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August 2010 Posts
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This week on the EVCast Power Hour we announce that there is going to be another Power of DC drag race August 21st at the Mason Dixon Dragway in Hagerstown, Maryland. They want to keep it under wraps, so tell everyone about. GM hooks up with Bright Automotive. Listen how I get this one completely wrong. Finally, I try to explain why venture capital behind A Better Place isn't a good a good idea, basically putting a wet blanket on all that enthusiasm. All I have to say to that is, "get real."
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After i posted the show I remembered that Bright Automotive was that company that was born out to the Rocky Mountain Institute and Amory Lovins super light weight and fuel efficient vehicles. They are someone I would want GM to be involved with.
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Great show Joe. I see your point about the Volt pricing, kind of like what price you can get for a Timex vs. a Rolex. I guess we will have to wait and see if GM is trying to sell a Timex at Rolex prices.
Not sure that I completely agree with you on Better Place. Their mobile phone analogy that you pay for their network is not the road network that they are talking about but the infrastructure they are building (or proposing to build). The battery swap stations is one part that everyone likes to latch on to, but they also propose to build conventional charging points as well and far more of them than the swap stations.
So lets compare the Nissan Leaf to Better Place's vehicles (to be built by Renault which is the same company as Nissan). If your needs are for a electric vehicle that will only be driven within its maximum range every day then the Leaf would make the most sense for you. But lets say your daily commute is within the range of your electric vehicle for one half of the journey but you need to recharge for the return, then you need a charging station at your destination. This is where Better Place's model comes in. You get to your destination, plug in and when you finish work you are charged enough to return home. Say you have to leave work early because of a unplanned event you have the battery swap as a fall back, kind of a safety net.
I don't believe the swap stations are intended for regular use, but rather to answer the criticism that electric vehicles have in that they can serve most peoples needs probably 95% of the time but what about that 5%.With a swap station or fast charge station you answer the 5% problem. Which will win out? The swap station does have some advantages over the fast charge. I think it would be far easier to scale the size of a swap station to handle increasing vehicle capacity, just need more space for more batteries, A fast charge station will place huge loads on the electricity infrastructure and be harder to increase capacity, a swap station can have recharging done off site if need be. I can even see customers being offered incentives to swap their nearly full pack for a nearly empty one. After all if you are going home and plugging the car in overnight all you need is a pack that has enough range to get you home. Also the swap stations allow faulty packs to be routinely swapped out without the customer even being aware that a problem was beginning to develop. A faulty or degraded pack in a conventional electric vehicle will inconvenience a customer, even if it is under warranty, they will still have to take time to get the vehicle in for repairs.
So Better Place isn't the only game in town, and it is risky to put all your eggs in one basket, but one of the principles of Better Place's model is using today's technology. Cheaper batteries and 300+ mile range electric vehicles are tomorrows technology. Better Place offers a business model that builds and funds the infrastructure needed for wide spread electric vehicle technology, we will have to wait and see if they can deliver this in their test markets of Israel and, I think, Denmark which will be the first to get the Better Place model. I hope they can succeed in those markets.
So that is my thoughts on Better Place, end of my rant.
Greg
Joe, I think you have your investment views backwards. I'd rather put money into BetterPlace than Tesla.
Tesla is too inefficient, chaotic, and flaky. The only thing they have been consistent about is being behind schedule and over budget. I have zero faith in any price targets, range values, or delivery dates they assign to the Model S.
I agree that Better Place is also a very risky venture but I'm more interested in their work. Your are misinterpreting the purpose of battery swapping . . . it has nothing to do with the cost of the battery. The problem is range and recharge time. A battery with a really long range is exceedingly expensive (like the Tesla Roadster) and thus electric-only power ranges will be limited for the near future. But even if you do put in a big battery in an EV, the charge time becomes a problem. You already require a special 220V charger just to charge up a 100mile range car. For 200+ mile cars like the Tesla, you need really big chargers. They are expensive and not so easy to install in homes. And there is no infrastructure out there for them.
And I'm skeptical about fast-charging . . . I feel it damages most batteries. I think if you fast-charge often, you will definitely decrease the life of your battery.
So a battery swap allows you to give you a full charge in 5 minutes. If everyone charges at home and their are battery swap stations on major free-ways, you can do just fine with a 100 mile battery.
But yeah . . . building that infrastructure and getting everyone on board is difficult. I think Israel will be a big test.
I think a better than better-place model would be a car with a permanent quick charge SCIB type battery of say 16-24 KWHs and the ability to use zinc-air batteries that once depleted can quickly be swapped out for new ones- zinc-air cells have a very high energy density but act more as fuel cells as they have to be mechanically recharged in that the oxidized zinc has to be removed and replaced with fresh zinc.
