Automakers Raise Questions About Better Place's Battery Swap Model
We've been trying for months now to get some face time with entrepreneur Shai Agassi, founder of EV charging infrastructure pioneer Better Place, so far to no avail.
---------
Exchanging large hybrid and EV battery packs such as this form a Ford electric vehicle test model, won't be easy, automakers say.
----------
We want to ask him about his business model and how he intends to get the world's contentious and competitive automakers to sign on to a plan that would make it possible for an independent such as Better Place to set up shops to easily and economically swap depleted battery packs for fresh ones in various brands of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
It seems to us this would take a degree of cooperation and commonality (where to put the packs so they could be pulled and exchanged quickly would require some common design features, battery attachment points and even size and weight ranges) that automakers so far have been loath to agree to.
Our paths almost crossed this week as Agassi attended a forum on battery development near out home base in Southern California - unfortunately, though, we were on the other side of the country in Florida at an alternative fuels and vehicles conference.
But several major automakers were there, as part of a panel, and according to E&E News' coverage of the Fortune magazine-sponsored event, were pretty united in their opposition to the idea of swappable batteries.
While patting Agassi on the back for his vision - a network of roadside "service stations" where the fuel is electric and the main service the swapping of depleted batteries for fully charged ones - executives from Toyota Motor Co., BMW and Ford Motor Co. all were doubtful it would work.
E&E News reports that Bill Reinart, national manager of Toyota's advanced technology group, said lithium-ion batteries and the highly charged plugs that power are not designed for constant switching and that a number of safety hazards could be created
Tom Baloga, vice president of U.S. engineering at BMW, agreed, according o the report , explaining that constant damage to batteries is likely during switching.
"Anytime you have a rapid connect and disconnect, you have to think about stability," Baloga said. "We have to be concerned about that."
Baloga added that Better Place's battery swap model is worth studying, but raised the same concern we have with battery pack uniformity and whether a battery exchange station could afford to stock a variety of packs to meet the needs of motorists who, some day, might be driving a dozen or more makes and styles of electric vehicles.
We're talking about the need to stock lots of various designs of 400- to 1,000-pound assemblages that cost $5,000 to $25,000 each, not a bunch of 50-pound, $120 lead-acid batteries.
Agassi (right) commented after the automakers raised their questions that he believes Better Place has answers.
He told E&E News that the company's plan calls for it to do individual deals with automakers as each comes on line with its electric vehicles. The first such deal is with the Renault-Nissan Alliance, for EVs that will be put into service in Israel and Denmark in the next few years.
"We have never said there will be one battery pack," he told the news service. "You will never get car makers to put the same battery pack in all cars."
An automakers' agreement to provide a Better Place with "$10 million worth of batteries" for its service stations would be less costly than a marketing campaign, Agassi said (and presumes Better Place would then market the battery exchange service on behalf of the auto company, we guess).
Better Place engineers, he said have been working on battery stability and damage issues and have developed electric and mechanical connectors and battery units that are safe to exchange hundreds, even thousands, of times.
EV battery packs, he reportedly said, can be made as self-contained units and exchanged with the ease we now exchange batteries in out laptops and cell phones.
Agassi has likened batteries and the electricity to charge them with gasoline or diesel fuel.
When buying conventional internal combustion engine vehicles, he says, motorists pay for the car but not the fuel, which is a separate purchase made on an as-needed basis. EV purchases should work the same way, with the car a separate acquisition from the fuel. EV batteries and electrical power should be sold the same way, by independent fuel providers on an as-needed basis, he says.
Agassi's model depends, though on having car companies sign up to use batteries that meet Better Places' design and engineering specifications and to provide replacement batteries for the swap shops to stock.
His numbers would seem to have consumers willing to spend an average of $5,000 to subscribe to the Better Place service when they buy one of the companies' cars.
The subscription would enable a motorist to top up a car's batteries at public charging stations when making short stops - luncheon, for instance, or a trip to the mall - and to pull in to an exchange station for fresh battery packs, as needed, when traveling longer distances and fully depleting the pack's charge
But BMW's Baloga told E&E News that his company is skeptical. Agassi's expectation that the Renault-Nissan Alliance will be able to sell 7- to 8-million EVs a year for the next decade, he said, appears "to be more optimistic than what we believe to be true from our experience."
And right now, he said, "There's no one in our industry, except for Renault, that's interested."
Note that while Agassi has signed up the Renault-Nissan Alliance for its first projects, Baloga didn't mention the Japanese automaker in that comment.
That's likely because Nissan executives in the U.S. have said that in its own EV venture, not associated with Renault, Nissan doesn't hold out much hope for battery swapping.
On the other hand, Agassi has had great success selling whole countries on his plan, and if an entire nation, or even a major city or region, is behind the idea, it would behoove car makers to listen: it is likely that EVs will roll out in regional waves, as charging infrastructure becomes available, rather than in nationwide launches as is the norm with conventional ICE vehicles.
If we ever do get that interview with Agassi, we'll try to clear things up.
John O'Dell, Senior Editor
- Posted by
- John O'Dell April 23, 2009, 3:15 AM
- Permalink
- Categories:
- BMW, Batteries, Ford, Nissan, Plug-ins and Electric, Renault, Toyota
- Technorati Tags:
- Battery Exchanges, Better Place, BMW, Shai Agassi, Toyota
I completely agree with the logistical arguments, but not the technical ones.
Durable and replaceable connectors aren't all that difficult. You also don't need a rapid (dis)connect. A locking mechanism could force a soft (dis)connect.
Notice how all the doubters in the article are Better Place competitors? What else do you expect them to say?
As the previous commenter pointed out, from an engineering point of view, durable connectors are not the problem. The real problem is weight. In other electric cars, the battery is bolted to the frame, because something that heavy shifting around would be undesirable (or even dangerous). How can something as heavy as an electric car battery be quickly swappable, yet absolutely secure?
I read in the NY Times Magazine that Better Places figured out that an analogous problem is securing large bombs in military aircraft--they need very rapid attachment and release, but the attachment has to be absolutely secure. According to that article, Better Places is licensing that military technology.
John has a great point about "regional waves". If the Renault car catches on big in certain countries or regions, the other manufacturers will follow. The fact that only one manufacturer is involved shouldn't be a problem--remember, at first, the Toyota Prius was the only car of its type.
The real question is whether the technology will work out in those countries/regions. I think they are starting in Japan, Denmark, Israel, and Hawaii. Most of these are places where oil is expensive to procure.
Battery swap changes pure (non-hybrid) electric cars from special-purpose vehicles (only trips short enough to do on one charge) to general-purpose vehicles. For the first time, you could have a non-fossil-fuel-burning vehicle as your only car. The need for oil is one of the most destructive elements in human society (money, pollution, war, terrorism, etc.), but until now there was no realistic way to avoid using oil for personal transportation. This is our first major opportunity to thumb our noses at the oil cartels. It could be huge.