Obviously this is a Chinese car, but their 1044km claim is using the CLTC range tests, which are wildly optimistic. I’d expect this to be closer to 500-550mi of EPA range (vs 635 here).
Still impressive, but not exactly shocking for a sedan with a 150kWh battery to be capable of this range. I think the more impressive thing is cramming 150kWh of battery into a 4 door sedan.
Efficiency (percent for percent) can buy you all the advantages of higher energy density, but with higher charge speed (ie miles per charge minute, for a given wattage), lower charge cost, cheaper battery (fewer kWhs), etc. So really, you wouldn’t want to sacrifice much efficiency to get greater energy density. You really want BOTH. A Lucid Air with this kind of battery would have greater range than a lot of gas cars; a fantastic road trip car. In fact, you could go basically a full day’s driving (11-12hours) without charging, then charge overnight with a beefy L2 charger (typically a lot cheaper than fast charging) and never have to actually stop during the day for charging.
If they fully insure or warranty the battery against all damages then it's a great deal. Battery depreciates a lot faster than the car, even if you don't use it.
I have a 2013 Tesla Model S I bought used. It now has about 150,000 miles on it, probably about 85% of the battery capacity, and still gets regular over the air updates. I go on road trips a few times a year (with my family of 5), last time was about 2/3rds across the continental US and back. It’s got wear and tear like a 10 year old car, but the battery is fine.
What was your used Tesla buying experience like? Did you buy from a dealer or a private party? Any issues with the transfer of ownership?
How has the car held up other than the battery? You say it has wear and tear like a 10 year old car but that can mean drastically different things depending on how people normally maintain their cars and what kinds of environments they drive in (local to me in upstate NY we use a lot of salt on the roads, an average 10 year old car is likely going to be nearing to the end of its life due to rust issues whose repair cost may equal a substantial portion of the value of the car).
I have always thought that swappable batteries make a lot more sense then charging stations where you have to wait instead of just stopping at a station where the batteries are replaced like a old vhs player :)
From practical standpoint, absolutely.
But the number of spare batteries laying around?
Maybe, if this will be used in the future, those can help balance the power grid while not in use.
Obviously you didn't read (the first sentence of) the article, I applaud your courage in commenting regardless.
The 1044km claim is from a livestream where the CEO of the company drove the car from Shanghai to Xiamen until there's 3% left in the battery. All this amid a cold wave too.
> The temperature during the test was between -2 °C and 12 °C (28 – 54 °F). The coldest time was at the beginning of the test, as it was early morning in Shanghai. The average cabin temperature was 20 °C (68 °F). The carload was about 190 kg (two adults, lifestream equipment, and other items).
How can you bias a livestream where you drive the number of kilometers that you later claim that you can drive with the car? You can at worst commit outright fraud, but bias?
Hypermiling is a known method for extending the range. That is why standardized tests are important so you can match the standardized number to your driving.
A livestream is hard to fake but what tires were they using? What was the climate control setting? What speed? Did they have a tail wind?
The maximum speed was caped to 90 km/hour (56 miles/hour), and the energy consumption was 13.2 kWh/100 km. The average speed for the trip was 83.9 km/h.
so there it goes, driven at an average speed of 53 mph hypermilling! For comparison, Tesla M3 achieved 975km:
In May 2018, Sean Mitchell and Erik Strait set a hypermiling record for the Tesla Model 3 by driving 606.2 miles on a single charge after 32 hours of driving.
Sure but it depends on the location. I guess in China fraud committed by a company with strong party connections (as all companies have) is not illegal. Otherwise half the alibaba sellers would be arrested :) :)
But I generally don't like to throw legal terms around unless it's been proven in court.
90km/h speed and air resistance is a big difference than something like real world USA freeway cruise control speeds, now repeat the same test at 120km/h and show the results. Still impressive in likely being above 800 km range at the much higher air resistance speed, if I had to make a wild guess.
360Wh/kg for batteries is very noteworthy since some of the very best 18650 or 21700 format, higher amperage capable, li ion cylindrical cells used in UAV applications are right around 255Wh/kg.
Looks like this article from Car News China is testing a Chinese car in China with Chinese batteries on Chinese roads. I didn’t see any reference to USA or USA freeways.
