How battery swapping could reduce EV charge time to just 10 minutes

[StevieM]

~snip~

The fastest electric vehicle charging stations currently get an empty battery to 80 percent full in about 30 minutes. But a new company is working on swapping out empty battery packs for fully charged ones. That would get an electric vehicle to 100 percent full in about 10 minutes.

Ample, which officially launched this week at two sites in San Francisco and another Oakland, builds and operates battery-swapping stations that use a robot to pluck out dead battery packs from under the car and replace them with packs fully charged and ready to go.

The Ample stations can be set up anywhere close to a power source so that the robot machine can get under the belly of the car and also charge a waiting supply of replacement batteries. The stations are completely autonomous and you don't even have to get out of the car while the batteries are switched. You communicate with the station through a smartphone app.

"The beauty is it takes us a couple weeks to set up," CEO Khaled Hassounah told me at a demo in San Francisco last week. Each station takes up two parking spaces and is temporary. If necessary, it can be moved across the street or down the block. "It fits into neighborhoods easily," he said. There's no drilling into the pavement or other permanent construction, like there is for the 500,000 new charging stations the federal government is supporting.

Read More: https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/how-battery-swapping-could-reduce-ev-charge-time-to-just-10-minutes/ar-BB1ecEvK?ocid=msedgdhp

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. That makes sense.

The main reason I'm reluctant to consider purchasing an electric car is the battery recharge time. I frequently make long distance drives, 800 or more miles at a time, and the current time to recharge a battery is (for me) unacceptable. A battery swap would work much better.

Honestly, I have no patience for those who never make long drives who think that 200 miles on a charge is just terrific. No. It's not. Please get real and understand that a lot of people might drive more than that.

[ItsjustMe]

2. Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/19/electric-car-batteries-race-ahead-with-five-minute-charging-times

Exclusive: first factory production means recharging could soon be as fast as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles

Batteries capable of fully charging in five minutes have been produced in a factory for the first time, marking a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles.

Electric vehicles are a vital part of action to tackle the climate crisis but running out of charge during a journey is a worry for drivers. The new lithium-ion batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines.

StoreDot has already demonstrated its “extreme fast-charging” battery in phones, drones and scooters and the 1,000 batteries it has now produced are to showcase its technology to carmakers and other companies. Daimler, BP, Samsung and TDK have all invested in StoreDot, which has raised $130m to date and was named a Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneer in 2020.

[WA-03 Democrat]

3. Make the road a charger

Inductive charging while the car is moving is the goal. Drive through on the freeway and gain battery level. Don’t let the old ways become automatic. Driverless cars and trucks will need a lot of power. Build the chargers and sensors into the major highways. Goal should be to never plug in.

[TreasonousBastard]

4. Sweden's tried it already.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/12/worlds-first-electrified-road-for-charging-vehicles-opens-in-sweden