Motor Trend: World Exclusive! 2012 Tesla Model S Test and Range Verification

[ljbad4life]

I totally agree. Unless the battery were owned by Tesla and leased to the owner, swapping would be a lawsuit magnet for them.

How about the scenario of a road trip you stop at Tesla store "A", swap out your OG battery pack for one owned by Tesla, and continue to Swap out battery packs (all owned by Tesla) until you hit your destination "Z" and on your return trip you swap packs until you get back to Store "A" and you get your OG pack back. Tesla will maintain the loaner batteries, so worries there and your pack won't be given to a stranger. I think that could work, but the infrastructure for battery swapping would be greater than just putting a super charger along interstates every 200 miles.

The upside to battery swap scenario is that your pack won't have as many cycles go through it as supercharging (but that shouldn't really matter as much for those getting the 85Kwh battery pack)

 

[ModelS1079]

I totally agree. Unless the battery were owned by Tesla and leased to the owner, swapping would be a lawsuit magnet for them.

I wonder if the way-cooler than expected Supercharge announcement could include that many have already been installed and are ready to be used. They might even be on portable trucks that are semi-permanently stationed, searchable by Tesla App. Maybe they'll be free to use for a while after an intial enabling fee. Okay, so I have no real idea...

Cost of Supercharge: Per conversation with Tesla last night, there is not likely to be a different cost of enabling or use whether one buys a 60 or 85kWh battery. Degradation: per Tesla, it is the higher end DC (super) charging the contributes to degradation - such that the 60-80% charge level incurs more abuse than the 40-60% level charge; for this same reason the Supercharge will be limited to 80% of the total battery charge. Extended range charging - toppiong it of at 100% - even with AC charging - can contribute to degradation overtime ESP if the car sits iaround without being used in a hot garage just after charging to 100%. Any Tesla Techies: please feel free to translate my info into a meaningful reality.

Putting the 10K saved on the 60kWh battery toward my 2018 replacement with the 660 mile, 250kWh battery

 

[NigelM]

Any Tesla Techies: please feel free to translate my info into a meaningful reality.

I think you did a pretty good job. Frequent range charging may accelerate battery degradation and, yes, if you do a range charge it's a good idea to get in the car and drive soon after.

 

[Eberhard]

as long as you go immediately after the quick charge, the impact should be little.

 

[vfx]

I wonder if the way-cooler than expected Supercharge announcement could include that many have already been installed and are ready to be used. ...

No doubt that is at least partially true.

 

[Kevin Harney]

Weren't we expecting this announcement in June ?!?!?!?

 

[dsm363]

Weren't we expecting this announcement in June ?!?!?!?

Yeah. It got pushed back to September though. That's the latest date at least.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

I think battery swap would be implemented as a loaner/rental system and you get back your regular battery when you come back home. They are already selling the battery to you, so it's the only way they can make the system work (that I can think of).

The thing about battery swap is that the system was mentioned in the IPO, which (speaking as a non-lawyer) seems to leave them open to shareholder lawsuits if their business doesn't do well and they haven't followed through on the battery swap promise.

Plus there have been little hints recently that battery swap is coming, to the point that Green AutoBlog reported in June that battery swap is coming.

Also, don't discount the fact that Dan Neil paid his $1,000 bet, which originally included that Model S would have a battery swap system.

Tesla Supercharger network to feature solar panels, battery swapping

 

[RDoc]

How about the scenario of a road trip you stop at Tesla store "A", swap out your OG battery pack for one owned by Tesla, and continue to Swap out battery packs (all owned by Tesla) until you hit your destination "Z" and on your return trip you swap packs until you get back to Store "A" and you get your OG pack back. Tesla will maintain the loaner batteries, so worries there and your pack won't be given to a stranger. I think that could work, but the infrastructure for battery swapping would be greater than just putting a super charger along interstates every 200 miles.

The upside to battery swap scenario is that your pack won't have as many cycles go through it as supercharging (but that shouldn't really matter as much for those getting the 85Kwh battery pack)

Apparently that's the scheme Elon mentioned last year, and was part of the bet he won. Sounds like a pretty nice way to go, but the logistics sound pretty complex, involving holding a bunch of batteries for some time at the swap points.

Maybe it could be done at a local service station to start. If you're going on a road trip, you first go to your local service station and swap your battery. They keep if for you and off you go swapping batteries across country and back. Then a couple of days after you're back home, you go back to your local service station and get your original battery back.

One problem I see though is that unless the fee is somewhere around $250/wk, it won't pay for itself. OTOH, maybe that isn't crazy at all. Your choice, wait half an hour for 150 mi, or pay $250/wk and get 250 mi in 5 minutes. Cheaper than renting a comparable car and paying for gas for it.

 

[MikeK]

If I could, say, drop by the Menlo Park store on my way home from work on a Thursday and swap in the 85kWh pack, then go on a nice Tahoe trip starting Friday (with a Supercharge or a swap in Davis or Auburn), spend a nice time in Tahoe, and then drop back by the store to retrieve my 60kWh pack on the day I return from work, that would be very exciting and worth at least the price of the rental car.

 

[CapitalistOppressor]

Apparently that's the scheme Elon mentioned last year, and was part of the bet he won. Sounds like a pretty nice way to go, but the logistics sound pretty complex, involving holding a bunch of batteries for some time at the swap points.

Maybe it could be done at a local service station to start. If you're going on a road trip, you first go to your local service station and swap your battery. They keep if for you and off you go swapping batteries across country and back. Then a couple of days after you're back home, you go back to your local service station and get your original battery back.

One problem I see though is that unless the fee is somewhere around $250/wk, it won't pay for itself. OTOH, maybe that isn't crazy at all. Your choice, wait half an hour for 150 mi, or pay $250/wk and get 250 mi in 5 minutes. Cheaper than renting a comparable car and paying for gas for it.

Probably less than 1% of the fleet will be using the system at any given time. If there are imbalances in traffic causing shortages at charging stations you can fix it with a dozen trucks around the country roaming around and moving packs where they need to go.

Start off with 50 stations and a thousand packs. A $100 million investment and annual costs of ~$10 million through the next few years and it eliminates a huge impediment to people buying your product (all numbers pulled from my nether region). I don't see that swapping itself needs to be profitable, though you can certainly mitigate costs.

Include a convenience store and sell extra power to the grid from the solar panels. It doesn't matter really, you are making your money selling cars. Not many gas stations make money from gas.

 

[NigelM]

Mod note - Seat discussion went here: Model-S-Seats