> In China, you can buy a Nio car without a battery. You subscribe to BaaS (Battery as a Service) and pay a monthly subscription fee. The battery stays on Nio’s balance sheet. In this case, you can upgrade the battery on demand. If you subscribe to a 75 kWh battery, you can upgrade to a 100 kWh battery for 50 yuan (7 USD) a day or 880 yuan (123 USD) a month. This would make 150 kWh an excellent option for a short upgrade when going on a long trip rather than being “a daily driver.”
France had Renaults where you'd buy the car but lease the battery. No hot-swapping though. Seems like all the disadvantages of ownership with all the disadvantages of leasing.
Nio's swapping works better. You can complete a swap in 6 minutes. And you can upgrade and downgrade the battery between the 75, 100, and the eventual 150 kWh options to suit what you need:
I _think_ the theory there was that it spread the cost; you’d buy the car for similar to a petrol car, and then pay X euro a month where X was probably similar to what you’d have otherwise been spending on petrol. Don’t think it was ever a particularly popular option.
As an aside, this is the first video where I can't tell if it's a human speaking or an AI generated voice. The phenomenon of AI voices _and_ American voices choosing to be in a "presentation mode" / "telephone voice" is disconcerting, it weirdly means I trust US voices less.
I recall hearing that Irish voices are the most trusted in Western countries, and now I wonder whether that's something to do with the high degree of authenticity in the voice.
Edit: I tried to find a source for the Irish voice thing, but it turns out that every country lists a different accent as most trusted, in India it was British, in the UK it's Northern Irish, YMMV so it is probably irrelevant which voice is most trusted. The gist that the US voice being so present in voice assistants, devices, AI voice bots, etc still directionally may indicate a lessening in trust in those accents where it's not obviously tied to a speaker on screen being obviously human.
Edit 2: Now I think future demand for video conferencing for support will increase, as people will not trust voice calls at all.
I believe that in this case it is a real human voice (possibly with some processing). If you check some of the past videos on the channel, he is in shot, speaking into the camera.
EV's have a problem with the battery being by far the most expensive part, the quickest depreciating part of the car and a huge issue for when you are trying to sell your car.
Buying the car and paying a reasonable monthly subscription to always have an available swappable battery is not bad at all.
At the end of the day though, it seems like you would be paying for the depreciation on the battery (because it does depreciate, even if you don't own it) plus the extra profit / overhead required for the "battery as a service" part of the equation. There of course could be economies of scale at work here, where the overall price could be similar/lower than owing and eventually replacing a battery, but it seems to me from my very basic understanding of economics that it would be on average more expensive over the long term.
You can swap the batteries at any time (at their stations) and it takes minutes. The depreciation is not a factor which is why it is an interesting model.
Sorry I do not understand can someone EIL5? The leasing of the vehicle? How are you paying for the depreciation of the battery when you never payed for it in the first place? You buy the car without the battery. To get a battery you sign up for a subscription.
When the battery kicks the bucket, the battery-leasing company has to buy a new one, which costs money. The battery-leasing company makes money from battery subscription. Your subscription must cover the cost of the replacement batteries.
A swappable battery is a serviceable battery. An EV with a swappable battery also has a very high resell value because the only problematic part is out of the equation.
For a new car buyer this system likely has a much better total cost of ownership.
Depends very much on how much you use it. Is it a 200km every day job? Yeah. 200km per month? Better to just get a builtin battery and take care of it (not keeping it at 100% all the time etc).
There are economies of scale. There’s the fact that the company can probably service the battery better between swaps extending its life. And finally, there’s the benefit of a minimum level of battery performance even after the warranty expires. However, none of this is the most interesting part for battery tech.
Why this might be a much financially better option for customers is if battery tech costs keep reducing rapidly. So instead of paying the cost of 100kw of battery tech in 2023, you will pay something like an average value of the battery tech cost from 2023 to 2027 (and if the industry is growing, like EVs are, it will be a weighted average where the cheaper newer batteries would have higher weight since they would be a larger proportion of the overall stock since more cars will be made in 2027 than 2023).
Basically with the condition that battery costs keep dropping, this could be a fantastic deal for customers since they don’t need to buy the batteries at the most expensive price they will ever be going forward.
That's the entire idea... normal charging for day-to-day ... swap battery for roadtrips.
The swapstations are ~200km's apart on the motorway corridors.
Depends on how quick the swap takes. If a normal charge would take 20 minutes and you’re doing a bathroom/food break anyway then it’s basically no extra time. If you need to stand next to a battery swap for a few minutes and move when it’s done then it’s extra.
