Better Place

I find it interesting that Better Places has resurrected the original electric vehicle business plan. From 1900-1920 electric vehicle companies tried to do the same thing that Better Places is proposing. These companies set up networks of battery swap stations and leased batteries to customers. When the battery got low you simply pulled into one of their battery swap stations and in a few minutes were on your way. It failed 100 years ago and it will fail again today. The problems are the same today as they were then.

• Getting companies to standardize design
• Building a large enough network of stations to serve the customer base
• Having the battery packs were they are needed.

"The Electric Vehicle and the Burden of History" by David Kirsch is a good book on the topic.

A electric vehicle with a 100 mile range will fill the needs of 80% of the population. Add in the number of two car families and the need for long distance EV travel disappears. Simply put, if you are traveling across the country, and EV is not the tool for the job. Why design a vehicle and elaborate battery swapping network around 5% of vehicle miles.

 

Better Place's success doesn't depend on battery swap stations. The favourable economics of EVs simply allows them to provide swap stations. I suspect providing them will: a) be useful to/attract the high profit customers that drive a lot and b) silence any critics that say a 100-120 mile range is not enough.

Better Place intends to prove that their plan will work in Australia and therefore anywhere, including, I hope, Canada!

 

The amount of invested capital only means the guy is good at convincing people to invest. And he won't be "well on [the] way" to transforming Israel until large numbers of those EVs are on the roads, displacing gasoline cars.

Fast-chargable batteries are here now. They are not "in the future." The Phoenix Motorcars SUT can charge in 10 minutes.

Quite the contrary. Most people will do most of their charging at home, and will charge at off-peak hours if the utility offers off-peak rates. Only on long trips will fast-charging be needed, and that's a small fraction of the total miles driven. Well within the capacity of the grid. Of course, with time, the grid will have to be upgraded, because before too much longer there won't be any gas.

You think they're going to just give us those batteries? Just like the consumer credit scam (buy now, pay later -- and pay through the nose for the privilege of paying later) they'll let us pay (through the nose!!!) for those batteries in the installment plan: the consumer will pay three times as much for those batteries because he does not have to pay up front.

That part is great! We agree on that one.

 

I think that will be within 3 years, if not 2.

Oh I thought people were refering to the latest announcement from MIT. MIT fast-charge batteries promise quicker EVs - Boston Overdrive - Boston.com. Which aren't exactly in mass production.

Fast charging during the day is not an option, sorry. The grid would be overwhelmed if cars were being fast charged in significant numbers, plus you can't do that kind of charging with normal connection hardware.

It's the high up front costs on a battery that will price many out of the EV market. Look at the Volt. It's only problem will be that the consumer will have to purchase a $10-16,000 battery to drive what otherwise should be a $25,000 car. That's a crappy business model that will slow adoption of EVs.

I'd rather have the service provider keep possession of that battery as long as I always have use of one wherever my car goes. It can never be my headache, and overall I will be driving for a lot less money than I do now. With BP you sign up for a plan and pay for miles. Buy a big enough plan and the hardware (the car) might even be free. I wish them luck and and EV fan should as well.

 

And I think a "significant" replacement of gas cars with electric will be in ten to twenty years. Can you really imagine that a nation, even a small one, is going to turn over a "significant" proportion of its fleet for a whole new technology in two years?

You keep asserting that cars can't fast-charge during the day. But I'm talking about a very small proportion of total miles, since most people will charge at night.

Further, since it takes the same amount of electricity to fast charge as to slow charge, your model will require recharging, at night, all the batteries that will be needed for the entire day. Now you've probably quadrupled the total investment in batteries!

Further, by the time even 2% of cars on the road are electric, we will have begun upgrading the grid. The grid will grow to meet the demand. Nobody's predicting that even 2% of cars on the road will be electric in a decade from now.

Sadly, you are right, that the American consumer would rather pay double, as long as he can pay it tomorrow rather than today.

