The wireless charging would be a game changer for disabled drivers. Having to get your wheelchair out to plug in your car is a pain but if the space is to narrow for your chair it stops being a pain and becomes impossible…..
Didn't someone promise us a robocharger or snake charger years ago? But he'll first give all our paid jobs to robots, and turn us into brain chipped robots, before actually committing to making our life better :)
@@Cloxxki - Yep; but installing wireless chargers instead of cables would be so much better; if all manufacturers built cars with the plate in the same place (ie between the front wheels or in the centre) ever car could park the same and change the same; today the sockets are all over the place so charging at some chargers is harder by having to park in different ways / angles….
@@nc3826 - True battery swap is better in many ways, but if there’s 10 cars wanting battery swaps at the same time it won’t work; that’s why charging stations have multiple chargers. If they can build lots of battery swap locations that can handle several cars at a time great….but you’d have to build all cars with a fixed battery shape and be removed in the same way or you’ll have to go to a fixed station that’s for your make of car only…which wouldn’t work; that would be like a petrol car that car only run on Shell fuel and a different one that only runs on BP….
Standards. Both these options, and cable charging, should be built to standards manufacturers must adhere to, so that only one set of infrastructure is needed.
And that's one of the HUGE problems. Aside from the fact that it's so difficult to get manufacturers from different countries to all agree on standards you also limit the current rapid evolution of battery design which would be a big issue for battery swapping. Now is not the time to set a standard for batteries. Some manufacturers are modifying and improving their battery designs and chemistry every few months.
@@MrAdopado I think at the point you're talking about infrastructure installations for mass adoption, it's time to talk about standards. Batteries fine: but form factors, safety regs for housings, standard docking mechanisms for removable batteries, that kind of thing. Keep it about the form factor and the interfaces and manufacturers are free to persue battery chemistries and such as much as they like, within those constraints. Standards doesn't mean *one* standard for all vehicles, but it does mean agreeing some basic classes, categories and yes, some constraints. It's one thing talking about infrastructure experimentation in America and Australia with masses of space. It's quite another to talk about Europe and India. Agree they need to have quite a good range in those constraints when it comes to form factor: need to allow different shapes in order to account for unknown chemistries. But for hotswap battery designs this has to be in place: we can't install nationwide manufacturer specific infrastructure for every vehicle manufacturer. Tesla should only have been allowed to do that on *condition* that they open them up after a certain time. We have some standards for charging connections: we need to avoid more and get to usb-style standard asap. Hot swaps and induction pads with street level infrastructure that might be peculiar to a certain car supplier is not on. That should be civil infrastructure. If the auto companies want to sponsor them so they can have their logo on, fine.
@@jezlawrence720 "we can't install nationwide manufacturer specific infrastructure for every vehicle manufacturer. Tesla should only have been allowed to do that on condition that they open them up after a certain time." ... that's exactly what they have started doing. Netherlands is already open to all. Thank goodness Tesla took the initiative otherwise decent charging infrastructure would never have got off the ground.
@@lecisko Because battery technology is advancing quite quickly. In a few years time there will be better batteries with much better energy density, charging speeds and lower depreciation. Being able to swap a battery is better than change the car as a whole.
I love the idea of battery swapping in that you don’t need to worry that the battery will degrade, and you could potentially upgrade or downgrade you're battery capacity if you're headed on a longer trip but typically only drive in the city.
But at the same time this ignores ecological concerns and is a spinoff from a wasteful consumer economy. They speak of swapping-in a 100% charged battery, when it is well-known repetitive charging to 100% greatly reduces battery life; and it appears likely these will have been subjected to DC fast-charging, another no-no for decent battery life. This was a very shallow and biased piece of reporting... The only 'downside' they listed was it being limited to one brand of car from China! Yeah, let's all join a race to the bottom of our resources for battery manufacturing... Similar caution is needed about the ease of wireless charging. At least they did mention that this remains under control of the car's on board charge management, and also suggested (without saying why) that wireless home charging could be slower (it should be). Beware of the hype!
@@EdMorbius46 some battery technology doesn't "mind" being charged to 100%, I think its the LiFePo chemistry, which Tesla is fitting to its non-long range cars IIRC.
@@StephenMatrese I think people are more bothered owning a battery second hand because the risk is all yours. Most battery-rental agreements will replace the battery if it falls below x%, you don't get that privately if the car warranty isn't transferable (many aren't).
I believe that NIO can add wireless charging capacity to every battery in the future so cars can both swap and wirelessly charge. NIO already has the patent for wireless charging.
@@StephenMatrese tell that to disabled people. While an EV has a benefit of being able to charge at home, the physical act of running a cable and plugging in isn't easily available for everyone. Wireless charging avoids this.
@@StephenMatrese wireless charging is not less effective than pugging it in. Watch Teslabjørn's videos of the same wireless charging location shown in this video.
@@dootu When you choose to lease the battery on Nio, you get A total of 600kWh energy from them each month. And it's up to you if you use battery swap stations or plugging it in and charge.
Both technologies are very interesting. My issue with wireless charging is the efficiency. I would love to hear their numbers compared to wired charging. Usually wireless charging in consumer electronics is considerably less efficient and it's not very environment friendly. But the appeal of this for public transportation is so tempting. It just makes sense.
In tests done by Bjorn Nyland, the wireless charger proved more efficient than a wired charger (86% vs 77%) probably due to the fact that the charging cable size is restricted to maintain flexibility and reduce weight whereas for wireless charging the cable can be oversized without compromising ergonomics.
They had someone on the podcast a year or two ago from a wireless charging company that claimed the efficiency was comparable. Bjorn Nyland actually had a test where the wireless was MORE efficient... though I think that was very circumstantial. The thing to remember about cable charging is that as the cable heats up, the efficiency drops. So if the cable can be kept short, then I'm guessing it would usually beat the wireless charging for efficiency? However, given what they pointed out in this video about wireless charging enabling vehicles to have smaller batteries and therefore have more efficient driving, any efficiency losses vs wired charging I think are more than made up for in the long run.
The wireless charging can be improved if the transmitter on the floor is raised or the receiver in the car is lowered. It just need a small mechanical adaption. Correct me if I'm wrong.
@@ricnyc2759 this may be the case - but the point about wireless charging is that its meant to be passive. You drive over something and it charges! If something has to move there has to be a motor, sensors etc. Then there's extra maintenance, waterproofing issues, vandalism, etc etc...... A workable system has to be pragmatic.......!
Yes but the elephant in the room is "dependency". Both of these only work in a perfectly functioning area. When the grid has an issue, a company goes bankrupt, a government shuts something down, you're left with a bunch of vehicles that have very limited range. You'd have to really trust that all dependencies stay up and running perfectly and that there's no social unrest in your country, etc. before giving up the freedom to know you can get in your current vehicle and travel hundreds of miles without stopping, in a moments notice.
@@aussie2uGA There's no reason that both of these, plus regular plug-in charging couldn't be instituted. In fact, I'd argue that the two technologies complement each other quite well with regular plug-in charging. Most people drive in a loop anyway, home to work, work to a store, and then store to home. During this use cycle use a small battery with regular top ups, and charge overnight plugged in. If you need to travel long distances use a five minute hot swap as many times as needed, and when you get to your destination either plug in or switch out for a smaller battery with wireless charging again.
@@stevk5181 I think you’re missing the point I’m illustrating. In good times, everything rolls along as you illustrate. In bad times, war, hacking, etc., your car is now extremely limited to a specific distance. People will just need to be prepared to give up their ability to “go anywhere at anytime”.
@@aussie2uGA "In bad times, war, hacking, etc." your car will be limited regardless be it from gasoline shortages, roads being blocked, or a lack of electricity. If that's your argument then a bicycle is the answer you're looking for.
@@stevk5181 You’re wrong. In the moment of a crisis, regular cars will travel hundreds of miles without needing fuel or charging. These new “small battery” cars are essentially slot cars. Unless you keep plugging in more “electric track”, you’re geofenced to a city.
Battery swapping technique is best for me. Because all battery life is decreasing gradually with the time. So car’s battery also will be updated any time.
I can see the wireless option being valuable to emergency services and Police vehicles. They can have their own micro network at key locations, and they're practically vandal proof.
What I think is one of the essential features of battery swap is upgradeability. NIO is revolutionizing the car industry by allowing users to upgrade their car to newer more powerful batteries, instead of having to buy the new model. That’s genius and a gamechanger.
Not really, as it isn't that hard to change a Tesla battery either. It also means we need 5 times the amount of batteries at least, as you need one in every direction a car could travel each day, and then transport them around too at night so it's ready again the next day. In cities that isn't that hard, now doing that across American Midwest and it all falls apart. And as they said it takes 5 minutes to change the battery, so you save what 15-20 min now, a number that goes down each year. Given that most people also only super charge when they do long trips it makes even less sense, as you need to have a 30-40 min break before the car even needs it. We also have to say we don't know what kind of state the battery you get will be in, is it going to be a old one or one that has been used hard and wrong and suddenly you lose a lot of range. People tend to take care of things they own more than rent.
These two technologies in combination could be a game changer for mass adoption. EVs sold with a permanent 100km range battery (and coil) that have a cavity to load long-range batteries. Wireless charging for city driving and then when you need to take a trip you rent a long-range battery from the swop station.
100km? what on earth are you going to do with it? my old 2019 Nissan Leaf had piss poor IRL range of 170 km and i could barely drive it anywhere as it was. going down to 100km is a big no, just imagine you need to do something urgent or an accident happens and you need to drive to the hospital (happened to me), then queue for a battery swap? i rather much have something than can do at least 400 km every single day no matter rain or snow and THEN swap for a genuine 800-1000 km battery. i can't charge at home so a large battery is a must. and that is why I'm betting on the Nio ET5 next year 👍🏻
@@_TrueDesire_ If it takes as long to change a battery as filling the tank there is no difference. With a major disaster there will be queues for petrol too. Certainly, if you can, invest in a 400km short range extendible to 1000km, but for the mass market a 100km range will get a lot more people into electric. Not to mention that long-range batteries could require 5 years of average driving before hitting GHG parity with an equivalent ICE car. See the Volvo paper recently published. We need short-range EVs with sharable long-range options.
Swapping is a must have. Because say, in 5 years, battery technology and energy density storage gets a boost. Or Lithium-ion gets replaced with a cheaper and better one. I want my car to be able to upgrade to the new tech.
I’m interested to hear how efficient the wireless charging process is. I believe that qi wireless on a phone for example loses a few % of energy to heat and other inefficiencies. Hope that this is more efficient, otherwise if the tech grows and gets adopted by cities around the world, it could have a substantial impact. Furthermore, how does the pad identify that you’re allowed to charge? I’d love to drive around town and get a free charge at a bus stop!
