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EV Batteries Are Dangerous to Repair. Here’s Why Mechanics Are Doing So Anyway
(www.scientificamerican.com)
this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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Technology
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I heard NIO has this technology already and are looking to standardise it.
Every EV has this already. What they don't have is a standard. Not shockingly, every EV manufacturer will argue why theirs should be the standard.
Honestly if the department of defense adopts any EVs for troop transport it should come with a forced standardization. Just hand wave it as being for national security and the fact a lot of countries will probably adopt the standard, that should do the trick.
They probably won't. Unless it will cut costs and allow for speed of refilling/recharging. Maybe in another 50 years. And only if one of the big firms tries to sell them something. Lockheed or Boeing or so on. The problem is troop transport needs to be fixable by a shop of people ranging in age from 17 or so to around 25. Inexperienced people. In a fair few cases with hand tools. To even remove a battery from an EV right now you need a lift of some kind and something stable to drop it onto. You can't carry that into the desert. Certainly not onto an aircraft carrier. And we're awhile away from building it into war ships, even smaller ones. The output and range would have to be reliable. A pilot can't rely on a bingo that doesn't accurately tell him if he has enough fuel to get to the target and back.
The problem with this is that every vehicle would need to be built around the same battery pack dimensions, have the same amp-hour rating, same voltage, same cooling system, etc. I seriously doubt that would ever happen as nothing like that has ever existed in the 120+ years of automotive history.
There's a lot of ways to tackle this issue. You could have a couple of standards (think AA vs AAA batteries). Or you could make the packs smaller and more modular so different applications can have more or less of them.
No, they'd not need that. In fact, I'd say it's desirable for them to not have that.
Same voltage, yes, same cooling system? Not exactly. They'd just need to have cooling system hookups in the same place.
Loads of things like that have existed in the automotive industry. In fact, that's one of the biggest features of the big 3 automotive manufacturers is having standardized parts shared between one another.
I’m not so sure.
Are we talking about the same thing, there was a recent Tom Scott video on it.
Basically you drive your NIO into this machine and it removes your battery and replaces it. Then it charges your old one and next time someone drives in they may get your last battery. Since and repeat.
Standard and swappable battery packs? Yes. All the skateboard style vehicles or ebikes have battery packs that can be removed and replaced.
Making that automated could be nice but isn't necessary to get the benefits of a standard. A standard forces pack producers to compete with one another in terms of quality and price. It makes it cheaper to install new batteries. And it makes it possible to upgrade your cars range with newer packs. With an EV, you won't need to get a new vehicle hardly ever if getting new packs is relatively affordable and easy. Further, the worn packs still have value so swap locations will be incentivized to pay you for the pack they remove.
The notion this needs to be part of a giant battery swapping network to reduce charge times is silly. 10 to 15 minute charge stops are already very short and all you need on most cars for the next leg of a journey. It also introduces a lot of complexity. Like, what if I want or need a 100kWh pack but the standard is 80kWh packs? What about pack wear? Who's in charge of pulling the degraded packs? And what do we do about someone putting in a pack with fake capabilities? You have a situation where you are cycling parts worth well north of $10k. That's a mighty tempting target for theft.
A standardized battery is still a really good thing. I just don't think it needs to be a part of road trips.
that's not what the top comment was talking about. this is replacing the whole battery, not cells within the battery. it doesn't help with reparability at all.