Project Better Place

I agree, let's review and enhance the innovative Project Better Place business model. I've opened a new forum thread with regards to that particular topic.
In my opinion - similar to the mentioned mobile phones - you need to give people the opportunity to buy non-subsidized cars and allow the opportunity to recharge the battery by your own. The advantages for the consumers are:
- Freedom to choose your ("green") energy supplier
- Personal recharging during the night avoids peak loads and allows overall access to cheaper energy
 
The disadvantage is that it cannibalizes on the existing, already developed model and negatively affects the bottom line. But I would personally expect that 'project better place' moves into that direction and enhances the current business model. The opportunities that I see is forging alliances with energy suppliers, allowing this specific ‘EV user group’ good charging conditions during night hours etc. This would give consumers the real freedom to choose, getting rid of oil as well as avoiding to get into another dependency of ‘one battery supplier only’.
 
Dear community, hope you help starting a good controversial discussion on that particular topic.
 
Best regards, Stefan

And on another point it will be interesting to see how much power is needed at swap stations:

- Say 10 swap bays per service station
- 1 minute swap time (therefore 60 swaps in an hour)

= 60 x 10 = 600 swaps per hour

Fast charge the inventory at 10 minutes per charge, means 6 recharges per hour (60 minutes divided by 10 minutes).

So there would need to be 600/6=100 batteries always in stock. That's not too many if arranged in an underground cube shape, e.g. 5x5x4 (WxHxL)= 100 batteries.

But the electricity needed would need to be 100 times the amount used for the normal 10-minute fastcharge. I don't know what that is but I'd say it's a fun amount.

I work on battery maintenance and we swap industrial batteries from forklifts every day and it doesn't take more than a minute when everything is ready. Those batteries weight up to 2000Kg and we just use a forklift to swap them. With a robotic system or a specially designed lift it could be done even faster. I suppose all EV manufacturers are designing their cars thinking that batteries don't last forever, so they must have easy access. If a standard system is agreed that probably be better, but battery swapping will never be a problem.

I think you had a good idea, and I hope this will be the boost that the EV industry needs. Personally I would quickly change my dirty diesel powered van for an electric van as soon as they are available. I think 100 miles range is enough for 99% of consumers.

We've seen lots of information about global warming, of course something must be made about that. But there is very little information about the health problems and premature deaths that car pollution creates in most cities. We are all aware about global warming but probably most people see it as something too big for them to think about. But tell them that their health is at risk and limitations for oil powered cars will soon spread around the world, giving a better chance to EV to succeed. My suggestion is that you stress this point in the future, or create some organization to raise awareness on this issue worldwide.

Boy, I missed on all the fun when I didn't check in for a few days (I am sorry - but it has been quite a week on the farm this week).

Fast Charge is a tough option to digest inside the car. We have looked at it, but the problem is time of charge. The shorter you want to go the bigger the "electron hose" needs to get, and with it, security, power electronics costs, dealing with city governance, and personal safety if inside the car. It does not mean that you forget its value...but hold for a second here.

As to battery swap, you can imagine how fast you can get the mechanism if you look at the pit-stop at Nascar races. Now, imagine it with a robot instead of a 4-men crew. Small variance can be accomadated rather easily by a robot, and you can keep a variety of batteries, as long as that brand of battery is in abundance in the market...

As to economics, believe me that every cost that works for 25 years (like a battery replacement track) work really well in an energy cost model - ever asked yourselves how expensive a gas station costs to make sure it is safe for you to drive over the gas tanks under the ground?

What it boils down to is an exchange station, potentially with fast charge in very very exceptional cases on batteries that are outside the car and need to be put back in circulation due to inventory constraints at a packed exchange station...

I know this video from Aerovironment.

I think they just claimed the can charge Level 3 and that it will be enought to charge the regular Phoenix (35 kWh) in 10 min.

I would love to hear a statement, how Phoenix or Altair will get reid of the problem of the wastenergy converted to heat.

Never the less, I think Altair has a very interesting technology. But I think for lager Pcks cooling is definitly required. Maybe not a big issue, but it will drive up costs and weight of the system, also complexity.

But I also see the drawbacks in the exchangemodell.
But I think both options make way more sense, than hydrogen or biofuels.

