Electronics manufactures must from Saturday fit all devices sold in the EU with USB-C charger ports in a bid by the 27-nation bloc to reduce waste and cut costs for consumers, who will no longer have…
Yes and no. No need to hot swap massive EV batteries. Rapid is fast enough. But yes so the EV can be upgraded. The batteries go obsolete quicker than they degrade. So make it so we can swap the batteries and keep the rest running. In fact, just right-to-repair the whole car. In fact, the whole everything!
Hot Swapping batteries is actually surprisingly good for the life of the battery if done well.
Rapid charging the battery does do permenant damage over time especially if you fast charge every time. Whereas if you can hot swap a battery and have a suitable stockpile of them you can trickle charge the battery over a couple of hours instead of 30 mins and prolong the overall lifespan of the battery. Even slowing down the charge rate to 1 hour reduces wear on the battery significantly. Plus, without time pressure from a customer, more time could be taken to replace damaged cells or blocks in a battery so that one pack will more effectively use the whole battery up instead of throwing away perfectly good cells.
See, for me, I rapid charge like once a month. All the rest of the time I use my home charger or even a granny lead. 10A granny charging is absolutely fine overnight. But for the size of the E-Berlingo, the battery is a bit small and I know all kind of new batteries are coming. More kWh for the same weight/size, less degradation, safer, etc etc. If I knew the car was designed with battery replacement in mind, I’d worry a lot less about it being obsoleted prematurely. These cars are all black boxed stuck together. It’s not built with repairing and upgrading in mind.
The batteries don’t live in isolation. There are other pieces that are dependent, whether for basic function or for calibration.
Example: Chevy issued a recall for mislabeling some Bolts as N2.1 vs N2.2. The fix is a sharpie to fix the label, and “reprogramming the Hybrid Powertrain Control Module 2”. I could find no information on either of these chemistries. Dropping in a LiFePO4 would require at least the same, and possibly more.
Now, if you’re suggesting simply swapping a matching replacement part (obsolete as it might be), then I’m on board with that
But the economics is much harder if batteties aren’t unique to each EV. (They aren’t completely of course, the guts of my E-Berlingo are shared across a number of others.) EVs, like a lot else, should be designed with maintaining and upgrading in mind. Especially with parts like batteries which are in such evolutionary flux.
Battery swapping is common practice in China. Far as I know, these swaps aren’t for huge capacity batteries, and moreso designed for smaller ones. Takes about as long as filling a sedan tank with fuel. We could have this technology, but there’s not really a push for it.
Right - I wouldn’t benefit from such a thing either. The market exists in China probably due to the density of people living in apartment buildings without access to home based charging.
Yes and no. No need to hot swap massive EV batteries. Rapid is fast enough. But yes so the EV can be upgraded. The batteries go obsolete quicker than they degrade. So make it so we can swap the batteries and keep the rest running. In fact, just right-to-repair the whole car. In fact, the whole everything!
Hot Swapping batteries is actually surprisingly good for the life of the battery if done well.
Rapid charging the battery does do permenant damage over time especially if you fast charge every time. Whereas if you can hot swap a battery and have a suitable stockpile of them you can trickle charge the battery over a couple of hours instead of 30 mins and prolong the overall lifespan of the battery. Even slowing down the charge rate to 1 hour reduces wear on the battery significantly. Plus, without time pressure from a customer, more time could be taken to replace damaged cells or blocks in a battery so that one pack will more effectively use the whole battery up instead of throwing away perfectly good cells.
See, for me, I rapid charge like once a month. All the rest of the time I use my home charger or even a granny lead. 10A granny charging is absolutely fine overnight. But for the size of the E-Berlingo, the battery is a bit small and I know all kind of new batteries are coming. More kWh for the same weight/size, less degradation, safer, etc etc. If I knew the car was designed with battery replacement in mind, I’d worry a lot less about it being obsoleted prematurely. These cars are all black boxed stuck together. It’s not built with repairing and upgrading in mind.
@jabjoe
At least ‘some’ minimal standardisation so we can exercise the #righttorepair
@DrownedRats @technology
Exactly. I want things, especially expensive things, built to be repaired and upgraded. Not vendor locked and with built in obsolescence.
Boy, that escalated quickly
But yes, please.
The batteries don’t live in isolation. There are other pieces that are dependent, whether for basic function or for calibration.
Example: Chevy issued a recall for mislabeling some Bolts as N2.1 vs N2.2. The fix is a sharpie to fix the label, and “reprogramming the Hybrid Powertrain Control Module 2”. I could find no information on either of these chemistries. Dropping in a LiFePO4 would require at least the same, and possibly more.
Now, if you’re suggesting simply swapping a matching replacement part (obsolete as it might be), then I’m on board with that
Oh totally, I have a E-Berlingo which basically an ICE converted to an EV, so there is all kind of compromises.
But batteries do improve and an old existing EV can be improved battery. Example: https://evsenhanced.com/aftermarket-battery/
But the economics is much harder if batteties aren’t unique to each EV. (They aren’t completely of course, the guts of my E-Berlingo are shared across a number of others.) EVs, like a lot else, should be designed with maintaining and upgrading in mind. Especially with parts like batteries which are in such evolutionary flux.
Battery swapping is common practice in China. Far as I know, these swaps aren’t for huge capacity batteries, and moreso designed for smaller ones. Takes about as long as filling a sedan tank with fuel. We could have this technology, but there’s not really a push for it.
I don’t need it and neither do the other EV owners I know. But we can all charge at home.
Right - I wouldn’t benefit from such a thing either. The market exists in China probably due to the density of people living in apartment buildings without access to home based charging.