From the tests I have read it looses a couple more percent compared with conductive charging so it is not a massive difference. The conversion losses and heat losses in the battery etc are all still there regardless. I wondered if the block of ice was going to melt 🙂
Teslabjorn tested it at the same location. If i remember right the wireless was even more efficient than the wired charger. They put snow on the pad and it did not melt.
As per the phone analogy at the beginning - why not have both systems? I have always said battery swoping is the way to go: - very fast turn around. - as battery technology gets better, your gets an automatic upgrade. - makes the car cheaper, as you don't buy the batteries. This system could expand by allowing other car manufacturers access to the technology and allowing battery companies to develop a universal battery for all Wireless is also very interesting. Emagine a charging pad being built into stop and give way junctions, all parking bays having one at shopping centres and offices, where a car gets driven to a place and left for up to 8 hours - the average commute is a handful of miles. With this system, a car could recover the majority of the energy used to get it to the office just sitting in the office car park. I like fresh ideas like these, bring them on!
That ease of battery replacement surely means as battery tech improves so does your car! A lighter battery or more range then becomes an option .. just pull up and decide .. Brilliant ! The wireless charging has to be a game changer .. it finally means that Airports ( or other longer term car parks) can offer electric charging without the stations being locked up for all the time the owner is away.
Wireless charging is a game changer. Mostly because it can be done while the vehicle is moving. Imagine a highway where the innermost lane is reserved for BEVs and set up for self driving vehicles with wireless charging. We can have long distance overnight journeys with sleeping passengers. Combine this with programming vehicles to form aerodynamic 'trains' allowing us to approach the efficiencies of rail travel, in what is effectively a private carriage, that has door to door capability. This tech is game changing.
There have been some prototypes for wireless charging on the move but this is not such a system. There are no such systems that have gone beyond the prototype stage as far as I know. It may work out for the future but it's definitely not going to happen quickly enough to match the timescales we need to end our excessive use of fossil fuels. The charging issues need to be accommodated with existing tech or tech that can be mature and distributed within the next couple of years... unfortunately neither of these systems meet that requirement. I definitely thing they should be worked on but they will not be the answer in the short/medium term.
@@Biscoid I'm just not sure how well a battery swap solution will work with so many brands all having their own batteries and battery swapping methods. Think of a charging station, any electric car can charge at any station, even Tesla now allow non-Tesla cars charge at their supercharger. No different to how any ICE car can fuel up at any petrol station. It would be nice if manufactures would settle on a "standard" battery footprint and connection system but we know that isn't going to happen. I think the heavy vehicle battery swap would be a more effective option. On mine sites where there is a fleet of trucks or loaders and they all use the same battery type and they need to keep running 24/7. Sandvik have just released their first machines with this system.
One advantage of swapping batteries is that as battery technology improves, it could be nearly costless (other than the cost to produce the new battery) to upgrade the batteries in the car.
No, because as you swap, you just leave an old pack in the station, so unless it's removed and taken for recycling, it's left for some other poor punter to receive. It's a logistical nightmare.
@@rogerstarkey5390 I don't mean regularly, I mean when there is a significant advancement. Like solid state architecture that halves the size of the battery for example. At that point you take all the old batteries out of the station, hook them up to the grid as simple storage, have everyone change their batteries once, do the same with those. Easy. You don't have to pay a technician hours of labour to tear down the underside of the car to get at the battery. Everyone gets an upgrade at once.
@@andrewdyjach7305 yes, they've done this when the original 70kwh battery became obsolete and did a free upgrade for everyone to the better tech 75kwh batteries. They may go with 800v charging soon and may do the same when the current ones are obsolete, so to speak.
@@andrewdyjach7305 You don't seem to know much about batteries. Think about the logistics to swap a fleet.... assuming they eventually sell large numbers. Also consider the different control systems for the "New" tech cells. They would need to be integrated in the vehicles. that's "Technician time"
The idea of a delivery van depot where the drivers step out of the vehicle at the end of their shift and then the vehicle goes and parks itself on a wireless charging pad feels very much like the future to me.
with battery swapping you can have different capacities, and keep up with pack improvements, a long range for that summer holiday, and short range for the weekly commute
That's great for the small battery owner. Not so great for the driver who bought the big pack and arrives to find everyone upgraded that morning leaving nothing but 60kWh packs? Think it through.
@@rogerstarkey5390good point. I would imagine nio would offer a discount for you to take a smaller battery pack, and you can then charge it till the next spot with a larger battery. Or nio would plan based on data and ensure larger packs are available at holiday times. Just need to ask Elliot to ask the Chinese
@@rogerstarkey5390 pretty sure that’s why there is the booking interface in the car. You can probably either pre-book, or it’ll let you know which stations have the battery you need.
@@chargingabout it is rare, since larger battery packs cost more..... and the stations and the users are connected via an app that shows available... so users just go to the next closest station where it is .available. fwiw RS is just a fanboy troll. who comes up with lame excuses for why he cannot understand how battery swapping can function.... so he never makes a truely good point.... and there are plenty of posts from NIO owners.... that show how it actually works...
Great episode! The real answer to the charging problem is, as with most things, “some of this and some of that”. There’s also no reason these have to be mutually exclusive solutions! I think both approaches will find their niché in time.
FINALLY!!!! Fully Charged is on the leading edge regarding all things electric and now...... They have introduced us to a woman's perspective reviewing electric cars with their newest member of the team Molly. Molly did and EXCELLENT job reviewing the battery swap technology. THANK YOU Fully Charged for making sure a women's perspective is heard!!
Molly did a great job here, but you talk as though you haven't seen Chelsea Sexton, Maddie Moate, or Helen Czerski, each of whom has done many really good Fully Charged episodes. And if you haven't been, thanks for watching those.
I personally think that the wireless charging is the way to go, but once (if) we have an absolute abundance of batteries available, I could see swapping being a great feature. I imagine by then however, charging will be an absolute non issue :P
but judging the wireless charging for our phones are still not that efficient, i find the battery swap more promising. both are good ways to help resolve the EV charging issues. :)
@@eugene4261 I'm not entirely certain this is the same technology. I've seen reports that some wireless charging for cars is up near 95% efficiency. If that's the case here, I imagine it's much more efficient than having extra batteries sitting around not in vehicles (though if they double as grid storage that's dope :D)
I quite liked this video, well done. 3 things I'd like to see here. 1. Graphene Supercapacitors added for even quicker charging. 2. Option to slot in an additional battery if you know your going extra distance. 3. Freeways with charging lanes to charge on the go.
Just a bit of added information for Neo, If you choose to lease the battery instead of buying it, you'll save about $18,000(USD) upfront, and it will cost you about $150 per month to rent the battery. And Neo guarantees that the battery they put in your car has at least 80% of its rated capacity. Considering that most EVs need to have their battery swapped every 5 years to maintain more than 80% of their capacity, it really is quite a good deal. You don't need to worry about depreciation due to battery deterioration, you don't need to pay for charging anymore, you don't need to pay extra to have your battery swapped out, and you save quite a bit of money upfront.
I agree. But wireless charging isn't as efficient as using a cable - some of the energy is leaked to the surroundings (quite a lot in fact). So you require more energy to charge the car, and thus more power stations and grid infrastructure. Wireless phone chargers leak >30% of the energy. There are ways to improve on this, but it's the big Achilles heel of wireless charging in general. I'm very dubious of that company's claims of reducing overall energy use by down-sizing the battery, since the efficiency gain from weight reduction isn't likely to offset the extra charging losses - except in extreme cases, like bus routes that go up a lot of steep hills.
@@markmuir7338as I understand it it's actually more efficient in terms of energy loss and heat. For example it doesn't melt the snow or ice as it doesn't interact with them.
@@peterbrook6866 I'm an electrical engineer. Inductive charging (the technology used here) is inherently a lossy process. The energy is leaked everywhere (the air, the ground, the car's body, the occupants), not just in the gap between the two coils. There are techniques to reduce the losses (e.g. beam forming), but these add cost and complexity, and still can't beat a cable.
@@markmuir7338 Its efficieny is about the same as wired charging, measured grid to battery. Nobody asks for efficieny for wired chargers grid to battery...
Wireless EV charging is rated at around 95% efficiency - these aren't the Qi chargers for your phones. At that rate, a 50kwh charging session might cost an extra $1 or 75p. But somethings to consider beyond the transfer efficiency is Wear and Tear. None of the equipment is exposed to weather. There is no constant equipment contact to wear down connectors. There are no exposed cables or terminals to be damaged, vandalized, or stolen. As EVs become the norm, the absolute savings on maintenance for the charging stations will outweigh the losses due to transfer inefficiencies. In theory, those savings should result in lowered charging costs balancing out the costs of the efficiency losses. Additionally, there's no space requirements for the charger kiosks, so these can be fit most anywhere there's a parking space.
No it's not going to blow my mind. Technology that significantly lowers the price of EVs would blow my mind. Eliminating the acceleration stress in ads and topspeed mentioning in ads. That would blow my mind.
Maybe not so great for home use: it's more convenient than plugging in, but wireless charging leaks a lot of energy into the surroundings. Wireless phone chargers leak >30% of the energy put into them. Not a big deal for phones, but an electric car uses a LOT of energy. And given that EV owners who can charge at home will mostly charge at home, wireless charging will increase your electricity bill substantially!
@@markmuir7338 Note that SAE and IEEE testing of DC fast chargers and Level 2 chargers shows that modern wireless vehicle battery chargers such as the ones in this video, are generally within 5% or less, of the grid to battery efficiency of wired ones. They tested a variety of systems in different conditions, and actually, sometimes wired ones are less efficient than their wireless equivalents. While your wireless phone charger is quite leaky, the design considerations are different in different systems, so systems are optimized for different things. For example, in the case of the wired systems that are less efficient than an equivalent wireless system, they need a cable that can be moved by a person and is long enough to reach various parts of a parking spot because ports are located in different places on different vehicles. That means that weight and flexibility constraints reduce the wire cross section, which increases resistance, which increases the need for cooling and coolant pumping and flow rate, etc... all of which increase the energy requirements. A pad wired under the street can use bigger, fixed, lower resistance conductors, that give off less heat, consuming less energy. Or in the case of comparing small wireless charging of small electronic devices to vehicle charging, magnetic resonance tech like this is more expensive, but the gain in energy efficiency is worth it. Old style induction wastes a larger percentage of electricity, but the application is more price sensitive, and the amount of energy lost is much smaller, so it's less worth it. As to the cost difference for a home electricity bill, say you drive ~12,500 miles or 20,000 km a year (about 35 miles/day, or 55 km/day) and charge at home. In my area, average rates are 0.11 Canadian dollars/kWh, or about 0.09 USD/kWh. Nighttime rates are even lower, so this is being conservative. Say I have a CUV or sedan that on average consumes 0.17 kWh/km, which is within range, actually a bit high unless you're in quite cold regions, for a lot of vehicles in the category. My electrical consumption for fueling the car would be about 3,400 kWh/year, which would cost ~375 CAD/year, or about 300 USD/year. Add five percent to that and the difference in your electrical bill between wired and wireless charging comes to about an extra 19 CAD/year, or 15 USD/year. If I'm looking at my actual cost, where I'm exclusively charging at night, my rate goes down to about 0.08 CAD/kWh, and my actual EV gets about 0.147 kWh/km, so really, that's more like 12 CAD/year. Would I install one in my garage? Maybe. It's less about convenience personally and more to reduce the resistance to EV driving for other people who share the car. The less new stuff they have to learn to do, the easier it will be for them to switch. Plus it removes a tripping hazard. It also could make consistent parking easier assuming that the system has an autopark function built in to the car targeting the pad. Something that multiple OEMs have demonstrated in development vehicles which they're testing wireless charging with.