First I want to say how much I enjoy seeing so many people posting their ideas here.

But I have burst some of your bubbles. Sorry.

Wireless or Inductive Charging: There are I think roughly 200 inductive charging stations in califonia.
check http://www.cleancarmaps.com/

The Problem with the fastcharge is following.

Image You have a Phoenix SUT with the 70 kWh pack and want to recharge 80% in 1 minute. You end up with astonisching 3,36 MW of Power. Ebven if you had 1 kV connection, you would still have 3000 Amps.

But lets do so, as if there is no problem with your connection and your 4 MW charginstation.

There is the Problem that chaging a battery happens with acertain eifficency. Lets be generous and say 95% efficent. The remaining 5% will en up as heat. So you have 168 kW of heat. Ok ist only for one Minute, but I'm still not sure.

The thing with the 10min recharge is I think from an engineers standpoit doable. I don't nkow much about the chemisty of the battery, but I can calculate if the Energy and Powerissues make sense.

Battery swapping: The intelligent idea of PBP is that they solve the problem of batteryechange (old for new-Battery-Problem) with a mobilephoneservice-distribution model.
As they then have the abillity to interchange, recharge and manage these batteries, they make use of the v2g businesscase and they are one major distibutor for the energy
to run the cars. In long therm they will become a lagre storage system for renewable energy. The only drawback, which I see, is the huge problem of convincing the car-manufactueres to standardize for a system. In fact I think only the montingystem must be standardizes. Diffent Battries could be mounted be an Robot, whcih can adopt to diffent batteryshapes. And the charginstation know how to chagre the diffent batteries. Than only the plug needs to be standrdized. (This is in fact, what I could read from the official statements and how I interpreted them)

They they manage do do this whole thing will be huge.
Is this the next big battle Google.org vs. PBP :-)

Competition has always driven innovation. So let's see.
Hope to hear more intersting ideas from you guys. Best

Yes -- 10 minutes to 95%, 1 minute to 80%.

I would guess that both swapping and recharging methods would be received.

In my drawings for my patent (that I didn't file :)), I had a large rectanglar underground repository with batteries stacked up robotically. FIFO. I don't think you'd need too many in stock since they can be charged as mentioned in 10 minutes. No doubt PBP has plans for their own system.

What do you think of www.phoenixmotorcars.com though with a range of 320 Kms per charge?

Wouldn't that mean it would be pretty much unnecessary to swap a battery? If you did run out of power you could go to a service station that has a re-charger and recharge in 1 minute as they advertise.

neptuntriton wrote:Hi again,

the problem to inducing systems is that there efficiency is bad. You have to have a very low distance between the transmitter coil and the receiver coil. In best way the iron core is passing the two coils. And Even then the grade of transmission is not so good. If you park your car over such a reloading coil than there is maybe 10 cm of space between your car and the ground. It’s simply catastrophic for the transmission efficiency.

Accumulators for their own have bad Load/Reload efficiencies and that in mind the Battery swapping system is the Better way in global definitions.

The next thing is that you don't have to cut off a lot off streets to integrate such copper Coils.
(By the way they will be a big hunting for that metal thief guys) The Gas stations exist already. They simply have to add a system for battery swapping. That’s why I think the Idea has a real chance to get to the market.

greetings to all fans of electric cars from Dresden germany

Thanks for the info Hendrik. I read it in English with Altavista Babelfish.

Yes it is similar to what I filed. I guess one of the differences would be the system I documented allowed charging while the vehicle was moving -- e.g. along a public road. Also I'd say cars could use a Nanosafe battery from www.altairnano.com. E.g. Cars like www.phoenixmotorcars.com with a 200 mile range: http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/models/fleet.html

Hendrik wrote:MarkBrownlee wrote:Interesting. I filed a patent earlier this year relating to wireless charging -- including as the car is being driven along the road. Here's a summary:

Title: Vehicle Electro-Magnetic Induction Charging System
===================================

I am sorry to tell you that a system like this is already running in Lucerne / Switzerland (in an experimental state).
Here is a link (german only, sorry) :

http://www.3sat.de/3sat.php?http://www.3sat.de/nano/cstuecke/66598/index.html
(it was aired quite some time ago)

They run electric buses on a pack of almost 1000 "Supercaps". A special capacitator that can be charged in 3 to 5 minutes while having most qualities of a classic battery but being a lot lighter with compareable performance! Since the electric charge is a physical process Supercaps don't suffer the quick wear of a chemical battery after numerous chargings. They only take up more volume.
Their concept is to charge the Supercaps on each bus station by induction wires while the bus stands still.

