Better Place Battery Exchange Demo In Japan Goes Off Without A Hitch
Now the Silicon Valley Start-Up Has To Do It a Couple Hundred Thousand Times More
Model of Better Place battery exchange station shows cars on top level waiting for service while new battery (blue) is being installed in bottom car. Underground storage facility (center) is where charged batteries are kept and depleted batteries are recharged after being removed from cars.
By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
YOKOHAMA, Japan - Better Place strutted its stuff here Wednesday and it was a production well worth watching.
The would-be leader of the nascent electric-vehicle charging industry trotted out its battery switching technology at a demonstration project in downtown Yokohama and showed that, with a national network of battery exchange stations and vehicles designed to properly interface, EV ownership wouldn't have to be subjected to any significant limitations.
The battery exchange station - the first in the world to be shown to the public - ought to come with a knife and fork so those who've said that battery-electric vehicles' usefulness always will be constrained by lengthy recharging times can eat their words.
An End to Range Anxiety
In Better Place's better world, a depleted battery could be swapped for a freshly charged one in less time than it takes to pump 10 gallons of gasoline into the family sedan.
At the demonstration station, which will be open for the next six weeks in this bustling port city just south of Tokyo, a battery exchange was deliberately slowed down so those in the audience could follow it step-by-step. Even so, the exchange took just under 90 seconds.
If this kind of station were readily available, a cross-country trip in a battery-electric car wouldn't have to be interrupted every 200 miles or so to complete 4- to 6-hour battery charging sessions.
Better Place's founder and chief executive, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Shai Agassi, boasted that the engineering mule at the company's R&D center in Israel can do the job in as little as 40 seconds. That would get most of us into the station and back out with a fresh load of electrons in about a tenth of the time it takes to gas up a car with an internal combustion engine.
Obstacles Remain
Still, we can't say with any certainty that what we saw marked the dawn of a new era in personal transportation, the tipping point when the electric vehicle became a practical reality.
We'd like to be able to say so, but the Better Place model is still that - a model.
Wednesday's demonstration (late Tuesday night in most of the U.S.) answered a lot of questions, but it left several on the table that will remain unanswerable until individual automakers show their EV design cards.
Better Place's idea - motorists should be able to lease charged batteries and battery charging time so that buying an electric vehicle doesn't require them to also purchase a battery pack that could cost as much as the car - is a brilliant one, modeled on the cell phone industry.
Like cell-phone buyers who buy minutes, or packets of air time, in prepaid monthly or annual packages tailored to fit their individual needs, Better Place customers would buy a car and then purchase miles, in the form of kilowatt-hours of energy stored in battery packs that Better Place would supply.
A customer could purchase monthly mileage packages that range from a few kilowatt-hours of energy to an unlimited amount. The packages would include battery charging and exchange privileges. The monthly fees Agassi insists, would be no more than and likely less than the cost of buying gasoline to travel the same number of miles.
Creating a network of battery exchange stations would be expensive. Agassi figures that it would take $500,000 to build and stock one station, and that such cities as Los Angeles and Tokyo would need about 100 locations. Major routes between cities, he said, would need a station every 30 miles.
But a new gasoline stations can easily cost $1 million or more, which makes Better Places' electron depots sound like bargains - especially as Agassi insists his company will be able to finance construction of the networks.
He's already raised more than $200 million for the 19-month-old parent company and says that each regional Better Place subsidiary (there is a separate company for each country in which Better Place does business) is charged with raising capital needed to complete its own network.
There's certainly no guarantee that the money will keep coming - the global economy isn't expected to perk up much in the next year or so - but so far progress on the money front seems to have been good.
In Denmark, for example, where Better Place has an agreement to install a charging and exchange station network beginning in 2012, Better Place Denmark has secured $133 million in financing. The company's Israeli subsidiary, which is scheduled to launch its network in 2011, is now trying to raise $150 million, Agassi said,
Batteries, and Cooperation, Required
But money isn't everything. Better Place's success also is dependent on a certain degree of cooperation from auto companies not noted for playing well with others.
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Nissan Qashqai (not sold in U.S) outfitted with A123Systems battery pack sits on raised platform to show robot battery exchange mechanism in Yokohama demonstration.
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Most of what Better Place has designed could operate quite well without outside help, but there are several points of interface that just won't work unless automakers incorporate them into their cars.
Better Place wants to install hundreds of thousands of battery chargers on city streets and in private and public parking lots - which should be doable. But it also wants to install thousands of battery exchange stations that would use robotic systems to rapidly replace depleted battery packs with freshly charged units.
Problem One is that the platform that moves the batteries in and out of the cars uses a pair of locating pins that require corresponding anchor points to be designed into vehicles' undercarriages.
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Robotic battery exchange platform moves on rails to bring charged battery to underside of vehicle.
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The Better Place system also must be able to communicate with the vehicle to safely disconnect and remove the depleted battery - and to align itself properly with vehicles that aren't always level (from side to side) because of a tire that's too soft or a load that's not evenly distributed.
Problem Two is that automakers would have to be willing to to add the proper communications abilities to control software for their EVs' battery mounting systems
And compatibility with the BP battery exchange system will require vehicles to be designed with exchangeable battery packs that release quickly and are removed and installed from beneath the vehicle. That means no through-the-trunk or under-the-hood installations.
