Effort to lease batteries vs include them with the car.

[Tpup]

I found this interesting. Not a huge fan of the numbers; the lease on the battery is 10% of the price of the car. I do like the 100 second swap.

Some of the other Chinese companies do this for their customers. India is doing something similar for scooters/motorcycles with 1,500 status. I like the idea but not the costs. That said my analysis is based on not driving much. I guess if you drove a lot, and charged at paid stations, it might be a good deal.

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[bluesky]

Wasn’t battery swapping an idea talked about at the dawn of modern EVs when charging wasn’t fast?

Is 10% bad? The Porsche replacement cost of a Taycan battery is more than 10% of any trim.

 

[Gino]

Wasn’t battery swapping an idea talked about at the dawn of modern EVs when charging wasn’t fast?

Is 10% bad? The Porsche replacement cost of a Taycan battery is more than 10% of any trim.

I think it’s an interesting concept but it will be tough for premium performance car makers like Porsche to give up over 50% of a base Taycan’s price & profit to a battery manufacturer.
Porsche wants to make the money on the battery upfront and then down the road in repairs & replacement events.
I think it’s completely unnecessary to do a battery swap any more and it puts more risk on the vehicle owner that either the vehicle manufacturer or the battery manufacturer could at some point in time stop supporting their vehicle or their battery platform which then makes the vehicle worthless.
For low use vehicles which become collectible I wouldn’t consider battery swaps since after 20 or more years will they still support old vehicles with newer backward compatible technologies?
This could work for high use vehicles which don’t stay on the road for more than 10 years but for low use premium vehicles or even conventional EVs this can get very expensive.
If the lifetime of an EV battery pack is at least 10-15 years depending on use and you can get it swapped for $10K to $12K by RECELL then my 2021 Taycan RWD which cost $105K new would be an easy amount to justify the replacement for a low use customer like me.
For a high use customer the economics are even better to own the battery and pay 10% of the purchase price 10 years later.
To me, in order for battery replacement to really work a standardised battery module would have to be adopted across the industry which will never change like a D cell lithium battery but for a vehicle it would be a hypothetical “Z” lithium cell with standardised voltage, charging infrastructure, dimensions & power to weight ratio like putting any 4” D rechargeable cells in a radio controlled ATV which can be charged with the original charger today or 20+ years from now.
In order for this to happen battery prices will have to drop significantly which they will but it will take away an important revenue stream from the vehicle manufacturers for servicing & replacing batteries.
I would love the ability to choose buying a battery vs leasing a battery at the point of initial sale to determine which is best for your use case.

 

[Gkwan]

Would love that but is there any chance to see this concept deployed in Europe ?? (& France )

 

[Gino]

Would love that but is there any chance to see this concept deployed in Europe ?? (& France )

I’d be incredibly surprised if they committed to this strategy if they didn’t from the beginning when charging times were long. Now charging times are reasonable so this would be a difficult change.

 

[chun]

Would love that but is there any chance to see this concept deployed in Europe ?? (& France )

North of Europe already has some from NEO

but it’s more rental than leasing.

You buy a neo that comes with a small battery; and you can rent from one of the battery swapping stations a bigger one for some time

 

[Gkwan]

North of Europe already has some from NEO

but it’s more rental than leasing.

You buy a neo that comes with a small battery; and you can rent from one of the battery swapping stations a bigger one for some time

Yep, but it would have been a very clever, widespread hence cost-effective way to replace dead batteries by a new one for 0 man-hour cost.
Probably why it didn't happen.

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