Awesome video team..!! Love both technologies. I believe there is room for both on top of basic charging also, why not?! As an FYI, NIO is currently building out agreements with other car manufacturers to share their battery swap tech, therefore it will open up & out as EV’s continue to grow in popularity. It’s a positive future in the EV space for sure….🔋🙌🏼🔋
As a Washingtonian I was surprised I hadn't heard about the buses being charged this way, and that it is on the eastside of the state which are usually less tech forward. I was also pleased that a Brit pronounced the name right (not that that one is too hard). Now try Puyallup, Sequim, and Tulalip.
Wireless charging of warehouse forklifts would be another big opportunity. Charging on a pad outside the office during meal breaks and while getting paperwork should keep them going all day.
wireless charging actually makes A LOT of sense for plug-in hybrids. And it should become an industry standard, like Type 2. So that cheap 3.7 kw charging coils could be installed in the abundance on every parking lot in the city.
@@rogerstarkey5390 13 times? Waste? Learn some math and inform yourself. Long range capability helps wean people off of ice cars. Proper recycling means battery packs can be maintained, refurbished and resources can be recycled. You act as if the cells go to the bin once they are done.
Roger - I’ve been following the battery swap story since 2007. I’d like to think I’m reasonably informed after visiting operations in Israel and China. The swap stations are also B2G facilities (Battery to Grid) - and there are 1000’s of them in China. They will become part of the solution for renewable energy storage challenge - and all the batteries will therefore be ‘working’ not wasted at all times. I’ve published a few detailed accounts as articles in my LinkedIn feed - feel free to look. I hope that helps.
@@rogeratkins6343 So, do they manage to keep every pack charged all the time? Are the packs always immediately read? (Doubtful) Was it your account I saw some time ago which recounted having to divert to a different station en-route then just beating another driver to the last pack (In China)? Don't Nio have various sizes of pack now? Does that not effectively reduce the capacity of a station? Do they guarantee a pack not aged by energy storage? etc
Reminds me of a similar concept put forward by an Australian university back in the 80s. Their version used lead acid batteries and you just pulled into the service station and changed out the electrolyte.
I think we are going to see both technologies. I see merit in both systems for different applications. Maybe even stretches of roads that have wireless charging built-in at traffic lights and intersections or even longer stretches of roads etc. Also, many other OEM's will see the benefits of battery swapping, once the infrastructure is in place and shows how easy it is. I like both ideas! Great video as ever, thank you!
Great video. Nice coverage of both. I can just picture a scam with the wireless charging. Put a piece of metal on the charger, driver comes up, won't charge, driver gets out to take a look and then the car gets jacked
I like how positive reviews are every time on some new idea. Like battery swapping method. Only 5 minutes..? That box has 13 batteries inside, what happens when 14th car enters? Yeah, 20th? Now you get same waiting time for batteries to charge, or to go to normal charger. It will be impossible to find one with full charged batteries in the future, I recon.
Correct. Plus You have "13 packs" of the same capacity (?) . Or maybe 6 100kWh, 7 70kWh? That's reducing the available packs. Then If a 70kWh driver can "upgrade" for a holiday, if just 6 70kWh drivers do the same, and arrive at 08:00, the 100kWh driver who arrives to swap at 08:40 for HIS holiday will be ...... "Upset" to find only small capacity packs available.
Brilliant episode, the momentum wireless charging is brilliant.. admittedly at present its mainly for buses, taxis etc… but the technology even for those in a massive city like London, Manchester and Birmingham is so good for the environment, both through less fumes and also less audible pollution too.. Also welcome, Molly to a great team
It's a double-edged sword: universal swappable batteries means that all EV manufacturers have to standardize on the same battery pack form factor. That form factor needs to fit all sizes of car (otherwise logistics become a real issue). Also, there's a lot of innovation still going on in battery pack layout - standardizing halts that. Standardized batteries are a good long-term goal, but I think it's a bit too early just now.
The Chinese government is looking into creating a standardized battery swap system. Also it don't need to be the same form factor, since the swapping system can be designed to adjust for size and different standards.
@@markmuir7338 - more like - A-hole manufacturers all want everyone to use "their" - "standard"/format... Tesla is the classic for A-hole manufacturers, they weren't the first, nor the most universal, but have tried at every level (mostly Since EM bullied his way through the board) to "force" already existing IEEE standards to conform to their "vision" using "established market" arguments... (note that even a "structural pack" (or skateboard infill) - a la Tesla 2022, can easily be removed by a robotic fixture in mere "moments" (seconds to minutes)... We have truly entered the 'commoditisation era" of automotive, where A battery, or A chassis can be totally fungible, all the consumer cares about (in this market) is utility. It is truly sad that Ferrari didn't make hybrids and EVs sexy back as far as 1998, the Maranello Mafia could have made every-day racers so much fun.. (with Sound track added to taste) - not forgetting of course that Li-Ion (NMC, FP, NCA) reached really usable energy density around the time that Tarpenning and Eberhard started chucking cells in a Lotus chassis
Both ideas are very applicable to a world where we no longer have our own private cars. The sharecar we use in the city runs on wireless charging, the (bigger) car we rent to go on holidays, roadtrips, or the van we get to move big stuff around have the batteryswap. Now add some solar roofs to the mix and we are near certain we'll always get home, or to a charging/ swapping station. Even in snowy icy Canada! (Which will not be snowy and icy anymore in a few decades anyway...)
Letting the car park itself on the charging mat or steer itself into the swap station is great! They can remove driver error and the learning curve by letting the computer handle it.
"On the go" here means literally in exact stationary spots, which is typical solution for a bus stop. Not so much for everyone going through the city. They would have to put them in basically all parking spots and then charging would be "on the spot"
Trucks need both of these technologies. Battery swap to get you up the mountains when towing or hauling, wireless for convience in the urban areas. Would be really cool to have say a 100 kWh battery for everyday use and a high density 150kwh battery for trips. That way you increase your overall efficiency as compared a long range setup.
Yeah she is a great presenter. She is actually a racing driver who has worked on many TV channels in her past. Currently she is the on stage presenter for the World Rally Championship. Married to one of Norways best rally drivers. 😊
That's awesome how it swaps the battery by itself, the last time I watched a battery swap there was a worker that had to drive it in and do it manually
Both have their uses. Fleet vehicles that drive all day every day, would benefit battery swap. Metered parking spots would benefit wireless as it could do moderate charging speed saving the battery from over heating. But if you had super fast charging for ultra capacitors that could charge up in 3- 5 minutes, and slow charge a battery on a bus?
The wireless charger really seems to be the best option for full adoption. It fills that intermediate trip need which imho is the missing link. City driving, long distance freeway driving are solid. It's that 100 to 200 mile trip that is the weak point.
Great innovations, excited for the future development of these technologies. Manufacturers should look at giving customers these options of battery swap outs, build a universal standard platform and the wireless charging plates if these become thin enough, no reason why they couldn't be included onto future vehicles as standard or an optional extra.
Wireless charging really needs a groundbreaking infrastructure plan and needs support from the government and all. I like both of these two ways to charge.
@@terry2346 that part of my comment was about wireless.... the OC was not specific about what was being referenced... and i stated battery swapping is the better option... sorry to confuse you...
I don't spend 5 minutes charging my EV ... and remember you've got to drive to the swapping station and queue ... it presently takes me 10 seconds to plug in ... I then sleep ... and I drive away in the morning.
Battery swap was used by the old Lucas/Bedford vans of the mid 1970's (they were lead acid back then) so its not a new concept. The problem is they are all manufacturer specific...we really need an international standard for large/medium/small car battery packs for this to work.
@@RB-cool00701 Yes but every manufacturer will start with their standard. Would you want a' standard battery' mean that you could not produce your brilliant looking car. We would end up with all cars looking like 1970s Ladas. Square boxes differentiated by only colour. No thanks.
Great episode, and great to see the idea of battery swap getting a second run. I was a little surprised, though, not a single mention of Better Place and any commentary or consideration of why the NIO system might succeed where Better Place failed? It strikes me that if NIO don’t get other manufacturers on board, it won’t get the traction to be a viable option…
My first impression of the battery-swapping system is that it requires more batteries than compatible vehicles in order to allow time for the batteries to be health-checked and recharged without holding up vehicle through-put. Each vehicle has to have a heavy component unscrewed and screwed back on, possibly several times a week, with all this implies for thread wear. The machinery performing the swaps is itself susceptible to mechanical wear and requires energy for its mechanical operation as well for the battery recharging. No doubt the idea has its applications, but it doesn't seem ideal.
I like the idea of a wireless charger. It's so convenient. Also, have a camera under the car looking down to the ground so you know when you are centered or have a sensor on the charger and the car so they have handshakes.
I think a little bluetooth beacon in the parking space would be perfect. Like an Apple airtag or a Tile, They work from 30ft away, so even with the gigantic electromagnet right next to it (switched off until charging starts), it should be possible to lock on as you're entering the parking space, then have the distance count down and the familiar reversing camera beeps to let you know how close you are to the stopping place.
BMW, Toyota, and Nissan have all built test vehicles with wireless charging that use a wireless locator in the pad to orient and park the vehicle over it, so if we get them as a manufacturer option, I could see that happening.
In gernal I think this is a lot better for commercial applications. The Wireless self charging for buses is amazing idea, self charging busstops. As for battery swaping is great for very large vechicals in say mining or construction where they don't want to stop working to charge huge batteries. you just have back up batteries already charged ready to swap them over.
The killer app for wireless is low power public overnight charging in crowded street with vandals. Probably cost more to fit than a charger on a stand, or even a retractable charger.