Hendrik.

It's funny -- I had the same idea earlier this year though I decided not to get a patent written up for it :)

Here's a summary of it from back then:

Title: Automatic Electric Car Battery Swapping System
=================================

Abstract
=====

This invention is a system to automatically swap the battery of an electric car when a driver drives through a swapping station.

The Issue
======

Electric-powered cars are often seen to be more desirable than petrol powered cars for environmental issues but an argument against them they need charge-up time once the battery runs out.

Solution
=====

A solution is to quickly swap/exchange the battery from the car with a fresh one via an automated drive-through battery swapping system.

The system works as follows:

1. A driver pulls off the road into a service station (e.g. gas station) and heads straight into the automated car-wash-like robotic battery swapper

2. Upon entry, a guidance traffic light switches from green to red once the car is in the appropriate position

3. The system communicates with the car's computer, exchanging information such as:

- Car Registration/Information
- Docked Battery ID (determined By RFID or otherwise)
- Driver Account Information
- Drivers Account Funds Availability To Pay (Determined By Internet Lookup)
- Other Relevant Information

4. If the information above allows the system to determine that a swapping transaction can take place, the car is automatically powered down ready for battery removal

5. From underneath the car, a robot arm reaches up and locks onto the battery (which is located under the car in an easy-access position) and removes it downwards

6. The old battery is then moved robotically, preferably to an underground area where it is stored along with other batteries and automatically begins to be recharged

7. The robot arm then inserts a fresh, recharged battery into the car from a stockpile of First-In-First-Out batteries

8. The driver then exits the swapping station having had his or her account debited with the calculated cost of the transaction

9. It is anticipated that the process takes around 5-10 seconds and the driver remains in the car during the process.

Drawings
======

[Never done ...]

More Information
Mark Brownlee
eval(unescape('%64%6f%63%75%6d%65%6e%74%2e%77%72%69%74%65%28%27%3c%61%20%68%72%65%66%3d%22%6d%61%69%6c%74%6f%3a%6d%62%72%6f%77%6e%6c%65%65%40%6f%72%62%69%73%6f%66%74%2e%63%6f%6d%22%3e%6d%62%72%6f%77%6e%6c%65%65%40%6f%72%62%69%73%6f%66%74%2e%63%6f%6d%3c%2f%61%3e%27%29%3b'))

drivin98 wrote:First, I'd like to say congratulations and thank you for creating an electric car company. I share your vision of an electric vehicle future. The sooner, the better.

The point of this post is to address concerns about the viability of the battery swapping model.
Perhaps this model could work if there were only one electric car manufacturer and one battery supplier. However, there are lithium powered car programs already under development by an assortment of companies from Tesla to Nissan to GM. They all have very different battery architectures. None have a battery or vehicle design which could conform to a future battery swapping infrastructure. If an improved energy storage solution appears on the market, it also may not conform.
This means that only the cars and batteries you design and produce could take advantage of such a system. Also, making these stations ubiquitous would be cost prohibitive and time intensive.
On the other hand, there are solutions which would be much more feasible, economically and design wise, to implement. Charging stations have already been in existence in America for many years. I believe this technology would be much more easily increased and improved upon. It allows auto manufactures and battery suppliers to keep their existing systems in place and also allows for the rapid adoption of improved energy storage systems.
There are also great advantages to implementing wireless charging stations as well. Not having cords in a public charging environment could greatly reduce maintenance from general wear and tear and vandalism. Increased simplicity should encourage early adoption. The only interface encountered by the public may be a parking space appliance (similar to the parking meters of today) which could accept payment for a specified amount of electricity. Of course, there are no cars with wireless charging systems currently on the road though Nissan has incorporated this idea into it's iMiev Sport concept.
Perhaps this might be an avenue you may wish to stroll down with your initial prototype(s).