It was one year ago that Tesla introduced its battery swapping technology in a theatrical presentation, with lights flashing and music thumping. At the time, Elon Musk said that the company planned to make swapping available as soon as the end of 2013, and eventually install the capability at every Supercharger station. In early 2014… Read more »
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Tesla battery swapping service details
Okay, Tesla has shown that the Model S battery pack can be swapped out quickly and elegantly, to the accompaniment of thumping techno music. However, there are a lot of questions about how this is going to work in the real world, so after Thursday’s live demonstration, CEO Elon Musk stuck around to offer some answers…. Read more »
Will Tesla’s sci-fi super charger include solar panels and battery swapping?
Tesla Motors intends to unveil the plans for its long-awaited and much-hyped “super charger” next Monday. In true Tesla fashion, the unveiling will be a media event – you can watch it happen live on the company’s web site – and the charging station itself will be designed to look cool – like an advanced… Read more »
ONE’s hybrid battery pack combines the best aspects of two chemistries to deliver 600 miles of EV range
Q&A with ONE CTO Dr. Steven Kaye. There is a wide range of characteristics that describe the performance of any given battery chemistry: energy density, specific energy, specific power, discharge efficiency, self-discharge rate, cycle life, calendar life, and—not the least important—cost. Some types of Li-ion chemistries are really good in a few characteristics but fall… Read more »
Battery swapping specialist Ample raises $160 million in Series C funding
Battery swapping is an old idea with a troubled history. Better Place, an Israeli startup that was a promising early promoter of EVs, made battery swapping a centerpiece of its strategy—it went bust in 2013. Tesla demonstrated a swapping system for Model S in 2013, but dropped the technology in 2015. Chinese EV startup NIO… Read more »
EV battery swapping: Better idea or big boondoggle?
Why is the idea of battery swapping so persistently popular in the mainstream press? Perhaps it’s because people who’ve never driven an EV imagine that it needs to be like driving a legacy vehicle, with periodic stops at public stations to quickly refuel. Those who are actually involved in the EV industry tend to be… Read more »
NIO’s Battery as a Service (BaaS) brings down up-front EV costs, allows battery upgrades
Battery leasing has often been proposed as a way to bring down the up-front cost of an EV, and to allay consumers’ fears about battery degradation. Chinese EV-maker NIO has embraced this concept, and launched Battery as a Service (BaaS) for customers in China. NIO BaaS users can purchase a car without owning the battery,… Read more »
Battery swapping is back: NIO Power has completed more than 500,000 swaps
Remember battery swapping? Following Tesla’s abandonment of the concept, and the spectacular rise and fall of Better Place, most in the EV industry probably wrote it off as a failed transitional technology. However, over in China, NIO has been diligently improving its battery swapping technology. The company introduced its Power Swap system in December 2017,… Read more »
Tesla Model 3: Will this machine kill the Oil Age?
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of the Tesla Model 3 (although the media has been doing its best). There’s no question that it’s a momentous motorcar on (at least) three levels. First, Model 3’s success is widely assumed to be an existential issue for the company – if it fails to deliver on its… Read more »
Can Tanktwo redefine the battery pack with big data?
A Finnish-American start-up with ambitious goals wants to change how we think about batteries. The concept of an EV that supports the quick removal and replacement of a discharged battery pack was all the rage about 5 years ago. Since then, however, various systems have been attempted and subsequently abandoned by companies like BetterPlace, Renault,… Read more »