Gone in 90 Seconds: Tesla's Battery-Swapping Magic

[TexasTowelie]

Earlier this year, Tesla Motors (TSLA) Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk unveiled a nationwide network of super-fast charging stations to refuel the company’s all-electric sedans on long-distance trips. The really nice thing about these charging stations is that they’re free. Free! The downside is that they take about 30 minutes to put 200 miles’ worth of charge back into the car. That might not seem like a horribly long time, but it’s long enough for critics of electric cars to argue that they’re not well-suited for long journeys, and so not that practical.

Well, Tesla took a major stride toward getting rid of that downside last night.

Musk presided over an event at Tesla’s Los Angeles design studio that he billed as a “title fight” between the Model S and gas-powered cars. In front of an audience of hundreds of Model S owners, Musk unveiled a new type of automated battery-swap system in which machines grab the flat battery pack from the bottom of the Model S and replace it with a brand-new, fully charged one. During a live demonstration, Tesla managed to perform a battery swap on a Model S in 1 minute and 33 seconds, and then a second Model S in 1 minute and 36 seconds. All the while, a Tesla employee was being filmed at a gas station as he refueled a 20-gallon tank in an Audi, taking more than 4 minutes to fill up the car. Musk insisted that Tesla had scoured the city for the fastest gas station to make the test fair.

“There are people that take a lot of convincing,” Musk said. “Hopefully, this is what will finally convince people that electric cars are the future.”

More at http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-21/gone-in-90-seconds-teslas-battery-swapping-magic#r=rss .

[East Coast Pirate]

1. Great plan.

Petroleum powered cars are archaic.

[Raster]

2. electric cars can't be the future....

...what about the poor petroleum companies, what will happen to them?

[stlsaxman]

3. Big Oil will just have to get into politics... oh, wait. nt

[FrodosPet]

15. Plastics, fertilizer, building materials, body panels, power plants...

Petroleum is too freaking valuable to keep burning up.

[hack89]

29. The coal companies will overtake them

think about all that "clean coal" needed to generate that electricity.

[Dustlawyer]

4. Big coal ought to be behind Tesla, b/c that is the most common fuel used for electricity!

[TexasTowelie]

5. K&R

for the afternoon viewers.

The other consideration for this plan is that Tesla can recharge the batteries that are removed so that can be reused in another vehicle. This would help lower the costs associated with swapping out the batteries and have a secondary effect of reducing the number of LPG tankers on the highways which could improve safety, relieve traffic congestion and lower pollution. This could be a big win from so many different points of view.

[Warren DeMontague]

6. Elon Musk is awesome.

[jmowreader]

7. And as long as you only go where charging stations and battery swap stations are, you're fine

Washington State is a case in point: there are three planned charging stations in WA and will probably be one or two battery swap stations, and all of them are on the I-5 corridor. If you have some strange reason for wanting to drive your car to Spokane or Coeur d'Alene, you have one option: there's an RV park in Ellensburg that takes care of the one Tesla owner in Coeur d'Alene when he and his wife drive to Seattle. You could stop there.

On the other hand, you can fill a non-Tesla with gas in thousands of places all over the state.

[usGovOwesUs3Trillion]

8. Imagine solar paint

Hyper efficient, to add to the mix, until we figure out the ubiquitous dark energy =)

[backscatter712]

9. Tesla's planning to have charging stations across the nation in a couple years...

So you'll be able to road-trip just about everywhere.

Of course, if you're just commuting, you recharge your car in your garage, and don't have to go to charging stations for the daily commute.

It's a matter of infrastructure. A century ago, there weren't gas stations on every street corner either. I imagine that once electric cars get more popular, that gas stations will start installing charging stations, or maybe even battery-swap stations.

[TexasTowelie]

10. It's true that at this point there are not enough charging stations

to serve rural areas. However, if enough vehicles are purchased throughout the country then the rural areas will be served also.

At one point when cell phones first arrived on the market there were significant coverage caps throughout the country. I used to have dropped calls when I traveled down the highway between I-35 (Dallas/Austin) and I-45 (Dallas/Houston). That problem was resolved as more people purchased cell phones in those areas and cell phone companies built additional towers.

