This could be the solution to all their problems, via Warmist Geoffrey Lean, who starts the article by blaming a gas necessary for life for all warming
(Telegraph) A faster route to electric vehicles – and their benefits in the battles against oil-dependency and climate change – is being launched in Israel and Denmark early this year. Better Place retains ownership of batteries, removing their cost from the purchase of the car, and has built national networks of changing stations that will replace them when they run down faster than it takes to fill up with petrol. It also sells mobility like mobile phones; customers contract to buy miles rather than minutes and get cars, which like handsets, are relatively cheap. At present it is this breakthrough that looks closest to winning the electric revolution its place in the sun.
OK, so that eliminates the time needed to charge the EVs. Too bad it doesn’t eliminate the necessity to stop every 30-45 minutes to replace the battery. It’d be like taking a trip with someone who has a weak bladder.
Nor does it eliminate the necessity to leave the heat /AC off in order to make it the 40-70 miles per fully charged battery.
[…] expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. … See the rest here: Another Great Idea For Electric Vehicles: Replacing The Battery … ← Electric Vehicles: Real Deal Holyfield? | Solar Feeds World’s first electric car […]
Lets face it, batteries at 0 deg F have very little cranking power….head lights,heater and the rest of the gagets running…..your hundred miles (new battery)will be about 40 miles…electric good idea but needs more science to get better batteries….thats wqhy they won’t sell even at discount….//
This was being tried in Israel a few years back and I never heard of the result.
Because you were replacing the entire battery set, the mileage was actually quite good.
There were some technical issues, but they proclaimed they could be worked out.
Replacing the batteries took only 4 – 5 minutes (similar to a gas tank fill up) and you went on your way. It is a great idea if it can be pulled off technically, although I am not sure where “battery stations” are going to store 100 batteries minimum for a day’s filling.
I will say this though about this line of technology….from what I remember, none of it was state sponsored. None of it was being pushed by the government. It was all private enterprise.
I proposed this idea a couple years ago. Not here…but elsewhere.
Autos that are 1200 lbs. and have quick change battery packs.
The idea is that we pull into a filling station to buy gasoline…..in this case we pull into a filling station and attendents swap out our battery packs for new ones and off we go.
The industry would have to make exchanging batteries very easy as in roll out racks at the push of a button and a new set of batteries would be say 20 bucks.
However the only true way that this idea or electric cars is going to work is either break thrus in battery technology or at least getting solid battery life that will give us 150 miles to a charge rather then the 40-60 they are now doing.
Additionally I have said that an auto should have dual battery packs with a small gasoline engine whose sole function is to recharge the idle battery pack while at the same time providing extra current when accelerating to the main battery pack, thus smoothing out battery drain.
There is a place in this world for battery cars.
However they are not even remotely ready to be embraced en masse and until they bring the costs down to 15k per car they have ZERO hope of selling more then a few each year.
Need to stop and think that battery production is highly toxic to the environment. I have worked in the oil field and found no problem with toxicity. However, I have had patients at the local battery plant and they are sick.
Battery technology hasn’t improved significantly in decades, the first electric car (100 years or so ago) could only do 40 miles before recharging.
Where are the pictures of the lithium mining operations? My guess is the are being supressed. Dead zones that most people wouldn’t want to enter and would be horrifying to greenies.
How long would we keep recharging the batteries? Send them for recycling when they can only move a vehicle 20 miles? How will they charge you for a new set? Can they even measure the health of a set of batteries? The only way I can see to know how healthy a battery pack is, is to make a mark on the battery every time it’s charged. I can also see charging stations not marking the battery as this devalues the battery and will affect their bottom line.
Cold temps where mentioned above, a lead-acid battery loses about 80% of it’s charge at -40, are lithium batteries similar? Are we to have charging stations every 5-10 miles in the northern states? Remember an old battery won’t take you 40 miles. And up north, you will have to turn the heater on just to keep the windshield free of ice.
Having lived up north I can’t imagine being in an electric car and being stuck in a blizzard. You would have to carry survival gear with you, the weight further reducing the maximum mileage traveled between charges.
One last point, all the rechargable batteries (with the exception of non-deep cycle lead-acid batteries) I have require you to discharge the battery completely before recharging, otherwise the battery gets a ‘memory’ after a number of partial ‘topping-off’ charges and loses it’s ability to completly charge.
The life span of oil workers was notoriously short until regulations made it safer. Such regulations do not exist within the mining industry for battery elements yet, but Canada is looking already gearing up to regulate the industry heavily.
Oil and Gas Production Hazards
Anyone who thinks oil production is safe is clueless.
Factually wrong.
Today’s batteries are lighter, able to hold a charge longer, and are able to be recycled. While the electric cars of yesteryear got similar mileage, they also were pushing smaller vehicles, with less weight and in many cases, less speed. It is somewhat of an unfair comparison.
This is true of many batteries, but not true of the newer batteries and technology used in state of the art batteries for cars.
Does that mean batteries will replace the combustion engine? Maybe. Maybe not. There may be markets for an electric car. The key is for private enterprise to develop and not the government to mandate such innovation and research.
Remember that it wasn’t that long ago that the idea of flying was said to be impossible. The idea of flying across the Atlantic was deemed impossible. The idea of flying to the moon was fantasy.
Battery powered vehicles are, for the most part, not practical for the average American family today.
But today is not forever.
” although I am not sure where “battery stations†are going to store 100 batteries minimum for a day’s filling”
No need. The battery is recharged under cooling at the swap station within less than an hour. A swap station needs to store one hours worth of batteries while the first battery is being recharged. If swapping takes about 5 minutes it can swap 12 batteries in an hour so it needs about 12 batteries. The actual numbers and times may differ but that’s the idea.
FirstComment,
I realize that is the idea, but around here the average gas station has about 8 pumps. More have 12 – 16 pumps. If the idea is to replace the common gas station, you are going to need to be able to service the same amount of customers. Even given the number of 12 battery sways per hour, for an 8 pump station you still need 72 batteries on hand.
I don’t believe the technology has gotten to the point of a one hour charge yet (I thought I read somewhere the charge was about 2 hours) but it could be out there. So the average station is going to need somewhere on the line of 72 – 144 battery packs.
Given the packs weigh upwards of 1000 lbs and are roughly 1 half the footprint of the car itself, we are not talking about an insignificant storage and handling capability.
We are both guessing on numbers and that is a fun exercise.
The swap stations are intended as range extenders only. Assuming everybody switches to electric cars, the majority of recharging would take place while the car is parked. At work, at home and in public parking lots. The overwhelming majority of car rides are within range of the EV and we assume that battery technology will improve somewhat. But even if it doesn’t, the number of cars which need to swap batteries will not be the same as the number of customers which need to fill a tank. The locations will differ as well. I assume there will be less need for swap stations in cities and more between cities. Of course the transition will be gradual and time will tell.