The biggest issue with battery swapping is that it is only a 5 minutes swap if only one vehicle turns up, if there is a queue the time shoots up: 2nd car 10 mins, 3rd car 15 mins, 4th car 20 mins 5th car 25 mins etc. If there is a queue you may just be better off plugged into a charger.
I think both tech's have their place. Wireless could work in parking places whilst I can see the battery changing tech in place of fuel stations for the quick 5 min swap.
Sounds good in theory until you have to think about coverage. Let's go with the fuel station example. Who will put one of these very expensive swapping stations every 50 km along every motorway? And if that somehow happens, how will they not end up 3 times more expensive for the same charge than a plug? Unless you get a lot of people buying NIOs just for that feature, it is not going to pan out.
Battery swapping would certainly be a great tech for those having to drive several 100 kms every day or just on a holiday more than 500 km away. Imagine saving 2 hrs of charging time going from somewhere like Denmark to Italy. That's worth a lot in anyone's book.
If you go by the same steering time rules as truckers, and have the budget for a Nio, you can do it in the same time in another EV. The real question is though, how expensive do they need to sell a charge for it to break even? That number can't be pretty.
@@BugMagnet I mean, all cars sold by 2030 is gonna be electric globally I think. Why waste a perfectly good fuel station on the motorway? Convert them all. The battery swapping tech doesn't just have to be for NIO cars either. If other manufacturers utilise similar tech and doesn't make them propirortory it's a win for everyone.
@@ragingsilver First off, if hybrids and so on will still be a thing in the 30's. No one in the industry is doubting that. 2030 could be the earliest date when NEW cars are all electric. Meaning that it takes 15 to 30 years after that until the existing fleet was entirely replaced. Then you can take the space and either install 8 HPC units that take 20 mins to charge a car or one robot house that takes 5 mins i ideal conditions and costs 5 times as much in the absolute best case. If I am a customer and you tell me that I could charge for 20 minutes and 30€ or for 5 minutes and 75€, I will put a book in my glovebox and go with the affordable money. Because there is no way on earth that the swapping stations are anywhere near the price of simple chargers. Remember, this exact same idea with the exact same methods has failed for exactly those reasons before. And with the race still open between half a dozen battery chemistries and morphologies atm, who is going to cripple innovation by standardising battery packs right now? It does not make sense. I can only see this in a densely urban environment where people own cars but do not own a parking spot and do not have access to an electrical outlet.
I wish they told us the cost to lease the battery. I heard about this a while ago - it makes perfect sense and is very slick. For me, that's always been a big concern, not range but battery longevity/warranty etc.. It could be game-changing in a few years with lots of older EVs about. Not having to worry about battery health means buying an older car is no big deal.
Wireless charging tech has big implications for car parks and shopping malls - imagine just pulling into your normal space and having it charge whilst you shop. Also the fact that you can have stuff on top of it, including metal and still not have it interrupt the charge rate is really impressive.
@@remco6816 yeah that was the video I watched too (he also did a follow up one recently). I seem to remember them saying it would work but I'll have to go back and check! Ideally these pads can work with anything on them if they are to succeed in the real world.
It wasn't even hinted at how much a battery swap would be if done without a lease option. I dare say Robert has been replaced! Molly is the new voice for Fully Charged!!!
Imaging having both! And the option to lease a larger battery for road trips but have a smaller and lighter capacity battery as your daily battery that you own.
Both suffer from the requirement for standardization and standardization with wireless charging is more likely to happen sooner. Also, akin to battery swapping, there's rental battery trailers for intercity travel, hookup when leaving a city, swap when needed enroute and disconnect when arriving at your destination, again this suffers from a lack of standardization especially as voltage levels have now gone from 400 VDC packs to 1,000 VDC packs.
I think wireless charging will be popular with all electric vehicle drivers so long as the efficiency concerns have been addressed. I can picture these blue pads in front of the public fast chargers and also (in a more appropriate form factor) for people to install on their own garage floors. It will be so much more convenient than having to plug the car in each time you want to charge it. There would need to be a way for cars to communicate with the charger to authenticate themselves at public chargers, of course. You wouldn't need to get out of the car at all to charge up.
Space taken by chargers, that's what they are referring to. Wired chargers generally have those phone booth styled structures near parking spot. As wireless chargers are on the ground, they don't need that infrastructure. I am still concerned about efficiency though.
If these were in my red US state, the ICE-powered ICE monster trucks would park over the charging pads just for spite. Like they currently do at charging stations.
Wireless charging in parking spots in motorway services would be the perfect option, especially if all the planning spots were fired with them. And shopping centres and supermarkets and offices etc etc.
Except not really, cause the people who want them, what are they supposed to do? Go about installing floor wireless chargers at every place they park their car?
That battery changing system would totally alleviat any worries I have with batteries. As long as I know they will be still swapable in 25 years time or more. Oh, other problem is still the cost of an EV but this could soften the blow as I'd have no battery anxiety. Only problem I see now is leasing the battery monthly - I'd rather be charged for it everytime I swapped it out while still being able to charge it myself normally if I so wished. All depnds on the cost saving from new (not paying for the battery element) & the leasing/swapping costs. I currently do around 1k miles a year so any kind of lease could, more than likely would, be worthless & likely incredibly expensive pro-rata.
Renault were leasing batteries for years ... making the purchase price of their EVs much less. It was a good idea at the time. Once people realised how reliable the batteries were they no longer chose to lease ... so Renault stopped doing this in 2019. If you do 1k miles a year then clearly it is cheaper not to own a car at all! Using taxis or renting a car when you need it would be much cheaper for you and for the planet.
@@MrAdopado I only recently bought another car (July 2021) - but I'm recycling as it was a salvage car that had been written off by the previous owners insurance company. I paid very little for it and it cost me a relatively small amount to fix it as the damage wasn't that severe. I ended up with a 6 year old small runabout with a FSH and just under 2800 miles on it from new!! all in it cost me only £3k to buy, fix and put back on the road. That included auction charges and the hefty transport cost as I hired a self drive car transporter myself lol. Road tax, insurance and fuel etc is low which makes having my own car fairly economical overall and I much prefer the convenience of my own car than the hassle of taxis etc. It actually works out at around 40p per mile so far - much cheaper than your alternatives ;o)
Great discussion on clever charging options and the near future of EVs. Jack's story about the 12 inches of snow in Wenatchee, Washington was really eye-opening, but not as much as that block of ice (and his hilarious reaction!). Welcome, Molly!
The trick is to find the sweet spot / optimum between battery size for a certain type of vehicle. Add wireless charging, as that is just easier than plugging in, and have an extended range battery slot for longer trips. So you have a "fixed" battery for the normal day to day use, with wireless charging that will hopefully become ubiquitous and then have an extra battery for longer range and that is the one that you keep swapping :). It is the combination of technologies that will make EVs even more attractive than they already are ;).
The wireless charging would be a game changer for disabled drivers.
Having to get your wheelchair out to plug in your car is a pain but if the space is to narrow for your chair it stops being a pain and becomes impossible…..
Didn't someone promise us a robocharger or snake charger years ago? But he'll first give all our paid jobs to robots, and turn us into brain chipped robots, before actually committing to making our life better :)
but it's terrible for the grid.... that's why battery swapping is the better option...
@@Cloxxki - Yep; but installing wireless chargers instead of cables would be so much better; if all manufacturers built cars with the plate in the same place (ie between the front wheels or in the centre) ever car could park the same and change the same; today the sockets are all over the place so charging at some chargers is harder by having to park in different ways / angles….
You just narrowed down the target narket into a tiny fraction and It's no way a complement lol
@@nc3826 - True battery swap is better in many ways, but if there’s 10 cars wanting battery swaps at the same time it won’t work; that’s why charging stations have multiple chargers.
If they can build lots of battery swap locations that can handle several cars at a time great….but you’d have to build all cars with a fixed battery shape and be removed in the same way or you’ll have to go to a fixed station that’s for your make of car only…which wouldn’t work; that would be like a petrol car that car only run on Shell fuel and a different one that only runs on BP….
Standards. Both these options, and cable charging, should be built to standards manufacturers must adhere to, so that only one set of infrastructure is needed.
💰💰💰
Tesla's chargers are the only non-standard ones, but in Europe, they use everyone else's standard.
And that's one of the HUGE problems. Aside from the fact that it's so difficult to get manufacturers from different countries to all agree on standards you also limit the current rapid evolution of battery design which would be a big issue for battery swapping. Now is not the time to set a standard for batteries. Some manufacturers are modifying and improving their battery designs and chemistry every few months.
@@MrAdopado I think at the point you're talking about infrastructure installations for mass adoption, it's time to talk about standards.
Batteries fine: but form factors, safety regs for housings, standard docking mechanisms for removable batteries, that kind of thing. Keep it about the form factor and the interfaces and manufacturers are free to persue battery chemistries and such as much as they like, within those constraints.
Standards doesn't mean *one* standard for all vehicles, but it does mean agreeing some basic classes, categories and yes, some constraints.
It's one thing talking about infrastructure experimentation in America and Australia with masses of space. It's quite another to talk about Europe and India.
Agree they need to have quite a good range in those constraints when it comes to form factor: need to allow different shapes in order to account for unknown chemistries. But for hotswap battery designs this has to be in place: we can't install nationwide manufacturer specific infrastructure for every vehicle manufacturer. Tesla should only have been allowed to do that on *condition* that they open them up after a certain time.
We have some standards for charging connections: we need to avoid more and get to usb-style standard asap. Hot swaps and induction pads with street level infrastructure that might be peculiar to a certain car supplier is not on.
That should be civil infrastructure. If the auto companies want to sponsor them so they can have their logo on, fine.
@@jezlawrence720 "we can't install nationwide manufacturer specific infrastructure for every vehicle manufacturer. Tesla should only have been allowed to do that on condition that they open them up after a certain time." ... that's exactly what they have started doing. Netherlands is already open to all. Thank goodness Tesla took the initiative otherwise decent charging infrastructure would never have got off the ground.
The fact that you can swap your EV car battery after 2-3 years, +100k miles, for the latest battery model is very powerful.
but why when Tesla batteries will last more than the frame?
Even if you lease, you usually have lock-in. Someone has to pay for you doing that and I doubt Nio will
@@lecisko BYD batteries literally lasts longer than tesla batteries but having swappable batteries is easily a advantage than not
@@lecisko Because battery technology is advancing quite quickly.
In a few years time there will be better batteries with much better energy density, charging speeds and lower depreciation.
Being able to swap a battery is better than change the car as a whole.
@@David34981 what if I told you batteries can be changed without swapping technology?
