Battery switch technology demo

[espjuan]

These stations are what are going to make electric vehicles a viable and practical option. There are loads of people who do not live in homes and would want an electric vehicle to avoid lets say London's congestion charge or the high price of petrol/diesel.

[wullebulle123]

if it just didnt look so totally fancy I could think it was real

[lancethrustworthy]

Of course, this demonstration is of a perfectly clean car and undercarriage. How well is it going to work in real world conditions? There will probably need to be some kind of cleaning system as part of the replacement process.

[LuMagazine]

Freakin' ridiculous... Break the packs into 6 sections which can easily be swaped manually, snap in, snap out. This is just a pathetic multinational excuse to create a totally unecessary and costly infrastructure to protect the gas station industry. Fail!

[soulchild3751]

@LuMagazine It's not going to cost any government anything. Better Place is deploying these stations with their own capital and manpower. Besides, think of the longterm savings with such a network being put into place. Imagine driving a car with domestic electricity and not OPEC oil. Think of what a positive impact that would have on our trade deficit.

[kakureru]

great idea until retards ruin it like not positioning car properly

[vernonGODLittle3]

@kakureru ok but thats the same for automatic car washing machines isnt it? And they work too.

[zlodiac]

supppppppppppppppper aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[ElectricCarFan]

I wish Project Better Place would get a move on and setup shop in America.

[eddyerkelens]

Oeps... drempeltje. Batterij gelijk aan gort. Ach,.... het is maar een batterij.

[liikalanjoki]

With this technology we can exclude battery price from EV price. So, EV become really cheap and affordable for ordinary people and can be produced in mass. Batteries would be owned by owners of switch station's networks. They would leasing them to us. Is this a good idea?

[Dilekz]

@liikalanjoki NO, leasing is not free.. To be exactly. Buying a battery is cheaper with a loan.

What about the battery quality? What if the car is big or small? They have the same battery?

And this battery in the video is very small. You could probably drive 10km's with it.

[Garretthierisser]

fuck that elektrocars :D iam to old(20) for this new shit :/

[MozartJunior22]

YAY! Next year Israel will have electric vehicles for sale!

[mrxit1]

Very Cool

[droonwood]

-Standard battery size (like AA or AAA, this just needs to be a new letter..:) technologican improvements can always be made to what's inside without changing the outside dimensions.

-A way of changing the battery WITHOUT a big expensive charging station. surely this should be possible. that way, every gasstation in the world can just keep a few batteries on hand in a small charger that plugs into a normal socket without any large investements

[klingoncowboy4]

Lol I can't wait to drive one these things in Saudi Alberta and get my battery swapped in a fraction of the time it takes those nice shiny gas guzzling pickups to refuel. Unfortunately it wouldn't be true "zero emission" since the power is all coal generated, but its a start.

[udolatex]

And every car manufacturer is supposed to use the same technology? How is this supposed to work out... Or will there be "BMW Switch Stations", "Mercedes Switch Stations", and so on...

Who knows how old the battery is you get there? Or did the previous car driving it have an accident? ...

Questions, questions, questions... I don't know...

[Smidge204]

A BIG part of what this company is trying to do is promote standards, which (ideally) all vehicles would use the same battery packs, or one of a small number of standard packs. There are already lots of industry-wide standards in use.

If this idea takes off, it would sort of force a de-facto standard: Few people would buy an EV if there is no charging/swap station, so manufacturers will make their cars compatible. Just like how all cars are compatible with standard gasoline dispenser nozzles.

[Smidge204]

Regarding the batteries themselves: Their business plan includes OWNING the batteries. You, the car owner, do not own the battery - they essentially loan it to you as part of the cost. They would be responsible for maintaining, testing and replacing faulty batteries.

As a bonus, not only is getting a bad battery not your problem (in the long term at least!) but the cost of the battery isn't in the vehicle's sticker price.

[unionation]

Absolutely ingenious business plan : )

I think the hope is that battery types will eventually be standardized, to either a single type or a few types available based on the category/size of car, even between carmakers.

I'm assuming the battery is sealed in the car to minimize the risk of damage, and it would have to be tested by the station to make sure it can be charged.

Even if the battery is old youre not buying it -- as long as it holdscharge, you'll only need it till the next station.

[Nathje007]

I think the idea is not that you own a battery, you pay for the kilowatthours used. If the battery performs less (e.g. due to aging) you also pay less for the refill. Checking the battery quality would be the refill station' responsability.

[dymproductions]

no, actually better place is using only renewable sources to make electricity.

[ihaveyoursox]

@klingoncowboy4 Hopefully geothermal energy will take off.... essentially its digging into the earth and using the heat in the earths core to power generators....sounds great but so far digging that far down will create massive earthquakes in places where they dont happen....it creates more faults in the crust if you will... at least thats how i understood it LoL

[DirtySandalz]

@klingoncowboy4 it uses electric tides, so while it isn't pure zero emission, it's the best yet. coming to israel late 2011 :)

(then denmark, Australia, and more)

[DirtySandalz]

@klingoncowboy4 not water tides. Power tides. in power plants generators don't supply exactly the amount of energy that is required. it usually produces more, so nobody is without power. Better place is going to use that wasted energy, as well as other green technologys.

[klingoncowboy4]

@DirtySandalz ah yea sorry, misread what you said lol, but yes I do realize that the main point of this tech is to utilize non peak loads and thus increase the overall efficiently of the entire gird. However, you still can't escape the fact that the root power is being produced via emission producing processes.

[klingoncowboy4]

@DirtySandalz precisely major changes don't come overnight, but as long as the trend goes in the right direction then its all good. to paraphrase Tommy Douglas "we should always head to that land of utopia, unfortunately its on the other side of a retreating horizon, but that shouldn't stop us from heading towards that horizon"

[klingoncowboy4]

@DirtySandalz Now don't get me wrong on this, even with that taken into account it is still beneficial. Using electric means that pollutants are being localized mainly to the generating plant, rather than spread across our highways, any tech that can clean it up will be easier to implement. Whats more there is potential for expansion of "green" ways to produce electricity, which Better Place does seem genuinely involved with so I agree this is the best long term solution currently available

[yessory]

@klingoncowboy4 actually they eventually plan on using solar for recharging!

[therotaryrocket]

@yessory even with the coal it still pollutes much less considering the high efficiency of electric vehicles, and the fact that the pollution is concentrated to power plants make it easier handle (scrubbers? filters, possibly even ways to trap the CO2 or something). This battery swap out is freaking sweet! So i'm guessing everyone chips in on the battery packs which would probably also bring the price down. That is as long as the long arm of the oil companies and FEDs don't have a hand in it.

[dymproductions]

@klingoncowboy4 better place make sure the power comes from renewable sources.

[MadsWest]

I'm looking forward to see these battery-changing machines here in Denmark soon. I'm very glad that we have been chosen to test this technology here in DK.

[wullebulle123]

i think the problem is mass dispatch

[blueibiza20vt]

Nice how the car "sinks down" because of the added weight when it collects the fresh battery up to its belly

[pwnage97]

extra taxes on solar panels, that's really counter productive for going green.

Where do you live good sir?

[ndh221]

let's save the world

[Gopherbassist]

I hate to think how much it's going to cost to do this. There are tons of extra taxes where I live for solar panels, so I hope if these places take off, they can use whatever power they choose without extra taxes.

[MrAlzidex]

Amazing! When are you coming to Canada!!!

[dymproductions]

SOON!!!

[dymproductions]

@MrAlzidex look at there website, it is in canada