
Suggestion: go to YouTube and search for “Phoenix Motor Cars SUT”.
The vehicle/price/specs/delivery date is ever evolving so don’t thing the videos from last years means a whole lot this year.
However – the vehicle is real. It does work. And I’d buy one today if I could afford one.
Yeah, I could buy one today if I wanted to go into debt up to my eyeballs. Would rather not.
We spend alot of time here at TTAC talking about the Tesla, not so much about the other manufacturers like MilesEV and PMC.
There is some really interesting products coming down the pipe. I REALLY hope the independents reach market at max capacity before the big three. That would give us more choices from the big-three AND the independents in the long run. Would like to see market share more balanced and more automakers in a decade. That way no one automaker can upset our economy like the failure of one of the big three.
Landcrusher,
I think you’re still missing the point about the solar/wind. This has very little to do with the practicality of BP. It’s more a side benefit for solar and wind production. I.E., if there were a lot of solar and wind, say, 10 years in the future, so that more was produced than could be load managed, or stored, say, in flow batteries if that works out, car batteries would represent a place to put some of that excess electricity. But this is not part of BP’s plan. It’s more of a possible potential benefit for the wind/solar industry.
David,
If it’s just a side benefit, then they would help themselves by not bringing it up. It makes me question their credibility and therefore, everything they say.
The side benefit is impractical at best. Unless you start plugging the cars into the grid during the day (which most places have zero infrastructure for), you won’t be able to store any excess capacity from solar and wind that mostly only produce during the day.
Joeaverage,
You have an excellent point. Let’s all hope that the many of the new vehicle innovations bring us new competitors to the market place. While we are hoping, how about let’s do something about it and stop subsidizing the entrenched competition.
Wind does not have a significant night/day rhythm. Solar has but daytime consumption of electricity is so much higher than nighttime consumption (and a lot of electricity use is shifted to the night because electricity is than cheaper) that the problem only starts to appear when solar is a big share of total electricity production and than first in the weekends.