My mind is officially blown! Didn't realize Wenatchee was wirelessly charging their busses already. So cool.
Great episode. Molly is a great addition to the Fully Charged team
she seemed alittle nervous tho. might be first time jitters?
you know :)
Yeah man, love her vibe. Nice addition 👌
Oh wow, I remember she did the XPeng 7 review ages ago and then disappeared lol
@@paulklp8262 But not on Fully Charged. She has her own channel?
I love the idea of battery swapping in that you don’t need to worry that the battery will degrade, and you could potentially upgrade or downgrade you're battery capacity if you're headed on a longer trip but typically only drive in the city.
But at the same time this ignores ecological concerns and is a spinoff from a wasteful consumer economy. They speak of swapping-in a 100% charged battery, when it is well-known repetitive charging to 100% greatly reduces battery life; and it appears likely these will have been subjected to DC fast-charging, another no-no for decent battery life. This was a very shallow and biased piece of reporting... The only 'downside' they listed was it being limited to one brand of car from China! Yeah, let's all join a race to the bottom of our resources for battery manufacturing...
Similar caution is needed about the ease of wireless charging. At least they did mention that this remains under control of the car's on board charge management, and also suggested (without saying why) that wireless home charging could be slower (it should be). Beware of the hype!
People really don't like buying cars with rented batteries second hand
@@StephenMatrese You say that like you've polled all EV owners... I would be into it.
@@EdMorbius46 some battery technology doesn't "mind" being charged to 100%, I think its the LiFePo chemistry, which Tesla is fitting to its non-long range cars IIRC.
@@StephenMatrese I think people are more bothered owning a battery second hand because the risk is all yours. Most battery-rental agreements will replace the battery if it falls below x%, you don't get that privately if the car warranty isn't transferable (many aren't).
I believe that NIO can add wireless charging capacity to every battery in the future so cars can both swap and wirelessly charge. NIO already has the patent for wireless charging.
@@dootu You can charge Nio batteries. If you think that you need to swap the battery everytime you get low on power, then you're wrong.
Why? That is a solution looking for a problem. Wireless charging is inefficient. Just plug it in (conductive charging)
@@StephenMatrese tell that to disabled people. While an EV has a benefit of being able to charge at home, the physical act of running a cable and plugging in isn't easily available for everyone. Wireless charging avoids this.
@@StephenMatrese wireless charging is not less effective than pugging it in. Watch Teslabjørn's videos of the same wireless charging location shown in this video.
@@dootu When you choose to lease the battery on Nio, you get A total of 600kWh energy from them each month. And it's up to you if you use battery swap stations or plugging it in and charge.
Both technologies are very interesting. My issue with wireless charging is the efficiency. I would love to hear their numbers compared to wired charging. Usually wireless charging in consumer electronics is considerably less efficient and it's not very environment friendly.
But the appeal of this for public transportation is so tempting. It just makes sense.
In tests done by Bjorn Nyland, the wireless charger proved more efficient than a wired charger (86% vs 77%) probably due to the fact that the charging cable size is restricted to maintain flexibility and reduce weight whereas for wireless charging the cable can be oversized without compromising ergonomics.
They had someone on the podcast a year or two ago from a wireless charging company that claimed the efficiency was comparable. Bjorn Nyland actually had a test where the wireless was MORE efficient... though I think that was very circumstantial. The thing to remember about cable charging is that as the cable heats up, the efficiency drops. So if the cable can be kept short, then I'm guessing it would usually beat the wireless charging for efficiency? However, given what they pointed out in this video about wireless charging enabling vehicles to have smaller batteries and therefore have more efficient driving, any efficiency losses vs wired charging I think are more than made up for in the long run.
The wireless charging can be improved if the transmitter on the floor is raised or the receiver in the car is lowered. It just need a small mechanical
adaption. Correct me if I'm wrong.
@@eclecticcyclist No way on earth did anyone ever lose 23% of a rapid charge in a cable. That thing would have gone up in flames in under 5 seconds.
@@ricnyc2759 this may be the case - but the point about wireless charging is that its meant to be passive. You drive over something and it charges! If something has to move there has to be a motor, sensors etc. Then there's extra maintenance, waterproofing issues, vandalism, etc etc......
A workable system has to be pragmatic.......!
Both technologies complement each other and deserve to co-exist
Yes but the elephant in the room is "dependency". Both of these only work in a perfectly functioning area. When the grid has an issue, a company goes bankrupt, a government shuts something down, you're left with a bunch of vehicles that have very limited range. You'd have to really trust that all dependencies stay up and running perfectly and that there's no social unrest in your country, etc. before giving up the freedom to know you can get in your current vehicle and travel hundreds of miles without stopping, in a moments notice.
@@aussie2uGA There's no reason that both of these, plus regular plug-in charging couldn't be instituted. In fact, I'd argue that the two technologies complement each other quite well with regular plug-in charging. Most people drive in a loop anyway, home to work, work to a store, and then store to home. During this use cycle use a small battery with regular top ups, and charge overnight plugged in. If you need to travel long distances use a five minute hot swap as many times as needed, and when you get to your destination either plug in or switch out for a smaller battery with wireless charging again.
@@stevk5181 I think you’re missing the point I’m illustrating. In good times, everything rolls along as you illustrate. In bad times, war, hacking, etc., your car is now extremely limited to a specific distance. People will just need to be prepared to give up their ability to “go anywhere at anytime”.
@@aussie2uGA "In bad times, war, hacking, etc." your car will be limited regardless be it from gasoline shortages, roads being blocked, or a lack of electricity. If that's your argument then a bicycle is the answer you're looking for.
@@stevk5181 You’re wrong. In the moment of a crisis, regular cars will travel hundreds of miles without needing fuel or charging. These new “small battery” cars are essentially slot cars. Unless you keep plugging in more “electric track”, you’re geofenced to a city.
Battery swapping technique is best for me. Because all battery life is decreasing gradually with the time. So car’s battery also will be updated any time.
I can see the wireless option being valuable to emergency services and Police vehicles. They can have their own micro network at key locations, and they're practically vandal proof.
Vandal proof huh. What about a sledgehammer ?
vandal proof? sounds like a challenge
What I think is one of the essential features of battery swap is upgradeability. NIO is revolutionizing the car industry by allowing users to upgrade their car to newer more powerful batteries, instead of having to buy the new model. That’s genius and a gamechanger.
Not really, as it isn't that hard to change a Tesla battery either. It also means we need 5 times the amount of batteries at least, as you need one in every direction a car could travel each day, and then transport them around too at night so it's ready again the next day. In cities that isn't that hard, now doing that across American Midwest and it all falls apart. And as they said it takes 5 minutes to change the battery, so you save what 15-20 min now, a number that goes down each year. Given that most people also only super charge when they do long trips it makes even less sense, as you need to have a 30-40 min break before the car even needs it.
We also have to say we don't know what kind of state the battery you get will be in, is it going to be a old one or one that has been used hard and wrong and suddenly you lose a lot of range. People tend to take care of things they own more than rent.
These two technologies in combination could be a game changer for mass adoption. EVs sold with a permanent 100km range battery (and coil) that have a cavity to load long-range batteries. Wireless charging for city driving and then when you need to take a trip you rent a long-range battery from the swop station.
100km? what on earth are you going to do with it? my old 2019 Nissan Leaf had piss poor IRL range of 170 km and i could barely drive it anywhere as it was. going down to 100km is a big no, just imagine you need to do something urgent or an accident happens and you need to drive to the hospital (happened to me), then queue for a battery swap? i rather much have something than can do at least 400 km every single day no matter rain or snow and THEN swap for a genuine 800-1000 km battery. i can't charge at home so a large battery is a must. and that is why I'm betting on the Nio ET5 next year 👍🏻
@@_TrueDesire_ If it takes as long to change a battery as filling the tank there is no difference. With a major disaster there will be queues for petrol too. Certainly, if you can, invest in a 400km short range extendible to 1000km, but for the mass market a 100km range will get a lot more people into electric. Not to mention that long-range batteries could require 5 years of average driving before hitting GHG parity with an equivalent ICE car. See the Volvo paper recently published. We need short-range EVs with sharable long-range options.
Swapping is a must have. Because say, in 5 years, battery technology and energy density storage gets a boost. Or Lithium-ion gets replaced with a cheaper and better one. I want my car to be able to upgrade to the new tech.
I’m interested to hear how efficient the wireless charging process is. I believe that qi wireless on a phone for example loses a few % of energy to heat and other inefficiencies. Hope that this is more efficient, otherwise if the tech grows and gets adopted by cities around the world, it could have a substantial impact. Furthermore, how does the pad identify that you’re allowed to charge? I’d love to drive around town and get a free charge at a bus stop!
probably a big chunk of it goes into heat and will be wasted. Especially cuz the car still has 40 cm underneath it
From the tests I have read it looses a couple more percent compared with conductive charging so it is not a massive difference. The conversion losses and heat losses in the battery etc are all still there regardless.
I wondered if the block of ice was going to melt 🙂
Teslabjorn tested it at the same location. If i remember right the wireless was even more efficient than the wired charger. They put snow on the pad and it did not melt.
@@zapfanzapfan noticed the block of ice was actually raised above the pad with some styrofoam, I guess that is why.
@@MrWilde Yeah, I guess they were just testing how it transmitted through the ice, not if the warmth of the pad itself would melt the ice.
As per the phone analogy at the beginning - why not have both systems?
I have always said battery swoping is the way to go:
- very fast turn around.
- as battery technology gets better, your gets an automatic upgrade.
- makes the car cheaper, as you don't buy the batteries.
This system could expand by allowing other car manufacturers access to the technology and allowing battery companies to develop a universal battery for all
Wireless is also very interesting. Emagine a charging pad being built into stop and give way junctions, all parking bays having one at shopping centres and offices, where a car gets driven to a place and left for up to 8 hours - the average commute is a handful of miles. With this system, a car could recover the majority of the energy used to get it to the office just sitting in the office car park.
I like fresh ideas like these, bring them on!
Molly is a great addition to fullyCharged ... great episode
Ever heard of trolleybus, Jack?.. Very small battery, constant "charging", circulating route... 😮💨
NIO does battery swap AND regular and fast charging with the cord so it's does everything every other EV does AND battery swap option at any time.
That ease of battery replacement surely means as battery tech improves so does your car! A lighter battery or more range then becomes an option .. just pull up and decide .. Brilliant !
The wireless charging has to be a game changer .. it finally means that Airports ( or other longer term car parks) can offer electric charging without the stations being locked up for all the time the owner is away.