It sure will be your headache when you pull into a battery-switching station and you find out that they're all out of batteries, and you cannot go to another provider because BP is the only game in town and you have a contract with them!!!

Or what happens when you find out halfway between stations that the last battery they switched into your car was a lemon and you're stuck?

Remember when AT&T was the only phone company and you paid $10 for a phone call that costs $1 today?

And again, it's pretty naive to think they're really going to give you a free car if you buy enough miles. They're in business to make money, and they're going to make money on every plan they sell. And that means that if you get a "free" car, it's because they've made enough profit selling you miles that they can afford the car and still make a profit.

Then, what happens if they go bankrupt and the bank takes your battery, because now the bank owns the batteries? Now you have a car that won't go. Or let's get conspiratorial: What happens when Chevron buys out BP? Now Chevron owns the battery in your car, and has every right to take it back, and since it will be a proprietary battery, to work with the switching hardware, nobody else can sell you one. I normally think conspiracy theories are for nut jobs, but look at Cobasys and the NiMH battery patent. No, thanks. I want to own my battery. If you're going to say, nobody would take back the batteries just to get EVs off the road, look at what GM did with the EV-1. They took the whole damn car back, and took the loss of crushing them all, just because they didn't want EVs on the road. You think it can't happen again? You're talking about a model where they don't have to take back the whole car, just the battery.

Battery switching may be a good business model in a nation of people so stupid they'll buy everything on credit and pay 20% interest and not realize that half of what they're paying is interest. But it is a bad deal for the consumer.

Battery switching is just plain more expensive, and it's the end consumer that pays the full cost and more. But if you don't mind paying double, for the privilege of paying tomorrow, well, that's your choice.

 

Better Place is setting up an infrastructure so that all cars can be EVs. If EVs were a small fraction of the vehicles on the road, then yes an improved grid might be able to handle the strain of some fast charging happening here or there. But anything approaching 40% EVs and the grid would never be able to provide fast charging during/near peak times.

And clearly, that's the only time you would need to fast charge. And then only if you were driving a long way. And you would probably want to fill a mostly or nearly depleted battery that requires a lot of energy!

In most cases we'd all agree that if you are just commuting and parked most of the day, you'd simply top up slowly - just enough to get home and/or run errands. And then once home you can finish recharging slowly, overnight. So fast charging would likely only occur during/around peak times.

Also, to be truly fast (about a full charge in less than 10 minutes) charging would require different hardware than is built into standard 120 V lines/outlets today. That special and expensive equipment will not be everywhere either- far from it, which means it would be no more convenient than swap stations. Perceived advantage lost.

That doesn't make sense. Most people, most of the time won't need to charge at all during the day with a 120+ mile range. And the fraction of EVs that will charge during the day - most can do it slowly. But even with some swap station activity, there will be probably be less than 1.4 batteries in the network for every Better Place EV on the road.

I will predict that right now. I'll say 10% just to be daring.

Paying for miles of EV driving is a lot cheaper than buying/fueling a gas car today. The consumer will be much better off as a customer of Better Place than they are today.

That's not going to be any more likely than having an engine seize on your way to work.

Actually they are more interested in saving the planet than making money. A profitable business is a means to that end.

Let's keep our tinfoil hat tendencies suppressed, just until we sort out this fast charging debate.

Again, if you have to drive everyday, you'll be better off financially as a Better Place customer. That's very clear.

 

Hello!!!

from Tesla Motors CEO: Model S is cheaper than it looks | Green Tech - CNET News

 

"Never" is a big word. At 2 cents per mile, I don't even notice a difference in my electric bill doing all my in-town driving, and maybe half my total driving miles electric. It's hidden in the normal month-to-month fluctuations of all my other electric use.

The electric grid today could clearly power a great many EV miles. And we're not even quibbling about the total amount of power delivered; that's the same whether or not a relatively small percentage of the total is fast-charging (we are agreed that we're talking a small part of the total, since we agree that most people will do most of their charging slowly at home).

