Tesla Shows Off A 90-Second Battery Swap System

[codeulike]

It makes sense that they built the battery to be swappable but its pretty incredible that they managed to keep this as a post-launch surprise. Everyone last month was like 'well I dont see how that can be possible, the battery makes up most of the car frame etc'. But they'd planned it this way all along.

Its as if the new iPhone came with a swappable battery but Apple kept it quiet till six months after launch.

[masklinn]

> Its as if the new iPhone came with a swappable battery but Apple kept it quiet till six months after launch.

Since the phone is entirely taken apart by specialized sites within hours of its availability, there's no way they would manage to hide a swappable battery.

[SCdF]

It's unfortunate the video quality is so poor. Surely this should be a marketing boon for Tesla. You'd think they'd put more effort in.

Edit: This is better quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlaQuKk9bFg

Edit2: An even better video: http://www.teslamotors.com/batteryswap (thnx jlgreco)

[prawn]

They're still editing the proper video to show multiple angles I think. Elon has been mentioning it on Twitter.

[icefox]

Even better would be if on their webpage it showed perhaps a little diagram or animation loop or something for those that didn't want to watch the video.

[gt565k]

This is a video taken by some random person in the crowd... what did you expect?

[mixedbit]

I like Tesla a lot, but I also like honest marketing. 23 gallons (83 litres) tanked during demo gives much longer range than a full battery. Accumulated time spend at stations won't be shorter with Tesla's technology.

I think the swap is a great feature and there is no need to use questionable marketing tricks to sell it.

[maggit]

On the other hand, electric cars mostly get charged over night. The need for a battery swap or a stop for super charging should be much less frequent than the need to refill gas. It is hard to make a direct comparison.

[calinet6]

This is really splitting hairs. They made a fun demo, and their whole position is to surpass the total experience of the gasoline car. I think they've shown that they're at least equal, which is an incredible accomplishment.

[daliusd]

I have Audi A6 (older than in video, so my might be less efficient). I see that you can travel 300 miles with Tesla under perfect conditions (http://www.teslamotors.com/models/options). TDI Audi likes this under perfect condition can travel a little bit more than twice as much. In city mode Tesla might show better results than Audi (I would like to see real world results). So it looks like it is the same.

Again it might be more complicated. E.g. we might need to use Audi with better engine (bigger fuel consumption) to match Tesla. I have used TDI in my example and we might get completely different results with TFSI (since it is USA I guess we have TFSI Audi).

[codfrantic]

If they would've filmed the audi getting a fuel fillup adding the same range the battery swap would, it probably would still be a close race, getting out, swiping cards (entering PIN around here (Europe)) and getting back in. Tesla claims 426 [1] km on a fully charged battery. Audi claims to do that distance on 45 liters (so half a tank) (9.3 km to a Litre [2] average fuel consumption for a 3 liter petrol car)

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S [2]http://www.autoweek.nl/auto/58469/audi-a8-l-30-tfsi-quattro

[tjdetwiler]

Nobody is excited that it's faster than a gas powered car, but rather that its now feasible to have "instant" refuel for an electric car. The comparison was just to make it more interesting to watch.

[StavrosK]

Damn, what kind of car takes 83 litres?

Your point is what occurred to me during the video, though. It's fantastic technology, but the comparison is a bit flawed. However, they did get two batteries, which is still not 83 liters but it's pretty damn fast, and faster than "too long to wait", at any rate.

[uptown]

I worked on a college team that dealt with this exact challenge. We had an electric F1-style race car that required battery swaps half-way through the race. In our case, the car held 24 (? - I think) large heavy batteries from Electrosource (now out of business) that were configured in pairs, and slid in and out of the vehicle on sleds by a pit-crew. Heavy as hell, and a real challenge to do at a race - but functional. To see this whole thing automated is really fascinating on both a technical and personal level. Some companies are adding 9 seconds to video. This company is defining our future.

[jviddy]

This seems to point towards a battery lease solution.

Having to worry about the relative cost of your battery vs the one you are swapping for could make this a bit of a lottery. Also possibly bribing the attendant to give you a much newer one instead of the old creaky pack that no one wants.

[SCdF]

It looks like a great place for Tesla to find old batteries and remove them from circulation.

Leasing seems like a good idea (pay X per year and you can use these stations and you'll always end up with a battery of a certain acceptable quality), according to the video though it does cost money.

[timroman]

Who says you have to lease one physical battery. Perhaps the battery lease is "a" battery and not "your" battery and Tesla takes care of maintaining them all. And when new batteries come out, you can have the option of upgrading to those. In the future, the station could have three types of batteries for customers to choose from, just like gas.

Sounds like when I get my propane tank filled. They don't care what condition it is in. I get a freshly painted filled one every time. And if I want, I can pay for a bigger one.

[monkeypizza]

I don't believe batteries are solid units - I think they are made up of thousands of individual smaller batteries. So Tesla can probably swap out the smaller pieces in chunks to keep any one battery from getting too bad.

[hmottestad]

It says on engadget that the driver can either get paid or pay the difference, or simply pick up their own pack on the way back.

[tommoor]

Totally agreed, this seems much more sensible than returning the battery to get yours back later...