One of the interesting things about capitalism is that when there is demand and the potential for profit is possible, someone will inevitably fill the gap. The cost of providing charging stations and battery swap stations is minimal compared to the profit that is made selling the vehicles.

Conversely, I am without transportation and live in the largest town between Austin and Houston. The bus service was provided by a regional company that was affiliated with Greyhound. In November of last year the regional bus company was purchased by Megabus. Since that time, Megabus has dropped service not only in Brenham but two other towns along the route between Houston and Austin. They also terminated contracts with local stations in several other small towns along the routes that the regional bus company served. Megabus is now only providing point-to-point service in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio that had the devastating effect of leaving people in the smaller towns along their routes stranded.

I contacted Megabus regarding the disruption of service and the effect that it has and the only reply that I received was a generic e-mail that did not address any of my concerns. My response to how they have abandoned potential bus riders in these locations is a personal boycott against Megabus. If I need to travel on a bus between the larger cities here in Texas I will choose Greyhound over Megabus even if the ticket costs more and because I prefer to wait in a terminal building instead of a parking lot exposed to the weather elements. I know that it will not effect their decision since I'm only one person, but they lost a customer forever because of that decision.

And yes, if I decide to buy another vehicle in the future I will certainly consider purchasing a car from Tesla. Hopefully as they increase production of their vehicles the prices of their vehicles will be more competitive with a gas powered vehicle.

[rhett o rick]

13. So your point is that we shouldnt buy electric cars? To inconvenient? They said the same when gasol

gasoline engines were introduced. Seems to me that conservatives are always against change.

[jmowreader]

27. My point is electric cars are an urban solution

And a very good solution at that - reducing exhaust in the LA Basin by half would be doubledoubleplusgood. Same thing with any other urban area.

Now look at Idaho. It is over 300 miles from Lewiston to Boise, there are maybe 5000 people living along that road, and unless Tesla starts making pickups they have no chance of selling anything to anyone who lives there. They don't really need a charging station there because almost everyone who needs to go from...oh, Sandpoint...to Boise flies. And this is not the only part of America too sparsely populated to make electric cars practical.

A complete transportation system of the future will contain electrics, hybrids and gas cars...because each kind of fuel has its place.

[politicat]

14. When cars were new, you had to buy your fuel in bottles and hope you'd multiplied right.

If you were lucky, the general store where you were going might have a barrel of the stuff and could ladle some into your tank. If not, with luck, your tins wouldn't get over-heated in the sun and start leaking. And let's not even talk about the difficulties in finding a tube for your tire if it got wrecked, which it often did on rutted roads.

Distributions systems are always hard to build, but we do, and always from urban to rural. We start with the places with the highest concentration of people.

And hot-swappable batteries are probably the best option for building the infrastructure.

[mainer]

11. Tesla needs to put charging stations at every major airport

People park their cars at airports, hop on a plane, and then come home days or weeks later. They can't leave their car at the airport parking lot where the charge slowly drains away. People who can afford a Tesla tend to fly a lot. This gives them the option of leaving their Teslas at the airport and come home to a full charge.

Even better? Have the Tesla parking lot come with a free shuttle to and from the airport.

[Sirveri]

17. Would be even better if we could smartgrid that infastructure.

If we do that's likely where it will start.

[Travis_0004]

26. A car shouldn't be dead if its left unused for a few days or weeks.

When you take a gas car and leave it unused for a few days/weeks, it still starts right up. I would expect nothing less from an electric car, and it it doesn't start up after a few weeks of being unused, then that needs to be fixed.

[Uncle Joe]

12. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, TexasTowelie.

[TexasTowelie]

18. You are welcome.

It fell onto the second page earlier today so I gave it a K&R since it is an important story and deserves visibility.