Wireless charging is a game changer. Mostly because it can be done while the vehicle is moving. Imagine a highway where the innermost lane is reserved for BEVs and set up for self driving vehicles with wireless charging. We can have long distance overnight journeys with sleeping passengers. Combine this with programming vehicles to form aerodynamic 'trains' allowing us to approach the efficiencies of rail travel, in what is effectively a private carriage, that has door to door capability. This tech is game changing.
There have been some prototypes for wireless charging on the move but this is not such a system. There are no such systems that have gone beyond the prototype stage as far as I know. It may work out for the future but it's definitely not going to happen quickly enough to match the timescales we need to end our excessive use of fossil fuels. The charging issues need to be accommodated with existing tech or tech that can be mature and distributed within the next couple of years... unfortunately neither of these systems meet that requirement. I definitely thing they should be worked on but they will not be the answer in the short/medium term.
Battery swapping would be viable for heavy vehicles that need to run around the clock, like mining trucks and loaders.
Geely has a solution for this already and other firms have similar ideas in development.
@@Biscoid I'm just not sure how well a battery swap solution will work with so many brands all having their own batteries and battery swapping methods. Think of a charging station, any electric car can charge at any station, even Tesla now allow non-Tesla cars charge at their supercharger. No different to how any ICE car can fuel up at any petrol station.
It would be nice if manufactures would settle on a "standard" battery footprint and connection system but we know that isn't going to happen.
I think the heavy vehicle battery swap would be a more effective option. On mine sites where there is a fleet of trucks or loaders and they all use the same battery type and they need to keep running 24/7. Sandvik have just released their first machines with this system.
One advantage of swapping batteries is that as battery technology improves, it could be nearly costless (other than the cost to produce the new battery) to upgrade the batteries in the car.
No, because as you swap, you just leave an old pack in the station, so unless it's removed and taken for recycling, it's left for some other poor punter to receive.
It's a logistical nightmare.
@@rogerstarkey5390 I don't mean regularly, I mean when there is a significant advancement. Like solid state architecture that halves the size of the battery for example. At that point you take all the old batteries out of the station, hook them up to the grid as simple storage, have everyone change their batteries once, do the same with those. Easy. You don't have to pay a technician hours of labour to tear down the underside of the car to get at the battery. Everyone gets an upgrade at once.
@@andrewdyjach7305 yes, they've done this when the original 70kwh battery became obsolete and did a free upgrade for everyone to the better tech 75kwh batteries. They may go with 800v charging soon and may do the same when the current ones are obsolete, so to speak.
@@andrewdyjach7305
You don't seem to know much about batteries.
Think about the logistics to swap a fleet.... assuming they eventually sell large numbers.
Also consider the different control systems for the "New" tech cells. They would need to be integrated in the vehicles. that's "Technician time"
The idea of a delivery van depot where the drivers step out of the vehicle at the end of their shift and then the vehicle goes and parks itself on a wireless charging pad feels very much like the future to me.
with battery swapping you can have different capacities, and keep up with pack improvements, a long range for that summer holiday, and short range for the weekly commute
fwiw NIO has that option
That's great for the small battery owner.
Not so great for the driver who bought the big pack and arrives to find everyone upgraded that morning leaving nothing but 60kWh packs?
Think it through.
@@rogerstarkey5390good point. I would imagine nio would offer a discount for you to take a smaller battery pack, and you can then charge it till the next spot with a larger battery. Or nio would plan based on data and ensure larger packs are available at holiday times. Just need to ask Elliot to ask the Chinese
@@rogerstarkey5390 pretty sure that’s why there is the booking interface in the car. You can probably either pre-book, or it’ll let you know which stations have the battery you need.
@@chargingabout it is rare, since larger battery packs cost more..... and the stations and the users are connected via an app that shows available... so users just go to the next closest station where it is .available.
fwiw RS is just a fanboy troll. who comes up with lame excuses for why he cannot understand how battery swapping can function.... so he never makes a truely good point....
and there are plenty of posts from NIO owners.... that show how it actually works...
Great episode! The real answer to the charging problem is, as with most things, “some of this and some of that”. There’s also no reason these have to be mutually exclusive solutions! I think both approaches will find their niché in time.
11:19 HOLY SH** , imagine sending 50 kilowatts into thin air to wirelessly charge , that is super COOL af.
FINALLY!!!! Fully Charged is on the leading edge regarding all things electric and now...... They have introduced us to a woman's perspective reviewing electric cars with their newest member of the team Molly. Molly did and EXCELLENT job reviewing the battery swap technology. THANK YOU Fully Charged for making sure a women's perspective is heard!!
Molly did a great job here, but you talk as though you haven't seen Chelsea Sexton, Maddie Moate, or Helen Czerski, each of whom has done many really good Fully Charged episodes. And if you haven't been, thanks for watching those.
I personally think that the wireless charging is the way to go, but once (if) we have an absolute abundance of batteries available, I could see swapping being a great feature. I imagine by then however, charging will be an absolute non issue :P
So do I as still use the regular chartering when I take a road trip across my big country the USA!
but judging the wireless charging for our phones are still not that efficient, i find the battery swap more promising. both are good ways to help resolve the EV charging issues. :)
@@eugene4261 I'm not entirely certain this is the same technology. I've seen reports that some wireless charging for cars is up near 95% efficiency. If that's the case here, I imagine it's much more efficient than having extra batteries sitting around not in vehicles (though if they double as grid storage that's dope :D)
@@ChronotriggerJM thats great to know that the efficiency is so high. Promising tech for all public buses and trains providers to consider 👍🏻👍🏻
@@eugene4261 we just reached 150W wireless on phones 👍🏻 but that's tiny amounts of energy compared to cars.
I quite liked this video, well done. 3 things I'd like to see here. 1. Graphene Supercapacitors added for even quicker charging. 2. Option to slot in an additional battery if you know your going extra distance. 3. Freeways with charging lanes to charge on the go.
I think the wireless charging system is clearly the future for busses, especially once we have an industry standard like qi but for electric vehicles.
Just a bit of added information for Neo, If you choose to lease the battery instead of buying it, you'll save about $18,000(USD) upfront, and it will cost you about $150 per month to rent the battery. And Neo guarantees that the battery they put in your car has at least 80% of its rated capacity. Considering that most EVs need to have their battery swapped every 5 years to maintain more than 80% of their capacity, it really is quite a good deal. You don't need to worry about depreciation due to battery deterioration, you don't need to pay for charging anymore, you don't need to pay extra to have your battery swapped out, and you save quite a bit of money upfront.
I think wireless charging could be an absolute game changer. Wireless pads at traffic lights, car parks, ambulances delivering patients to A&E etc
I agree. But wireless charging isn't as efficient as using a cable - some of the energy is leaked to the surroundings (quite a lot in fact). So you require more energy to charge the car, and thus more power stations and grid infrastructure.
Wireless phone chargers leak >30% of the energy. There are ways to improve on this, but it's the big Achilles heel of wireless charging in general.
I'm very dubious of that company's claims of reducing overall energy use by down-sizing the battery, since the efficiency gain from weight reduction isn't likely to offset the extra charging losses - except in extreme cases, like bus routes that go up a lot of steep hills.
@@markmuir7338as I understand it it's actually more efficient in terms of energy loss and heat. For example it doesn't melt the snow or ice as it doesn't interact with them.
@@peterbrook6866 I'm an electrical engineer. Inductive charging (the technology used here) is inherently a lossy process. The energy is leaked everywhere (the air, the ground, the car's body, the occupants), not just in the gap between the two coils. There are techniques to reduce the losses (e.g. beam forming), but these add cost and complexity, and still can't beat a cable.
@@peterbrook6866 It's really not efficient at all actually.
@@markmuir7338 Its efficieny is about the same as wired charging, measured grid to battery. Nobody asks for efficieny for wired chargers grid to battery...
Wireless charging pads would also make it safer for people in dodgy parking lots. You wouldn't have to get out of your vehicle to plug and unplug
Wireless EV charging is rated at around 95% efficiency - these aren't the Qi chargers for your phones. At that rate, a 50kwh charging session might cost an extra $1 or 75p.
But somethings to consider beyond the transfer efficiency is Wear and Tear. None of the equipment is exposed to weather. There is no constant equipment contact to wear down connectors. There are no exposed cables or terminals to be damaged, vandalized, or stolen. As EVs become the norm, the absolute savings on maintenance for the charging stations will outweigh the losses due to transfer inefficiencies. In theory, those savings should result in lowered charging costs balancing out the costs of the efficiency losses.
Additionally, there's no space requirements for the charger kiosks, so these can be fit most anywhere there's a parking space.
Do you have any source of the efficiency? Last I heard (many years ago) it was around 50%. I would love to read more about it!
@@The18107j Watch Undecided's video on wireless EV charging
Molly was fantastic! Jack, great work as always.
No it's not going to blow my mind. Technology that significantly lowers the price of EVs would blow my mind. Eliminating the acceleration stress in ads and topspeed mentioning in ads. That would blow my mind.
If you can have a smaller battery and charge at all the stops it could reduce the price a lot.
Battery swap does lower the initial cost if you don't have to buy the battery up front
This would be fantastic for car drivers that use wheel chair or other disability, great for home use & destination mat charging.
Maybe not so great for home use: it's more convenient than plugging in, but wireless charging leaks a lot of energy into the surroundings. Wireless phone chargers leak >30% of the energy put into them. Not a big deal for phones, but an electric car uses a LOT of energy. And given that EV owners who can charge at home will mostly charge at home, wireless charging will increase your electricity bill substantially!
@@markmuir7338 Note that SAE and IEEE testing of DC fast chargers and Level 2 chargers shows that modern wireless vehicle battery chargers such as the ones in this video, are generally within 5% or less, of the grid to battery efficiency of wired ones. They tested a variety of systems in different conditions, and actually, sometimes wired ones are less efficient than their wireless equivalents. While your wireless phone charger is quite leaky, the design considerations are different in different systems, so systems are optimized for different things.
For example, in the case of the wired systems that are less efficient than an equivalent wireless system, they need a cable that can be moved by a person and is long enough to reach various parts of a parking spot because ports are located in different places on different vehicles. That means that weight and flexibility constraints reduce the wire cross section, which increases resistance, which increases the need for cooling and coolant pumping and flow rate, etc... all of which increase the energy requirements. A pad wired under the street can use bigger, fixed, lower resistance conductors, that give off less heat, consuming less energy. Or in the case of comparing small wireless charging of small electronic devices to vehicle charging, magnetic resonance tech like this is more expensive, but the gain in energy efficiency is worth it. Old style induction wastes a larger percentage of electricity, but the application is more price sensitive, and the amount of energy lost is much smaller, so it's less worth it.