Industry routinely installs higher voltage three-phase power lines to accommodate higher demand. Our argument simply comes down to this: You say it would cost more to install fast-charging capability; I say it would cost more to install battery-switching stations.

Increasing the likelihood that you'll pull into a station and they won't have a battery available for your car. Four batteries available for every ten on the road might work if they could teleport batteries instantly to the local swap station. But if you're talking thousands of stations, every one of them has to have enough batteries of every type for the maximum number of cars that might show up on any given day. Random distributions virtually guarantee that some predictable percentage of the time, your swap station is all out of your battery type.

We are agreed that any form of EV will be more economical than any form of gas car. I'm saying you'll pay twice as much in the long term if they own the batteries. You keep comparing apples to oranges: Your mantra is "People will be better off than if they had a gas car." I'm saying you'll pay double if they own your battery than if you do.

Really? You're that convinced that they'll always have a battery for you when you need it? When you're driving through the boonies, or on the interstate 100 miles from the next swap center, you think they'll never run out of the battery you need? That's awfully trusting of you.

Wow, suddenly capitalism is on its head: It's no longer necessary to make money? Instead, they'll be giving away money? I can assure you that their investors will kick them out on their ear if they don't make money, and those investors will replace them with managers who will make money. And of course, once you're locked into them (because they own your battery!) they can charge you whatever they like.

So you're saying GM didn't take back and crush the EV1 because they didn't want EVs on the road? Or are you saying that GM didn't sell the NiMH patent to Chevron/Cobasys, or that Chevron/Cobasys didn't prohibit EV makers from putting a bigger NiMH battery into cars than the one in the Prius?

The oil industry and GM have gone to very great lengths to try to keep EVs off the road.

Better off than what? Better off than a gasoline driver? Yes. Agreed. But not better off than an EV driver who owns his own battery pack.

 

Agreed, numerous studies have shown that - IF charging is done overnight!

Actually, I am. Power is Energy/unit time. What we don't disagree on is whether the grid can provide the energy for EVs. But I disagree about the amount of power the grid can provide.

I don't say that at all. Fast charging stations would probably be cheaper to build than battery swap stations. The problem with fast charging stations is that they involve fast charging - something the grid can't support if EVs are going to take over.

I am just guessing on that 1.4 number. It would interesting to know what they are expecting.

Ok, let's compare a) owning an EV and its battery outright as opposed to b) owning a Better Place Renault-Nissan vehicle. In a) you have to pay for the expensive $500-1000 per kWh battery up front or finance it as a depreciating asset and you're stuck with it, even if a better battery comes along in 5 years. The total cost just for the battery alone is between $10-15,000. In scenario b) you just buy the car, and save that $10-$15,000, allowing you to afford an overall better EV or one at all. You're always guaranteed the best battery technology and have saved thousands of extra dollars to put towards buying miles on a plan that could take you more than several years to spend.

Well, I trust that gas stations have gas in their underground tanks. It's not always the case, but you can usually bet on it. If Better Place couldn't give me a battery, I'd expect them to give me a lot of compensation for my trouble as we would have a contract. A gas station never would so in that case we'd be SOL.

I never said it was no longer necessary to make money. I said it would be easy for BP to make money and necessary - as a means to get us off oil.

If I sign a contract for $/mile they would have to honour that. Even if power producers raised the rates they charged Better Place.

I agree with all that. The big 3 realized that the EV isn't profitable under the standard car selling/repair service business model. Under the cell phone subscription model it is, while at the same time being cheaper for the consumer. EVs have to be profitable or we're screwed. The BP model is the only way to go.

 

So if your battery-swapping stations are also charging overnight (because you're convinced that the grid could "never" be upgraded to deliver the needed power) then they need even more batteries on hand. And you, the consumer are, in the long run, paying for even more batteries. Plus the interest and the profit to the investors who put up the cash to buy them.

You keep saying the grid "can't" or "could never" etc. I see no evidence that it could not do it now, and I am confident that it could be upgraded to whatever level we care to upgrade it to.

