Quote:
Originally Posted by ScareCrowe
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.
|
You bring up some good points.
To start with, on the propane tanks, they used to have a date on them that when it had passed, they could not be refilled anymore. I had that happen once, but it was before these automated exchange centers existed.
You would take your tank to the refill station and they would check the date on your tank. I could care less if it was scratched up, it was the date that was the issue and also there were a couple different types of connectors initially. Depending on the type of connector your grill had, you had to have a compatible one on your tank.
Similar issue to the different charging connector issues on the EV batteries that exist now.
Without question, the cost of the EV batteries and where yours is at in it's life cycle will have to be factored in. I am very cognizant of battery life cycles and how they degrade.
It will be interesting to see how it is all worked out. At one time the propane tank issues seemed insurmountable.