As to the cost difference for a home electricity bill, say you drive ~12,500 miles or 20,000 km a year (about 35 miles/day, or 55 km/day) and charge at home. In my area, average rates are 0.11 Canadian dollars/kWh, or about 0.09 USD/kWh. Nighttime rates are even lower, so this is being conservative. Say I have a CUV or sedan that on average consumes 0.17 kWh/km, which is within range, actually a bit high unless you're in quite cold regions, for a lot of vehicles in the category. My electrical consumption for fueling the car would be about 3,400 kWh/year, which would cost ~375 CAD/year, or about 300 USD/year. Add five percent to that and the difference in your electrical bill between wired and wireless charging comes to about an extra 19 CAD/year, or 15 USD/year. If I'm looking at my actual cost, where I'm exclusively charging at night, my rate goes down to about 0.08 CAD/kWh, and my actual EV gets about 0.147 kWh/km, so really, that's more like 12 CAD/year.
Would I install one in my garage? Maybe. It's less about convenience personally and more to reduce the resistance to EV driving for other people who share the car. The less new stuff they have to learn to do, the easier it will be for them to switch. Plus it removes a tripping hazard. It also could make consistent parking easier assuming that the system has an autopark function built in to the car targeting the pad. Something that multiple OEMs have demonstrated in development vehicles which they're testing wireless charging with.
Love how Jack presents stuff.
Awesome video team..!! Love both technologies. I believe there is room for both on top of basic charging also, why not?! As an FYI, NIO is currently building out agreements with other car manufacturers to share their battery swap tech, therefore it will open up & out as EV’s continue to grow in popularity. It’s a positive future in the EV space for sure….🔋🙌🏼🔋
As a Washingtonian I was surprised I hadn't heard about the buses being charged this way, and that it is on the eastside of the state which are usually less tech forward. I was also pleased that a Brit pronounced the name right (not that that one is too hard). Now try Puyallup, Sequim, and Tulalip.
BYD electric buses have had wireless charging for years, including the ones they sell here in the US.
Wireless charging of warehouse forklifts would be another big opportunity. Charging on a pad outside the office during meal breaks and while getting paperwork should keep them going all day.
Will my iPhone wirelessly charge in ooooooo.1 nano seconds if i stand close to one of these pads?
wireless charging actually makes A LOT of sense for plug-in hybrids. And it should become an industry standard, like Type 2. So that cheap 3.7 kw charging coils could be installed in the abundance on every parking lot in the city.
Oh I so LOVE this episode! I've been on a journey...this is a kind of arrival. BIG fan of both NIO and Momentum Dynamics!
Nio wastes 13x the amount of scarce resources, just sitting in the station. Think it through.
@@rogerstarkey5390 13 times? Waste? Learn some math and inform yourself. Long range capability helps wean people off of ice cars.
Proper recycling means battery packs can be maintained, refurbished and resources can be recycled. You act as if the cells go to the bin once they are done.
Roger - I’ve been following the battery swap story since 2007. I’d like to think I’m reasonably informed after visiting operations in Israel and China. The swap stations are also B2G facilities (Battery to Grid) - and there are 1000’s of them in China. They will become part of the solution for renewable energy storage challenge - and all the batteries will therefore be ‘working’ not wasted at all times. I’ve published a few detailed accounts as articles in my LinkedIn feed - feel free to look. I hope that helps.
@@silys5253
How many packs in the stations?
13
("Math")
Consider yourself informed.
@@rogeratkins6343
So, do they manage to keep every pack charged all the time?
Are the packs always immediately read? (Doubtful)
Was it your account I saw some time ago which recounted having to divert to a different station en-route then just beating another driver to the last pack (In China)?
Don't Nio have various sizes of pack now? Does that not effectively reduce the capacity of a station?
Do they guarantee a pack not aged by energy storage?
etc
Reminds me of a similar concept put forward by an Australian university back in the 80s. Their version used lead acid batteries and you just pulled into the service station and changed out the electrolyte.
I think we are going to see both technologies. I see merit in both systems for different applications. Maybe even stretches of roads that have wireless charging built-in at traffic lights and intersections or even longer stretches of roads etc. Also, many other OEM's will see the benefits of battery swapping, once the infrastructure is in place and shows how easy it is. I like both ideas! Great video as ever, thank you!
Great video. Nice coverage of both.
I can just picture a scam with the wireless charging. Put a piece of metal on the charger, driver comes up, won't charge, driver gets out to take a look and then the car gets jacked
Another amazing episode chaps, the accessability advantages for these technologies are important too!
I like how positive reviews are every time on some new idea. Like battery swapping method. Only 5 minutes..? That box has 13 batteries inside, what happens when 14th car enters? Yeah, 20th? Now you get same waiting time for batteries to charge, or to go to normal charger. It will be impossible to find one with full charged batteries in the future, I recon.
Correct.
Plus
You have "13 packs" of the same capacity (?)
.
Or maybe 6 100kWh, 7 70kWh?
That's reducing the available packs.
Then
If a 70kWh driver can "upgrade" for a holiday, if just 6 70kWh drivers do the same, and arrive at 08:00, the 100kWh driver who arrives to swap at 08:40 for HIS holiday will be ...... "Upset" to find only small capacity packs available.
Saw this a couple of weeks ago on Bjorn's channel. Game changer indeed.
Brilliant episode, the momentum wireless charging is brilliant.. admittedly at present its mainly for buses, taxis etc… but the technology even for those in a massive city like London, Manchester and Birmingham is so good for the environment, both through less fumes and also less audible pollution too.. Also welcome, Molly to a great team
battery swap is a great idea but it would need to be universal or you'd need multiple stations for different cars
It's a double-edged sword: universal swappable batteries means that all EV manufacturers have to standardize on the same battery pack form factor. That form factor needs to fit all sizes of car (otherwise logistics become a real issue). Also, there's a lot of innovation still going on in battery pack layout - standardizing halts that. Standardized batteries are a good long-term goal, but I think it's a bit too early just now.
All NIO cars both the suvs and sedans use the same battery swap stations, although it does not work with other brands
The Chinese government is looking into creating a standardized battery swap system.
Also it don't need to be the same form factor, since the swapping system can be designed to adjust for size and different standards.
@@markmuir7338 - more like - A-hole manufacturers all want everyone to use "their" - "standard"/format...
Tesla is the classic for A-hole manufacturers, they weren't the first, nor the most universal, but have tried at every level (mostly Since EM bullied his way through the board) to "force" already existing IEEE standards to conform to their "vision" using "established market" arguments...
(note that even a "structural pack" (or skateboard infill) - a la Tesla 2022, can easily be removed by a robotic fixture in mere "moments" (seconds to minutes)... We have truly entered the 'commoditisation era" of automotive, where A battery, or A chassis can be totally fungible, all the consumer cares about (in this market) is utility.
It is truly sad that Ferrari didn't make hybrids and EVs sexy back as far as 1998, the Maranello Mafia could have made every-day racers so much fun.. (with Sound track added to taste) - not forgetting of course that Li-Ion (NMC, FP, NCA) reached really usable energy density around the time that Tarpenning and Eberhard started chucking cells in a Lotus chassis
@@betterserenity
Do all NIO cars use the same capacity pack? (,I don't think so)
Both ideas are very applicable to a world where we no longer have our own private cars. The sharecar we use in the city runs on wireless charging, the (bigger) car we rent to go on holidays, roadtrips, or the van we get to move big stuff around have the batteryswap. Now add some solar roofs to the mix and we are near certain we'll always get home, or to a charging/ swapping station. Even in snowy icy Canada! (Which will not be snowy and icy anymore in a few decades anyway...)
The wireless charging is like a modern take on the old overhead lines which were used for trams etc.
Except less efficient.
Letting the car park itself on the charging mat or steer itself into the swap station is great! They can remove driver error and the learning curve by letting the computer handle it.
"On the go" here means literally in exact stationary spots, which is typical solution for a bus stop. Not so much for everyone going through the city. They would have to put them in basically all parking spots and then charging would be "on the spot"
Exactly. Bus stops, taxi ranks, store & factory loading docks - All perfect for wireless charging pads.
Trucks need both of these technologies. Battery swap to get you up the mountains when towing or hauling, wireless for convience in the urban areas. Would be really cool to have say a 100 kWh battery for everyday use and a high density 150kwh battery for trips. That way you increase your overall efficiency as compared a long range setup.
Great episode! Well done Molly, great to meet you! Excellent presenting.
Yeah she is a great presenter. She is actually a racing driver who has worked on many TV channels in her past. Currently she is the on stage presenter for the World Rally Championship. Married to one of Norways best rally drivers. 😊
That's awesome how it swaps the battery by itself, the last time I watched a battery swap there was a worker that had to drive it in and do it manually
One for every brand seems complicated though
@@StephenMatrese You would even need different battery swaps for different models from the same brand!
Both have their uses. Fleet vehicles that drive all day every day, would benefit battery swap. Metered parking spots would benefit wireless as it could do moderate charging speed saving the battery from over heating.
But if you had super fast charging for ultra capacitors that could charge up in 3- 5 minutes, and slow charge a battery on a bus?
Also with the onset of fully automated electric vehicle fleets without drivers the idea of a wireless charging network seems obvious. Great episode.
Loving the way the fully charged team is evolving. There's no weak member of this crew (never has been in fact).
Why fully charged is so important...excellent report particularly for the removal of fossil fuel from commercial road transportation
The wireless charger really seems to be the best option for full adoption. It fills that intermediate trip need which imho is the missing link. City driving, long distance freeway driving are solid. It's that 100 to 200 mile trip that is the weak point.
Great innovations, excited for the future development of these technologies. Manufacturers should look at giving customers these options of battery swap outs, build a universal standard platform and the wireless charging plates if these become thin enough, no reason why they couldn't be included onto future vehicles as standard or an optional extra.
Wireless charging really needs a groundbreaking infrastructure plan and needs support from the government and all. I like both of these two ways to charge.
@Too Legit To Quit That's a good idea👍
100% charged in 5 minutes?
YES!
but it's terrible for the grid.... that's why battery swapping is the better option...
Isn't that what he's on about?
@@nc3826 Why is it terrible for the grid? Much of the charging could be on off peak hours potentially.
@@terry2346 that part of my comment was about wireless.... the OC was not specific about what was being referenced...
and i stated battery swapping is the better option... sorry to confuse you...
I don't spend 5 minutes charging my EV ... and remember you've got to drive to the swapping station and queue ... it presently takes me 10 seconds to plug in ... I then sleep ... and I drive away in the morning.
Next time I'm in Wenatchee I'm going to check out the wireless charging buses. Who knew?
It's great seeing all this worldwide focus on EVs and infrastructure. Quiet and clean transport ! I can't wait...
