Slashdot Mirror
Tesla About To Start Battery-Swap Pilot Program
cartechboy writes: Remember 18 months ago when Tesla promised it was going to launch battery-swap stations? Well, it's finally happening, sort of. It seems Tesla's about to announce a battery-swap pilot program that will launch next week. The swap site will be located across the street from a Tesla Supercharger site in Harris Ranch, California — 184 miles south of San Francisco and about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. The pilot program will involve an unspecified number of Model S electric-car owners, who will be invited to take part in the test. For now, the battery-swap service will be offered by appointment only, at a cost of roughly a tank of gas in a premium sedan. Tesla's using words to describe this pilot program like "exploratory work" and "intended to test technology and assess demand" for a swapping service. While originally pitched that the battery swap would take less time than it would to take to refill the gas tank of a comparable luxury sedan, the company says now that "for this specific iteration" the swap process will take "approximately 3 minutes" — though it adds Tesla has "the ability to improve that time with future iterations." Is this test going to show that battery swapping is or isn't a realistic initiative?
Is this test going to show that battery swapping is or isn't a realistic initiative? Yes. (Surely battery swapping is or isn't a realistic initiative)
It's not about getting it done in 3 minutes, it's about being 3rd in line at 7:20am with 35 minutes left on your drive to work.
If your commute involves a battery swap for a Tesla you should really consider changing jobs. I'm guessing it's more about the weekend rush, Friday afternoon lots of cars will be going on long range trips and return Sunday evening, I'm guessing a battery swap pad is a lot more involved than a gas station pump so they won't have very many of them. They did run a test here recently driving a Tesla ~1000 miles and they said it all worked well but there was a lot of waiting, for every 2-3 hours of driving there's was one hour of charging. I know that when we drive to the capital it takes ~7 hours and we have one 30-45 minute stop, if they could swap batteries on at least one stop they'd be down to one hour charging per 4-6 hours of driving which would roughly be the break time we'd want with an ICE car too. But Friday afternoon I'm one of a thousand lemmings trying to get out of the city, it better go fast.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is the only realistic approach to over coming the issues of charging speed, temperature, and time. You can also then have economy, regular ,and premium grades of batteries based on formulation or size. It also removes any concerns about battery longevity as once premium packs and be moved into economy as they age. This allows the batteries to be pampered when charging as well. Once you know the optimum rate of charge for longevity you now longer have to force feed the battery because of humans needs or time scales, just have a large enough buffer of batteries in the system.