You are describing the present and what is, I was describing the future and what could be to solve the problem you described: <None of the sedans have removable batteries or are even deigned to be easily removed and the batteries do in fact weigh a ton. Not to mention none of them are the same shape, size or material and cannot be interchanged between vehicles and they do in fact cost a small fortune.> That is the present.
No, that's not what I took it to mean or described: <You took that to mean single or two person golf carts that go up to 45 mph in a city environment> I already wrote it all, which you obviously did not read. I wrote that small batteries can be swapped every short distance if done in 7 seconds. BIG batteries are needed for long range between parking and charging the car for hours. Stopping for 7 seconds every 50km would not be a big deal. Make it a minute to allow for deceleration and acceleration. 7 minutes for 350km - not much of a delay. ADHD types would get fidgety.
Even a large car could have swappable batteries for long trips of 500 kilometres, stopping for 7 seconds several times en route, but of course that would not be the primary use which would make little batteries most desirable. Around town, swappable batteries would NOT be so necessary. Doing battery swaps is what makes using only batteries doable.
<If battery swaps cost as much as gas - then why bother buying electric. These imaginary stations do not exist and we don't have a good feel for pricing yet> Of course people won't buy battery-swapping cars if they don't save money. You write "imaginary" as thought I thought they are real. Everything that has not been invented yet is imaginary. Everything that now exists was imaginary before it was invented.
You might not have a good feel for pricing but I do. I know that batteries are already used in cars and they are dirty great big ones with known extra costs compared with non-battery same models. Make the battery quarter the size and you should have a reasonable idea, good enough for government work, what that would cost. We know what fork lifts cost which are strong enough to lift 100 kg or so. We know what land costs and what electricity costs. In fact, there aren't really unknown costs. Betterplace thought they had it figured out. But they did a bad job of it and there was not enough savings of money for motorists to crowd in.
Oh no, more spurious objection: <I do not argue there is a niche market within dense cities for the limited distance golf carts - but most city dwellers cannot park two cars - so they have to decide if they ever plan to go anywhere far away and make the right buying choice. I also wonder with all the snow we've been having how well those super light golf carts would do on ice or snow and if you can get chains in those tire sizes.> I drove in snow in Canada. Tyres are easy. I never used chains. We used snow tyres. Yes, you are right, people mostly have ONE car. That's why the battery-swap is a good idea. NOTE = FAST BATTERY SWAP. Don't write "Oh people won't want to spend 5 hours parked recharging their car enroute".
Snowmobiles are super light and go really well on snow. I drove them - whizzzo. Light cars would do fine too, with the right tyres. We are not discussing off-road back-country four wheel drive to go over rocks and snow drifts hunting moose. People who want to do that should use the right vehicle. If they want to go on a lake, they should not take the fast-battery swap car which is intended for actual roads.
< A fast charging battery technology does not increase the foot print of existing stations by much and is far superior in terms of land use and less monkeying around with car parts.> The amount of land needed is a function of how long cars spend stopped on it. If cars stop for 7 seconds, 8 cars a minute could be on the land. If they park for half an hour for a "super-charge" half-baked charge, that will require 240 times as much land to handle the 8 x 30 minutes = 240 cars that could be serviced with battery swaps. As you say, land is expensive. More than the land being expensive, people don't want to hang around for half an hour while their car gets a part charge.
"Monkeying around" is easy with battery swap. No cables or muss or fuss as with car recharging, when the family would get out of the car and monkey around while they wait for the charge.
Do you get it now? Any more spurious objections?
The big one is the price. I would not invest in it yet because the price of oil is likely to fall a lot given the vast resources looking for buyers. Methane is seriously cheap and that's just a quick polymerisation away from gasoline, with the spare hydrogen able to be used to upgrade cheap heavy gunk to nice diesel and gasoline. Over the decades, engine makers have done an amazing job of keeping the old engines competitive.
But electricity is cheap, so if people have special needs such as fleet use in cities, they'll be going to electricity, as many cars have already done around London. Once electric cars are economic on sufficient scale, it'll be a tsunami of them. 4 motors, one in each wheel, with no other moving parts, is a big space, cost and reliability saving. Power stations, even with line losses to battery swap stations are much more efficient than millions of gasoline and diesel engines in cars. Power stations can efficiently and cleanly burn really cheap grot. Cars in cities need expensive fuel and their emissions are worse at start up [not that that's much of a problem these days].
Mqurice |