[Stupendous]

The beauty of this is that with battery technology rapidly improving, and performance for new batteries much better than older ones, Tesla's cars can retain or even increase their expected mileage per charge over the life of the car.

The expected lifespan of their batteries right now are about 7 years, but as anyone with a smartphone or laptop knows, battery life decreases rapidly over the life of the product. Tesla's cars were no exception to this and although most of the cars on the road are new and have not faced these issues yet, they were bound to crop up in the future. With battery swapping they've nipped this problem in the bud. Of course they'll charge you the difference for a newer battery but the benefits far outweigh the costs, and breeds stronger brand loyalty.

[sounds]

I'd really like to hear more about what this means, from the article:

  Frenzied drivers will still have to do some work though —
  they’ll have to drop off the battery on the return leg of
  their journey and pay an unspecified “transport fee”, ...

A legitimate worry is that you'll end up with someone else's lemon battery. Is the article referring to a Tesla mandate that you come back for your "original" battery, and how long do you have before you forfeit your battery?

[deletes]

I think the station will only house the newest version of the battery. You will not get your old battery back on the way back, as some explain, but you will get a new random battery every time. That is why the service is not free.

When battery technology is upgraded they will switch the entire stock for a new one. So there will be no anxiety for getting an old one.

[a13xnet]

I wonder if technology from Better Place (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place) was in any way an inspiration? They had developed a battery swapping system in 2007.

[dgritsko]

Actually, it's the other way around. Shai Agassi (founder of Better Place) visited Tesla several years back, then went on to found Better Place after what he saw:

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/347005150860283905

[VeejayRampay]

The US are so lucky to have Tesla Motors. I wish we'd have such a status-quo-shattering company in Europe.

[solarbunny]

I see such swaps could be useful in next-gen electric aircrafts. It takes quite some time to fill these.

[Tuna-Fish]

Electric aircraft is a genuinely bad idea. Converting the electricity to fuel and burning it is vastly more efficient than having to lift and land with both sides of the chemical equation.

[ari_elle]

So instead of loading my battery i just swap it with a fully charged one and the thing is done. My old battery gets fully charged on site, and if someone else comes along he gets my old now fully charged battery. Basically you never have to charge your Tesla again.... 90 Seconds to "refill"... nice one

[CiaranMcNulty]

That's not the case, you have to either come back and pick up your battery on the way home, or you pay for the new one.

It is however very encouraging for people worried about battery performance that you can get a new one pretty easily.

[lettergram]

Its amazing, Tesla will control both the energy usage of their car and the production. As opposed to the private oil companies and car manufacturers. This would mean they could get profits never dreamed of.

[softbuilder]

Seemed super fake because of that one lady/superfan. I'm not suggesting the audience was seeded - it's more likely just a few ass kissers in the crowd - but wow, that really just killed any genuine enthusiasm I would have had while watching.

Edit: The enthusiasm seemed fake, not the actual tech being demonstrated, which seems straight-forward.

[chaz]

Lots of Telsa owners at the party, enjoying a free free drink or three before the event. No surprise that they were a bit enthusiastic at seeing a previously unannounced free feature launch.

[InclinedPlane]

I feel sorry for people who seem to live in a world where enthusiasm is alien and unfamiliar.

[reneherse]

If anything, I found the cheering contagious: I broke out with a big smile and laughed that there were others who thought this was as welcome and significant a demonstration of technology as I.

[mtgx]

Maybe, but I doubt it. Tesla owners and investors seem to be very excited about Tesla - more so than Apple "fanbois" are about Apple new launches, I would say. At the investors' meeting recently, a lot of people seemed very excited there.

[lifeformed]

I wonder how the payment will work? Do you still have to get out of your car and swipe your card? It'd be cool if your car was linked to some online account that you could manage, so the whole thing can be done without stepping outside.

[tome]

It's impossible to see how the swap is actually being accomplished.

[jlgreco]

It appears they jack up the car, drop the floor out from under it, unbolt and drop the battery, bring another battery up under and re-bolt it. A very simple procedure that is likely rather difficult to implement; interesting to think about what sort of machinery they have down in the pit to move the batteries around...

[taylorwc]

This is a super cool idea, and I love Tesla for just this sort of thing... but it's conjuring an amusing parallel to a Pony Express rider swapping horses.

[Jack000]

Very impressive. Although some of the details pour cold water on the dream of hot-swap road trips (ship the battery back?)

[sudhirj]

It seems to be free if you come back and get the battery you dropped off - which seems to makes it possible to drive across the country with no more than 90-second battery stops, and drop them all back off taking the same route back.

Don't know if they'll be okay with that, but it's an awesome possibility. That's thousands of miles with free (renewable) energy and fast.

[orenbarzilai]

Can understand how come betterplace isn't mentioned even once in this article.

[freehunter]

Well their Wikipedia page starts off with "Better Place was a venture-backed international company..."

[edwardunknown]

What are the chances of getting a standard battery size in these things? I'd be a shame for stations to need a hundred different batteries for every make and model.

[peteforde]

Tesla X is built on the same chassis (and therefore, battery pack) as Tesla S.