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Better Place R&D chief Yoav Heichal examines battery pack sitting atop an exchange platform. Note the single electrical attachment point (red) near center of pack and alignment dowel on lower left corner of blue platform.
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Agassi doesn't see this as an insurmountable problem because he believes that the only logical place to position a battery is under the frame in the center of the vehicle.
Which leads to Problem Three - he's expecting automakers to be logical.
On the plus side, battery packs don't have to conform to any predetermined weight, shape or size limitations, and cars don't have to be of any particular size to utilize the Better Place system, Agassi said.
Indeed, the communications system would tell the automated battery exchange system what make and model of car is being serviced. The system would then select the proper battery and the proper installation sequence, said Yoav Heichal, Better Place's R&D chief. The system demonstrated today would work with such diverse vehicles as a Smart Fortwo and a full-size family sedan, according to Heichal.
Two to Tango
So far, only France's Renault and its Japanese partner, Nissan Motor Co. have signed on to Better Place's plan. That puts the two automakers ahead of the competition. Their participation might drive others to begin designing Better Place-compliant EVs, although the word right now is that other automakers see little profit in doing so.
Nissan's U.S. unit also appears to be giving battery exchanges a cold shoulder as it plans to launch an EV. The company is scrambling to create battery charging infrastructure development deals around the U.S. that use commercial chargers - but has not promoted battery swapping stations.
Agassi shrugged off such reluctance during an interview with Green Car Advisor. He believes that circumstances will force even the most reluctant auto companies to eventually sign up - or risk losing market share.
Several Better Place insiders (although not Agassi, who is tight-lipped about such things) say that other auto companies are on the verge of designing compatible battery EVs that could use the company's exchange system.
Meantime, as Wednesday's demonstration made clear, Better Place is moving forward as rapidly as possible. The company has been buoyed by more than $300 million in capital. Its approach is supported by Renault-Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn, one of the auto industry's most-visionary executives. There is a growing sense of urgency on the part of governments worldwide that automakers must move to electric propulsion systems. And many of those governments are increasingly willing to offer financial incentives to speed electrification.
Sweet Spot
Agassi (right) said he believes Better Place is in the best place possible. It offers governments and automakers a system that can help slash C02 emissions (if the electricity used to charge the batteries comes from renewable resources rather than coal-fired power plants), improve sustainability in the auto industry and help reduce the consumption of petroleum-based fuels.
Automakers, be believes, will benefit because the Better Place leasing system will help to make EVs profitable by eliminating the need to add the cost of batteries to vehicle prices. That would reduce retail prices and, arguably, make vehicles more attractive to consumers.
Consumers will benefit, he says, because automakers that build Better Place-compatible electric vehicles won't have to charge tens of thousands of dollars for batteries. Better Place's business plan calls for it to purchase, stock and maintain thousands of battery packs for its global network of battery exchange stations.
Better Place sounded like a pipe dream when it was first pitched a few years ago. And it is still a long way from a sure bet. But Agassi's dream of a "mission-driven" business that can help to improve the environment while making a profit seems to be gaining traction.
The company has deals in Israel and Denmark to provide each country with more than 100,000 EV charging stations and 100 or more battery exchange stations that would service Renault-Nissan Alliance electric cars that will be marketed starting in 2011. (The car, a five-passenger sedan, is being designed by Renault, and will be a different vehicle than the EV that Nissan has said it will launch in the U.S. and Japan next year and globally by 2012.)
In addition, there's the Yokohama demonstration project, which likely will give Better Place plenty of media exposure in Asia and to lead to an invitation from the Japanese government to become the rare foreign company allowed - even encouraged - to market its wares domestically.
Better Place also has EV charging and exchange station demonstration or development agreements in the Canadian province of Ontario, and the state of Victoria in Australia. It also has agreements in Hawaii and a five-city consortium in the San Francisco Bay area. Better Place is concentrating on the West Coast because of its strong history of encouragement and acceptance of green cars, Agassi said.
Doubters can doubt, but with the successful showing of Better Place's prototype battery exchange system, Agassi is marching ahead secure in his belief that EVs need a charging infrastructure to be successful - and that if he builds it, they will come.
- Posted by
- John O'Dell May 13, 2009, 6:47 AM
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- Categories:
- Batteries, Japan, Nissan, Plug-ins and Electric, Renault
- Technorati Tags:
- Battery Exchange System, Better Place, Shai Agassi
I'm still open minded about the Better Place idea, but that demo doesn't mean squat. It's a specific car, driving over a very wide open pit, exchanging a specific battery. Are we going to have different pits for each kind of car / battery combination? Do you really expect everyone to drive over a pit that wide? How well does the equipment work when it and the underside of the car are covered with winter road grime?
Cute demo, but doesn't mean much to me.
I don't see the battery exchange being similar to cell phone packages. The vehicle concept is talking about an "electricity" package that must still account for the battery cost (the electricity being the variable). For a cellular package you do buy the battery and you charge it on your own dime - the airtime is the variable. While I see where they are trying to make a comparison, it really doesnt seem to relate or ring true. Maybe over time they can prove this beyond concepts and demo's?!?