Whoa there!!! You are "always guaranteed the best battery technology"???? You really think they're going to throw away antiquated technology and not make you pay for it in higher rates? That's pretty naive. Who is going to pay the cost of insuring that they always provide you with the latest battery technology? Santa Claus?

What you are really claiming is that you can get something for nothing: Pay less for the car, pay less for the energy, and never really have to pay for the batteries because the best, newest batteries will just appear magically, purchased by philanthropic investors who don't care if the consumers ever actually give them a return on their investment, and who moreover will stock three times the average needed number of batteries so as to always have batteries in stock on the busiest days, or else give you a free teleport ticket to get to your destination when they don't have a battery on hand.

This is voodoo economics plus fairy tale magic.

You don't always get what you pay for, but you never get something for nothing, and SOMEONE has to pay for all those batteries, including the overstock for busy days, and that someone is the consumer, who for the privilege of paying tomorrow instead of today, will pay three times as much.

If the gas station has no gas, you can go to another. If the BP swap station has no battery, you can "expect" them to compensate you, but your "expectations" won't do you much good.

And what makes you think the contract is going to give you any rights? Lets look at another transportation industry: Airlines. Your ticket is a contract. What happens if your flight is delayed or canceled? You sit in the airport and you wait. What happens when they lose your luggage? You wait for it. And if they lose it entirely, the law limits their liability at a ridiculously low level. You have to buy travel insurance from a separate insurance company if you want any compensation when the airline fails to get you or your luggage to your destination in a reasonable time.

No, my friend, any kind of contract giving you any kind of rights is a pipe dream. No transportation or communications industry gives you any analogous rights. More likely, the contract will say that they'll make "every effort" to stock the needed batteries but they are in no way liable if "for no fault of their own" they run out because more cars than they anticipated showed up asking for batteries before you. And since they are slow charging, you'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

 

I'm getting a little annoyed with you wasting my time, because you are too lazy to think. Who said batteries in the swap stations wouldn't be charged during the day? Maybe they wouldn't. Whatever works best, but I wouldn't rule it out. It's fast charging that can't occur during the day and just isn't needed at night.

It's not necessary or even possible to do fast charging out on the road so why bother building an enormously costly infrastructure supporting it. Talk about a waste of money - that would definitely be. 10s of kWhs of energy in minutes?, available for any cars on the road at any time? Get real. Remember, the goal is to have all cars be EVs asap.

Agassi has said as batteries improve they will be incorporated into their system readily. As economies of scale and improved production techniques develop, the cost/performance ratio of batteries will drop steadily and a BP customer will always be protected from battery depreciation/obsolescence, automatically.

Not voodoo. The economics of EVs is so good Better Place can give customers a much better deal than they have now and still make gobs of money.

You must realize that (so far) a number of countries, one automaker, a Province, a State and some large cities obviously publicly disagree with your crude assessment of the worthiness of this business plan and/or it's benefits to the citizenry and the planet.

Go ahead and poo poo the BP business plan all you want. And next time you buy an EV, go ahead and own the battery if you want to.
And when Better Place sets up shop in your area, shout it from the rooftops how costly/lame their service is. But don't forget to keep your tin foil hat on while you're doing it so people know your just a jaded, crazy, fart.

BTW, Better Place staff, if you're reading this, I would really love it if you announced a deal with British Columbia. Your service would really be an awesome fit with my Province.

 

I am not wasting your time. You are wasting your own time. The only person's time I am wasting is my own. I budget a certain amount of my time to waste while I am at home because it amuses me. If you are wise you will make a considered decision whether to waste time or not. Nobody can waste your time but you. Or maybe your employer, but then you're being paid for it.

The point is that if they only use slow charging, then it will be many hours before a battery is available after a particular charging station has a run on its batteries because due to the nature of random events like cars arriving at a gas or battery-swap station there will be times when any given station runs out. But with fast charging (as with "fast" gas-pumping) you simply wait your turn.

Maybe if you repeat this assertion enough times you will even begin to believe it yourself.