Battery swap was used by the old Lucas/Bedford vans of the mid 1970's (they were lead acid back then) so its not a new concept. The problem is they are all manufacturer specific...we really need an international standard for large/medium/small car battery packs for this to work.
Someone have to start before standardization.
@@RB-cool00701 Yes but every manufacturer will start with their standard. Would you want a' standard battery' mean that you could not produce your brilliant looking car. We would end up with all cars looking like 1970s Ladas. Square boxes differentiated by only colour. No thanks.
About time these ideas came out.
Great episode, and great to see the idea of battery swap getting a second run. I was a little surprised, though, not a single mention of Better Place and any commentary or consideration of why the NIO system might succeed where Better Place failed? It strikes me that if NIO don’t get other manufacturers on board, it won’t get the traction to be a viable option…
Nios are expensive cars and their customers might like the exclusivity to having something that others can't use.
My first impression of the battery-swapping system is that it requires more batteries than compatible vehicles in order to allow time for the batteries to be health-checked and recharged without holding up vehicle through-put. Each vehicle has to have a heavy component unscrewed and screwed back on, possibly several times a week, with all this implies for thread wear. The machinery performing the swaps is itself susceptible to mechanical wear and requires energy for its mechanical operation as well for the battery recharging. No doubt the idea has its applications, but it doesn't seem ideal.
I like the idea of a wireless charger. It's so convenient. Also, have a camera under the car looking down to the ground so you know when you are centered or have a sensor on the charger and the car so they have handshakes.
I think a little bluetooth beacon in the parking space would be perfect. Like an Apple airtag or a Tile, They work from 30ft away, so even with the gigantic electromagnet right next to it (switched off until charging starts), it should be possible to lock on as you're entering the parking space, then have the distance count down and the familiar reversing camera beeps to let you know how close you are to the stopping place.
I was so disappointed that do didn't talk about wireless charging efficiency
Or a painted line in the road. You could line up with that.
BMW, Toyota, and Nissan have all built test vehicles with wireless charging that use a wireless locator in the pad to orient and park the vehicle over it, so if we get them as a manufacturer option, I could see that happening.
How do you clean off the camera? Ten minutes in the winter and my backup camera is full of dirt.
In gernal I think this is a lot better for commercial applications. The Wireless self charging for buses is amazing idea, self charging busstops. As for battery swaping is great for very large vechicals in say mining or construction where they don't want to stop working to charge huge batteries. you just have back up batteries already charged ready to swap them over.
The killer app for wireless is low power public overnight charging in crowded street with vandals. Probably cost more to fit than a charger on a stand, or even a retractable charger.
The biggest issue with battery swapping is that it is only a 5 minutes swap if only one vehicle turns up, if there is a queue the time shoots up: 2nd car 10 mins, 3rd car 15 mins, 4th car 20 mins 5th car 25 mins etc. If there is a queue you may just be better off plugged into a charger.
Then plug into the nio fast charger. Or any charger.
I think both tech's have their place. Wireless could work in parking places whilst I can see the battery changing tech in place of fuel stations for the quick 5 min swap.
Sounds good in theory until you have to think about coverage. Let's go with the fuel station example. Who will put one of these very expensive swapping stations every 50 km along every motorway? And if that somehow happens, how will they not end up 3 times more expensive for the same charge than a plug?
Unless you get a lot of people buying NIOs just for that feature, it is not going to pan out.
Battery swapping would certainly be a great tech for those having to drive several 100 kms every day or just on a holiday more than 500 km away. Imagine saving 2 hrs of charging time going from somewhere like Denmark to Italy. That's worth a lot in anyone's book.
If you go by the same steering time rules as truckers, and have the budget for a Nio, you can do it in the same time in another EV.
The real question is though, how expensive do they need to sell a charge for it to break even? That number can't be pretty.
@@BugMagnet I mean, all cars sold by 2030 is gonna be electric globally I think. Why waste a perfectly good fuel station on the motorway? Convert them all. The battery swapping tech doesn't just have to be for NIO cars either. If other manufacturers utilise similar tech and doesn't make them propirortory it's a win for everyone.
@@ragingsilver First off, if hybrids and so on will still be a thing in the 30's. No one in the industry is doubting that. 2030 could be the earliest date when NEW cars are all electric. Meaning that it takes 15 to 30 years after that until the existing fleet was entirely replaced.
Then you can take the space and either install 8 HPC units that take 20 mins to charge a car or one robot house that takes 5 mins i ideal conditions and costs 5 times as much in the absolute best case.
If I am a customer and you tell me that I could charge for 20 minutes and 30€ or for 5 minutes and 75€, I will put a book in my glovebox and go with the affordable money. Because there is no way on earth that the swapping stations are anywhere near the price of simple chargers. Remember, this exact same idea with the exact same methods has failed for exactly those reasons before.
And with the race still open between half a dozen battery chemistries and morphologies atm, who is going to cripple innovation by standardising battery packs right now? It does not make sense.
I can only see this in a densely urban environment where people own cars but do not own a parking spot and do not have access to an electrical outlet.
I wish they told us the cost to lease the battery. I heard about this a while ago - it makes perfect sense and is very slick. For me, that's always been a big concern, not range but battery longevity/warranty etc.. It could be game-changing in a few years with lots of older EVs about. Not having to worry about battery health means buying an older car is no big deal.
Wireless charging tech has big implications for car parks and shopping malls - imagine just pulling into your normal space and having it charge whilst you shop. Also the fact that you can have stuff on top of it, including metal and still not have it interrupt the charge rate is really impressive.
I thought that it would not work with a can on it. Because it can get hot. At least thats what i can remember from teslabjöns video like a year ago
@@remco6816 yeah that was the video I watched too (he also did a follow up one recently). I seem to remember them saying it would work but I'll have to go back and check!
Ideally these pads can work with anything on them if they are to succeed in the real world.
and it's terrible for the grid.... that's why battery swapping is the better option...
@@nc3826 why is it terrible fur the grid?
@@TiVomaniac greater draw ie load on the grid mostly during peak periods
It wasn't even hinted at how much a battery swap would be if done without a lease option. I dare say Robert has been replaced! Molly is the new voice for Fully Charged!!!
Imaging having both! And the option to lease a larger battery for road trips but have a smaller and lighter capacity battery as your daily battery that you own.
Both suffer from the requirement for standardization and standardization with wireless charging is more likely to happen sooner. Also, akin to battery swapping, there's rental battery trailers for intercity travel, hookup when leaving a city, swap when needed enroute and disconnect when arriving at your destination, again this suffers from a lack of standardization especially as voltage levels have now gone from 400 VDC packs to 1,000 VDC packs.
That was a very enjoyable and informative video. Molly is a great commentator.
Spent 6 April in Oslo, arriving on the boat from Denmark. Bus to the city centre was charging via a pantograph on the roof as it waited.
This should already be the norm for all buses routes.
I think wireless charging will be popular with all electric vehicle drivers so long as the efficiency concerns have been addressed.
I can picture these blue pads in front of the public fast chargers and also (in a more appropriate form factor) for people to install on their own garage floors.
It will be so much more convenient than having to plug the car in each time you want to charge it.
There would need to be a way for cars to communicate with the charger to authenticate themselves at public chargers, of course. You wouldn't need to get out of the car at all to charge up.
20:12 How exactly does it free up the space? The space still needs to be used by a car that’s charging, same as if it was plugged in.
Space taken by chargers, that's what they are referring to. Wired chargers generally have those phone booth styled structures near parking spot. As wireless chargers are on the ground, they don't need that infrastructure.
I am still concerned about efficiency though.
If these were in my red US state, the ICE-powered ICE monster trucks would park over the charging pads just for spite. Like they currently do at charging stations.
Parking enforcement is a different issue.
Both. Both is good. The more alternatives the better.
Charging for disability vehicles wireless charging is perfect and every superstore carpark aswell 👌
really love your great teamwork, love from China
Wireless charging in parking spots in motorway services would be the perfect option, especially if all the planning spots were fired with them. And shopping centres and supermarkets and offices etc etc.
Fascinating episode!! Can you charge the battery swap vehicle at home through the night, between battery changes??
You can charge as with a non-swappable battery
@@autokompass2963 Ah, ok, thanks for the info
I can see the wireless gaining traction in the market. Like trailer hitches, the people that want them can get it and it's useful to them.
Except not really, cause the people who want them, what are they supposed to do? Go about installing floor wireless chargers at every place they park their car?
@@DanielSultana No, Just at home where 99% of the charging is done. Away from home rapid charging stations would still work.
That battery changing system would totally alleviat any worries I have with batteries. As long as I know they will be still swapable in 25 years time or more. Oh, other problem is still the cost of an EV but this could soften the blow as I'd have no battery anxiety. Only problem I see now is leasing the battery monthly - I'd rather be charged for it everytime I swapped it out while still being able to charge it myself normally if I so wished. All depnds on the cost saving from new (not paying for the battery element) & the leasing/swapping costs. I currently do around 1k miles a year so any kind of lease could, more than likely would, be worthless & likely incredibly expensive pro-rata.
Renault were leasing batteries for years ... making the purchase price of their EVs much less. It was a good idea at the time. Once people realised how reliable the batteries were they no longer chose to lease ... so Renault stopped doing this in 2019. If you do 1k miles a year then clearly it is cheaper not to own a car at all! Using taxis or renting a car when you need it would be much cheaper for you and for the planet.
@@MrAdopado I only recently bought another car (July 2021) - but I'm recycling as it was a salvage car that had been written off by the previous owners insurance company. I paid very little for it and it cost me a relatively small amount to fix it as the damage wasn't that severe. I ended up with a 6 year old small runabout with a FSH and just under 2800 miles on it from new!! all in it cost me only £3k to buy, fix and put back on the road. That included auction charges and the hefty transport cost as I hired a self drive car transporter myself lol. Road tax, insurance and fuel etc is low which makes having my own car fairly economical overall and I much prefer the convenience of my own car than the hassle of taxis etc. It actually works out at around 40p per mile so far - much cheaper than your alternatives ;o)
@@yips_way If everyone had your skills I agree!
Thank you all brillent ideas about time.
Great discussion on clever charging options and the near future of EVs. Jack's story about the 12 inches of snow in Wenatchee, Washington was really eye-opening, but not as much as that block of ice (and his hilarious reaction!). Welcome, Molly!
The trick is to find the sweet spot / optimum between battery size for a certain type of vehicle. Add wireless charging, as that is just easier than plugging in, and have an extended range battery slot for longer trips. So you have a "fixed" battery for the normal day to day use, with wireless charging that will hopefully become ubiquitous and then have an extra battery for longer range and that is the one that you keep swapping :). It is the combination of technologies that will make EVs even more attractive than they already are ;).