There was recently a diary posing the question of whether battery-swapping could improve EV adoption. I wanted to answer that valid question more expansively than a comment lends itself to. This community takes Global Warming seriously, and EVs are a huge part of accelerating the world’s transition to sustainable energy, so understanding how the EV market is helpful.
Battery swapping is just like it sounds, and is very common in electric power tools. Tesla once demo’d the capability in a direct comparison to filling a gas tank, (spoiler, the battery swap was faster), but never implemented it for the reasons below.
1. Battery shortages are limiting EV production. Ignore short term chip shortages and supply chain issues, the primary limiting factor in EV production is that manufacturers can’t buy enough battery cells to power more cars. This is why manufacturers are throwing money at joint ventures with existing cell producers such as LG Chem, CATL, BYD, Panasonic and Samsung, and new ones like Northvolt. And this is why Tesla fans have spent years responding to announcements of other brands’ “Tesla Killer” models with the question, “And where are they going to get the cells?”
2. The battery is the most expensive component in the car, and the manufacturer needs to be paid for the whole thing when it goes out the door. The company building the battery makes a profit selling cells to EV manufacturers, but that doesn’t mean the EV is profitable. Economics of EVs require building at scale before unit costs drop enough for the car to be profitable. That’s why the government offered a $7,500 incentive for the first 200,000 units produced...it was meant to offer runway for brands to ramp up EV production volume and achieve economies of scale. It worked...for the one manufacturer who genuinely ramped up production volume. But even they would have failed had they needed to build more than one battery for every EV that went out the door. Manufacturing at scale is extremely difficult, and in a competitive marketplace there simply isn’t room to incur the massive expense of building extra batteries to sit on racks at swapping stations. And that’s before thieves start knocking off swapping stations.
3. Over 90% of use cases are met by what fast-charging already offers. The average American commutes less than 29 miles each way, meaning even a second generation EV like the Chevy Bolt is enough to meet most daily driver needs. Third generation EVs offer about 250 mile range for standard models, and 300+ miles range for long range models, which is enough to be the only car for most people. And once cell-supply catches up with EV demand, production volumes will climb and EV prices will drop below gas equivalents across all major vehicle segments. That’s because gas engines are mature technology...it simply isn’t possible to reduce the cost of building one by 14-18% per year, which is the rate of improvement of batteries. That’s why ICE vehicles will be unable compete on price (ICE = Internal Combustion Engine), and buyers will make whatever changes are needed to their use case in order to do it with available EVs. There’s an enormous advantage to being able to plug in each night, and leave home fully charged every morning. For those who drive fewer than 50 miles per day, plugging into a standard wall outlet will be enough to top off overnight. [A standard wall outlet adds 4 or 5 miles per hour of charge, and a dryer outlet will add 40-50 miles per hour on almost all third generation EVs.]
4. Improvement in batteries, charging and autonomy. Cell power density and charging speeds are improving every year, making charging faster and less frequent. But autonomous driving is going to revolutionize mobility by giving driving time back to the driver. That is, when the car drives itself, you can text your friends, binge Netflix or sleep rather than drive. Every day more and more people are deciding forego buying a car in favor of exclusively using TaaS, or Transportation as a Service. No more gas stations, insurance companies, mechanics, parking problems or door dings to worry about. As robotaxis come online, the convenience will climb even as the price is dropping. Spend a few hours in traffic watching robotaxi passengers enjoying themselves doing everything except noticing the traffic, and you’ll up to the money-saving, time-giving robotaxi lifestyle in fairly short order. Especially when you know you’re paying more for your worse experience.
TaaS moves battery charging out of sight, because when you press the button on your phone for the trip you want to make, a robotaxi of sufficient charge will show up. Going cross country? You got me, you’l have to sit through charging sessions. But you won’t care, because when you entered your destination the TaaS app told you what time you would arrive, and it was correct. If you know you’re arriving at 2pm, it frankly doesn’t matter if you’re Netflix binge is done on the highway or at a charger...you know when you’re arriving and can relax.
Summary: If batteries were cheap and abundant, the battery-swap model would definitely find a niche. Unfortunately they are expensive and in short supply, meaning vehicle manufacturers are limited to building one per car, and need to get paid for it in full or they won’t be have money to build the next one. Fortunately, existing batteries and EVs already meet 90% of uses cases for personal vehicles, and a growing percentage of use cases for commercial vehicles. By the time battery prices are low enough for the swapping to be viable at scale, other technology improvements will have rendered the need, moot.