Quote:
Originally Posted by HemiEd
Offering one at $25k sounds like a good move in the right direction.
Back to the battery exchange thing.
I remember when I would not do that with propane tanks because my cylinders were pretty new (they have a date code) and didn't want an old piece of crap in exchange.
For the last few years I could care less and only care about it being full. The exchange is fully automated.
I can see that same attitude carrying over to EV batteries. You pull into a quick change place and snap, $20 and they swap in a fully charged battery in a few minutes.
This would make longer trips possible again without long charging delays.
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Problem is a propane tank is a way different scenario than an EV battery. Hell you said you didn't want to trade in tanks because the ones you had were less scratched than the ones you were going to get back. They were going to work exactly the same, but just them looking nice made you want to hold on to them.
Batteries however, unlike tanks, degrade over time. The old scratched up propane tank you were going to get in return was going to hold just as much propane as the newer ones you traded in. And tanks tend to not really die like batteries do. Now you're trading in a brand new battery & could get one that may have been in use a while & down to 80% capacity of a new one.
Furthermore what happens when that battery completely dies & needs to be replaced, is it the responsibility of the car owner or the owner of the "battery changing station" to replace it? If it's on the shop, these shops are in essence providing EV owners with free battery replacements for life. If not you could trade in a brand new battery for one that dies on you & now you have to replace a battery in a brand new car. In the rare instance a tank would die, you just pull it out of your grill & reexchange it. The company won't notice it's not working until they go to refill it & then they will fix it. I'm thinking when you have to tow your EV back to get the dead battery replaced they're going to realize somethings wrong with it.