Of course he has said this. His job right now is to convince investors to hand over money, and to gain public support so nations and cities endorse him, which he can turn around and use to convince investors.

But somebody will have to pay for those batteries. And that somebody is the end user, who will not only pay the full cost of the batteries, but also the cost of the swapping machinery, plus the interest on the loans and the investors' profits. It's voodoo economics if you think you're not going to pay through the nose in the end.

I've repeated many times that we are agreed that any system of EVs will be better than any system using gasoline. That's not our quarrel. Our quarrel is whether fast-charging or battery swapping is better for the consumer. You assert that we can trust a very big corporation because this corporation, unlike any other corporation that has ever existed since the invention of capitalism, will be benevolent and generous and kind and good and socially responsible and isn't really in it for the money, but only to make the world a better place (like its name -- of course we can believe them, they put it in their name!) and we can trust them to own the critical component of our cars. I say you will pay through the nose for the privilege of renting your battery so that you don't have to pay for it today. It's just another kind of consumer credit. "Pay nothing down and no interest for the first three days, and then we own you."

Yes. A number of governments disagree with me. In fact, most governments disagree with me about most issues.

And BTW, I thought of an analogy I think I forgot to make before: You said that the contract for miles would be much like the contract for cell phone minutes. You also said you would be compensated for your time if the switching station ran out of batteries. Does your cell phone company compensate you if you are somewhere their network does not reach? Do they compensate you if the local tower is out of service and you cannot make a call? Nope. They promise you a certain number of minutes. They make no promise that you'll have a connection at any given time or place. In fact, the contract states that they are not liable if service is unavailable.

Look, I want to see the electrification of the transportation system as badly as you do. I actualy drive an EV most days, and I would love to be able to do my long-distance driving on electric as well. And I'd even buy into BP if their battery-swapping system becomes available on the routes I drive before fast charging does. I just don't think battery swapping is the way to go. Argue all you like that your concept is better than mine. You can even keep throwing out buzz words like "never" and "impossible." But don't accuse me of opposing electric, because I've been driving electric for nearly two years now. I drive the best electric car I could get two years ago, and as long as I am able to drive I will always be driving the best EV I am able to get. If that's BP, so be it. If it's fast charging, great. I notice that Tesla Motors is designing the S sedan to be capable of both, though, of course, their battery system is their own, and might or might not be supported by BP.

 

Daniel, Sorry I got snarky. I feel much better now after a good nights sleep. Creating 1:00 am posts is ill advised.

Whatever which way we get massive EV adoption is fine by me. I'll leave it to the engineers and MBA's to determine the best way.

But I do think Better Place is a mission first and has a profit motive as a close second. And I don't usually put much faith in corporations as they clearly don't have the public's interests at heart.

Maybe this time, it will be different.

 

Apology accepted. We both want EVs. I can agree to let the engineers work out the details. We'll continue to disagree on which is the best way, but we can still be friends about it. :tea: :grouphug:

 

I like this article...Electric avenues: Battery-powered cars take over the roads - Business Analysis & Features, Business - The Independent

 

I hope they're right!

 

Wiring Wars: The Race to Charge the World's EVs | BNET Auto Blog | BNET

 

Shai Agassi: First Battery Swap Station Lands In Japan, But Skeptics Remain

 

“We think charging will be stimulated by the government, but ultimately it will be offered by the private sector,†Read said. “Soon the charging will be ubiquitous in the retail landscape, and companies will be at a competitive disadvantage if they don’t offer it.†After all, if one supermarket offered to fill up your car while you shopped, and the other didn’t, where would you go?"

Have heard many times that the "lack" of a charging infrastructure will limit the growth of EVs. But as quoted in this article, the free market will take care of what ever recharging I need. The only thing the government needs to do is require "time of day" pricing for electricity and most charging will take place while we sleep. Every gas station, WalMart and restaurant will offer fast charging. Employers will offer free daytime charging. The free market will not let me run out of juice!