In addition to solving the range problem, battery exchange solves other worries about the battery life, quality, and displacement of today’s technology by tomorrows.

Rowan: what do you care about where the battery has been or its past life? You don’t own it, don’t pay for any capital costs for it. It is electrically simple to guage the charge on the battery for your current trip. If it exhibits some aging, take it back and burn the two minutes it requires to exchange for another one. And also, lets not suddenly pretend we’ve had some perfect quality standard for vehicle fuel. Everyday in the US bad tanks of gasoline are sold, blended imperfectly or even had water seepage in the tank storage somewhere along the way.

PMHowell – Yes the battery is significant cost and warranty issue. That is why BP’s plan is the workable approach thus far: eliminate all that. The EV owner does not pay for the battery or the warranty up front, any more than we currently pay for oil wells and drilling up front. And don’t fret about theft – BP batteries have computers in them that talk to computers on board the EV and thence to the network.

Capt. Morgan – I find your comments odd. Yes the battery exchange concept will require some standardization, and if you watch some of the BP video’s/interviews you’ll see they are promoting standards. Obviously many parts of today’s combustion vehicles are standardized to the gas industry: nozzle, cap, pump, static discharge; fuel quality. Just so batteries. Because someone can make different battery mechanical packaging, doesn’t mean they must, or will.

EV’s with exchange are the only concept that makes any sense:

-EV w/out exchange is limited to metropolitan area driving, and they stuck with the large capital cost of a battery which must be amortized over the same

over only the vehicle, even though large EV batteries might have twice the life of the vehicle (3-500,000 miles).

-PHEV (Volt, Plug Prius) will always have the cost of two the two drive trains to burden it. The lower capacity batteries on PHEVs compared to EVs are thought to be a cost advantage, but they are also a weakness. Since they’re smaller, they see far, far more cycles than a large EV battery and thus life becomes an issue. The Volt deals with this by effectively using only half the battery to insure the owner never needs to replace it, creating in effect 8kWh of dead weight and cost. Again, all that goes away with exchange. For you the owner of a rented-by-the-mile battery, who cares if it lasts 30,000 miles or 300,000 miles?

-Fast charge. Fast charge batteries are just coming out of the lab, so we’ve yet to see how they hold up. But why bother? On the supply end, it is just not going to happen. Charging, say, a 150 mile = 30kWh battery in five minutes requires a 360kW line, per ‘pump’. And down the road with higher capacity batteries, say 300 miles and 60-70kWh, now the pump approaches a full megawatt. Multiply that by ten again for a freeway size, 10-spot charging station. Fast charge does not scale, nor can the grid handle it in even small doses now. With an exchange concept, the battery capacity in 10 years is not a factor for the car or the owner.

In addition to solving the range problem, battery exchange solves other worries about the battery life, quality, and displacement of today’s technology by tomorrows.

Rowan: what do you care about where the battery has been or its past life? You don’t own it, don’t pay for any capital costs for it. It is electrically simple to guage the charge on the battery for your current trip. If it exhibits some aging, take it back and burn the two minutes it requires to exchange for another one. And also, lets not suddenly pretend we’ve had some perfect quality standard for vehicle fuel. Everyday in the US bad tanks of gasoline are sold, blended imperfectly or even had water seepage in the tank storage somewhere along the way.

PMHowell – Yes the battery is significant cost and warranty issue. That is why BP’s plan is the workable approach thus far: eliminate all that. The EV owner does not pay for the battery or the warranty up front, any more than we currently pay for oil wells and drilling up front. And don’t fret about theft – BP batteries have computers in them that talk to computers on board the EV and thence to the network.

Capt. Morgan – I find your comments odd. Yes the battery exchange concept will require some standardization, and if you watch some of the BP video’s/interviews you’ll see they are promoting standards. Obviously many parts of today’s combustion vehicles are standardized to the gas industry: nozzle, cap, pump, static discharge; fuel quality. Just so batteries. Because someone can make different battery mechanical packaging, doesn’t mean they must, or will.

EV’s with exchange are the only concept that makes any sense:

-EV w/out exchange is limited to metropolitan area driving, and they stuck with the large capital cost of a battery which must be amortized over the same

over only the vehicle, even though large EV batteries might have twice the life of the vehicle (3-500,000 miles).

-PHEV (Volt, Plug Prius) will always have the cost of two the two drive trains to burden it. The lower capacity batteries on PHEVs compared to EVs are thought to be a cost advantage, but they are also a weakness. Since they’re smaller, they see far, far more cycles than a large EV battery and thus life becomes an issue. The Volt deals with this by effectively using only half the battery to insure the owner never needs to replace it, creating in effect 8kWh of dead weight and cost. Again, all that goes away with exchange. For you the owner of a rented-by-the-mile battery, who cares if it lasts 30,000 miles or 300,000 miles?

-Fast charge. Fast charge batteries are just coming out of the lab, so we’ve yet to see how they hold up. But why bother? On the supply end, it is just not going to happen. Charging, say, a 150 mile = 30kWh battery in five minutes requires a 360kW line, per ‘pump’. And down the road with higher capacity batteries, say 300 miles and 60-70kWh, now the pump approaches a full megawatt. Multiply that by ten again for a freeway size, 10-spot charging station. Fast charge does not scale, nor can the grid handle it in even small doses now. With an exchange concept, the battery capacity in 10 years is not a factor for the car or the owner.

2) I want to plug in and charge my own battery with energy I have harnessed from the sun or wind

3) I don’t want to be tied to a system designed to create tax revenue for the government

2) I want to plug in and charge my own battery with energy I have harnessed from the sun or wind

3) I don’t want to be tied to a system designed to create tax revenue for the government

2) I want to plug in and charge my own battery with energy I have harnessed from the sun or wind

3) I don’t want to be tied to a system designed to create tax revenue for the government