[Uncle Joe]

20. I agree, this sounds like a great approach.

Peace to you,

[Egalitarian Thug]

16. I find all the nay-saying and the big manufacturer's sabotage rather amusing.

Honda makes one, but you can't buy it. Nissan makes one that will get you 75 miles down the road before needing a re-charge, an 8 hour process, unless you want to pay a premium so you can get another 60 miles after 30 minutes. Chevy, remember them? The folks that brought us the original (pretty crappy) electric car that you couldn't buy that they took back and destroyed as soon as they could find a politician for sale. And so on...

And here's Tesla. The only manufacturer dedicated to making high performance, practical all electric cars available.

This is all about the money, and it's disgusting.

The real problem with the electric car is that it kills 90% of the enormous profits built into a foul and corrupt industry that has duped suckers and perverted our political process for a century.

[jmowreader]

28. Chevrolet makes the only practical electric

You can tool around LA in your Volt all day on electric power only, but if you decide to go to Dallas you don't have to figure in a bunch of multi-hour recharges and you don't have to hope the last guy who had the battery you're getting was as gentle with it as you were with yours. You just drop off the Interstate every couple of hours and put gas in.

[Egalitarian Thug]

30. Be my guest. n/t

[flvegan]

19. What's the range for the Tesla S v the Audi 20 gallon tank?

Whoops, yeah...that.

The future isn't batteries, you idiots.

For the record, love Tesla. Right now, they've got the right idea.

[TexasTowelie]

21. I understand that you might disagree.

The Tesla and the Audi require some source of energy for propulsion be it gasoline or battery. If you have another source to provide that energy please offer a suggestion.

However, do you have to call the people at DU that are interested in this alternative technological solution "idiots?"

I won't alert on that insult and I do want to find out what alternatives you are thinking of since you apparently have other solutions. However, don't be surprised if someone else does.

[flvegan]

22. I was speaking to the folks at Tesla, actually.

But if you'd like to lump yourself in, feel free.

So back to my question, one v the other then, considering it was your OP please...

And you DO know that right now those batteries aren't very "clean" nor is the energy to charge them, right? But feel free to alert on your perception of an insult, considering it's all about you, right?

[TexasTowelie]

23. Excuse me for misinterpreting your reply.

It certainly was easy enough to do when you make a reference to "you idiots" and your post followed several other posts that looked upon the news as a favorable development. If your comment was stated as the "idiots at Tesla", then it would not have been open for misinterpretation. I did not view it as a personal attack on me but as an attack on the DU members that responded to the OP because "you idiots" was ambiguous. Since you clarified that your remarks were directed towards the folks at Tesla, I see no need to alert as long as our conversation remains within the Community Standards for DU.

I do have a considerable background in both chemistry and physics so I know that the production of batteries and electricity is not considered to be completely "clean" for the environment. I'm also knowledgeable about the production of gasoline and diesel since my father worked at a natural gas refinery, my brother worked at an oil refinery and I refined oil to obtain the various distillates when I took organic chemistry in college. Therefore, I don't consider those to be "clean" sources for fuel either.

My question to you about what other ways/processes produce an energy source to power a vehicle wasn't answered and apparently you have no suggestions of how to provide an alternate energy source that is feasible, economical and not detrimental to the environment. I actually hoped that you would offer an alternative that nobody else has mentioned since I prefer to solve problems rather than create problems.

As for your closing remark, I could ask the same question to you considering the arrogance of your reply. However, I will let the comment slide because it could be a matter of miscommunication between us and despite your allegation, it isn't about me. The subject of this thread is stated in the OP and most of the responders to the thread believe that this is a positive development when compared to the use of fossil fuels. If you believe that the development of battery swapping stations by Tesla or the use of rechargeable batteries is a negative development because of environmental concerns, then you are welcome to begin an OP for discussion and I will exercise my option to avoid posting on your thread.

[Scootaloo]

24. "The future isn't batteries, you idiots. "

Actually the future is probably horses. I'm not sure if that's pessimistic or optimistic at the moment, but that's where we'll end up. Looks like we're going to fall just short of being able to leap the gap between petroleum and "other."



In the meantime, batteries seem like a decent idea.

[JimDandy]

25. Yeah! Go, Tesla, Go! n/t