Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

The battery in our golf cart is about 60 percent of what it was 3 years ago. Big regret.

ABC article explaining why EVs are so much lower emissions than petrol vehicles. Even when EVs are built with fossil energy and powered by fossil electricity

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/comparing-electric-cars-and-petrol-cars/103746132?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR3BRHgVCiExaDwRPDRmODUJFEFUjKb3FmjvOkWFcZjCO6gnFEyO71yvVEc_aem_Ab3YHiMR_V8Aw-bESRoHbLkoqks6zIY2Ovd5IP5UrcGznylVVwRkXGJrXpI9gh5yckmyYMyG0qbTuvq8N9LEimAk

The battery failure rates reported are pretty low, and at rather high mileage with obvious exceptions.

See, this is why I asked the engineers here.  As a "somewhat experienced residential electrician" I can easily run the line and install the plug for either 120V or 240V but this stuff is beyond what I've ever needed to know.  I would want to know that if I had a PHEV because I think it would make a material difference over the life of the car.  Ie, it probably isn't material for a single charge where the cost is going to be minimal:

Per Kelly Blue Book:
Charging a "large battery" costs:

• $11.55 in Idaho (cheapest state unless I missed one)
• $15.25 in Texas where @utee94 lives
• $15.83 in Florida where @847badgerfan lives
• $15.98 in Illinois where @847badgerfan and @betarhoalphadelta are from
• $16.53 US Average
• $16.67 in Ohio where I live
• $31.55 in California where @betarhoalphadelta lives
• $33.41 in Rhode Island (most expensive state unless I missed one)

That's not bad but how long to charge on average?

This is why I'm more a fan of PHEVs than BEVs, most of us drive fewer than 30 miles in a day, and a PHEV works as a BEV in those cases.

Would I buy one here?  Nope.

Thanks.

It may be a case in which if/when enough fleet vehicles do it, it may be a tipping point for cars in general.
It also would help with a potential problem of abandoned gas stations.

As far as uniformity of battery, I don't see why the current car classes can't all just use the same battery in each group.  That would spur things along, but it'd be far in the future, I assume.

Yeah, I don't think battery swaps are impossible, I think they're impractical. IMHO the engineering aspect I brought up previously is one area the article didn't cover--a car has to be designed very differently to do battery swaps than they do it today. That means more weight as you don't rely on the battery being built into the frame, which is an issue. 

I think the bigger issues are logistical, which the article goes into in detail. 

Per your last point, the problem with uniform batteries is twofold:

• EV makers are trying to make battery cell type / chemistry / etc a competitive differentiator. To all agree on a single battery pack type would stifle that competitive aspect of EV makers.
• To standardize on a single battery type also stifles battery innovation. As we often see with anything that is standardized, changing standards is a long and drawn-out process that requires a lot of collective consensus-reaching. If battery pack composition can't really be changed on faster than a 5-year or so cadence because it takes that long to achieve agreement on what the "new" pack should be, you miss out on all the innovation that these companies will do over that time. 

However, it may be the case that battery swaps are the "killer app" so to speak for anyone who lives in a place where they can't charge an EV at their place of residence. It might help address both the time of charging issue as well as the cost of charging outside the home issue that @Cincydawg is hung up on. 


I personally don't really think it'll happen. I think it's more likely that we'll see much a more robust charging infrastructure develop over the next decade, and that we won't see mainstream battery swapping arrive in that timeframe. And once we have a robust charging infrastructure, we won't need battery swapping. But like the author, if I'm proven wrong, I'll admit it. It's no hill to die on for me.