maowai

maowai t1_j250g9f wrote

Reply to comment by bremidon in ELI5 why do electric vehicles have one big battery that's hard to replace once it's expired, rather than lots of smaller ones that could be swapped out based on need (to trade off range/power/weight)? by ginonofalg

Chargers are also much, much more mechanically simple than some sort of machine that would swap out your 1000lb battery for you. Electrify America already has trouble keeping their chargers working. Imagine how bad it would be if it was machines with 500 moving parts instead.

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maowai t1_j24z89m wrote

Reply to comment by hacktheself in ELI5 why do electric vehicles have one big battery that's hard to replace once it's expired, rather than lots of smaller ones that could be swapped out based on need (to trade off range/power/weight)? by ginonofalg

Only non-EV drivers think that swapping is a good or necessary option. The second you’ve lived with an EV for a month or so, you realize how totally inconvenient and unnecessary it would be.

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maowai t1_j24yi9l wrote

Reply to comment by hacktheself in ELI5 why do electric vehicles have one big battery that's hard to replace once it's expired, rather than lots of smaller ones that could be swapped out based on need (to trade off range/power/weight)? by ginonofalg

I would need to visit a special place to recharge my car and a person or myself would have to manually remove 1000lbs of battery and replace it with a new one? That sounds like a much, much worse option than just taking 3 seconds to plug it into the charger in my garage. I don’t see how that’s better for anyone, even if you can’t charge at home and need to visit DC fast chargers all the time.

Could I do it both ways? Allow swapping and charging at home? Sure, but is that worth the immense design and engineering trade offs, when home charging + DC fast chargers work fine in almost all cases?

Relying on swapping would also be a big profit center for car companies because they could charge big recurring swap subscriptions. They don’t do it because it’s a bad idea, not just because of money.

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maowai t1_j24ws26 wrote

Reply to comment by crookedriverguy in ELI5 why do electric vehicles have one big battery that's hard to replace once it's expired, rather than lots of smaller ones that could be swapped out based on need (to trade off range/power/weight)? by ginonofalg

I think swappable car batteries work fine in some areas and circumstances, but I don’t think that it will ever take off or be necessary in the US. I own an EV and I do 99.9% of my charging at home. Swapping is less convenient than that, I don’t want to pay a permanent subscription on top of the price of the car. Fast chargers along highways are also far less labor intensive and much more mechanically simple than any sort of human operated or automatic battery swapper.

As soon as you own an EV, you realize how bad and unnecessary of an idea battery swapping seems.

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maowai t1_j16ekmd wrote

Reply to comment by Intrepid-Dig-1855 in Tesla reportedly plans more layoffs as the company’s stock tanks | Engadget by prehistoric_knight

Sorry, but the build quality is at least “acceptable” to the vast, vast majority of people who own them. It’s a Reddit thing to act like they’re at the level of cars coming out of the Soviet Union. The people complaining are people who play with calipers for fun, people who got unlucky with a really bad one, and, as the overwhelming majority, people with no firsthand experience who want to participate in the circlejerk.

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