EVs are weird. Certain usage patterns mean less time waiting than ICE vehicles.
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[ 763 ms ] story [ 2365 ms ] threadStill impressive, but not exactly shocking for a sedan with a 150kWh battery to be capable of this range. I think the more impressive thing is cramming 150kWh of battery into a 4 door sedan.
You can have a 75 kWh battery most of the time, swap to a 150 kWh for a road trip, and then swap back to a 75 kWh for your daily driving.
It means you don't own the battery, but it also means you can change to a new battery whenever you want.
Tesla guarantees the battery for 8 years or 192,000km. If the battery degraded to below 80% of spec, they replace it for free.
Meaning that probably 95% or more of their batteries still have a higher capacity at that point. Modern EV batteries are really good.
A car that's 8 years old or has 192,000km will probably have lost about 70% of its resale value.
How has the car held up other than the battery? You say it has wear and tear like a 10 year old car but that can mean drastically different things depending on how people normally maintain their cars and what kinds of environments they drive in (local to me in upstate NY we use a lot of salt on the roads, an average 10 year old car is likely going to be nearing to the end of its life due to rust issues whose repair cost may equal a substantial portion of the value of the car).
NIO are already doing at least part of that by charging the batteries during time of excess energy only
The 1044km claim is from a livestream where the CEO of the company drove the car from Shanghai to Xiamen until there's 3% left in the battery. All this amid a cold wave too.
> The temperature during the test was between -2 °C and 12 °C (28 – 54 °F). The coldest time was at the beginning of the test, as it was early morning in Shanghai. The average cabin temperature was 20 °C (68 °F). The carload was about 190 kg (two adults, lifestream equipment, and other items).
A livestream is hard to fake but what tires were they using? What was the climate control setting? What speed? Did they have a tail wind?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermiling
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-autopilot-staged-engineer...
And they clearly can use a rigged car, cherrypick conditions etc. If it even were live.
But I generally don't like to throw legal terms around unless it's been proven in court.
360Wh/kg for batteries is very noteworthy since some of the very best 18650 or 21700 format, higher amperage capable, li ion cylindrical cells used in UAV applications are right around 255Wh/kg.
That is a very interesting model.
https://www.renaultgroup.com/en/news-on-air/news/all-you-nee...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmWL1hZQmD0
* They can charge at a slower rate, because they can average it out over the day
* They offer frequency balancing to the grid
I recall hearing that Irish voices are the most trusted in Western countries, and now I wonder whether that's something to do with the high degree of authenticity in the voice.
Edit: I tried to find a source for the Irish voice thing, but it turns out that every country lists a different accent as most trusted, in India it was British, in the UK it's Northern Irish, YMMV so it is probably irrelevant which voice is most trusted. The gist that the US voice being so present in voice assistants, devices, AI voice bots, etc still directionally may indicate a lessening in trust in those accents where it's not obviously tied to a speaker on screen being obviously human.
Edit 2: Now I think future demand for video conferencing for support will increase, as people will not trust voice calls at all.
> The phenomenon of AI voices _and_ American voices choosing to be in a "presentation mode" / "telephone voice" is disconcerting
I wonder how much of this is choice, or availability of crisp training data
When electrical cars first appeared on the market here in Europe leasing the battery was usually the only option. Luckily not anymore.
The hotswapping adds an interesting component to it though, that's true.
Buying the car and paying a reasonable monthly subscription to always have an available swappable battery is not bad at all.
When the battery kicks the bucket, the battery-leasing company has to buy a new one, which costs money. The battery-leasing company makes money from battery subscription. Your subscription must cover the cost of the replacement batteries.
For a new car buyer this system likely has a much better total cost of ownership.
Why this might be a much financially better option for customers is if battery tech costs keep reducing rapidly. So instead of paying the cost of 100kw of battery tech in 2023, you will pay something like an average value of the battery tech cost from 2023 to 2027 (and if the industry is growing, like EVs are, it will be a weighted average where the cheaper newer batteries would have higher weight since they would be a larger proportion of the overall stock since more cars will be made in 2027 than 2023).
Basically with the condition that battery costs keep dropping, this could be a fantastic deal for customers since they don’t need to buy the batteries at the most expensive price they will ever be going forward.
https://www.catl.com/en/news/6015.html
Looks like the most vanilla 2008 blog site possible
EVs are weird. Certain usage patterns mean less time waiting than ICE vehicles.