111–120 of 178 posts
Considering human nature first, and the assumption that these battery swap sites will probably be unattended, I wonder how long before someone will work out how to steal those batteries?
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Seemed normal to me. I think my wife's BMW SUV thingie fits like 90 liters.
At 10 gallons per minute, that's still just 2 minutes pumping time. (23 gallons) Edit: I checked again, he pumps for 2.5 minutes and gets exactly 23 gallons. So I guess the pump isn't as fast as Elon says on stage. But it still surprised me because, well, that's about twice as long as what I'm used to :)
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The model he fills up looks to be an A8. The A8 fuel economy is around 15-18MPG. So 20 gallon tank only gets 350 mile range on it.
Ok. That's a very guzzly car then, though; even other Audis like the A5 seem to do a lot better than that, especially on the highway.
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Banks and post offices get robbed every day. That problem is still not solved.
Apart from the extraordinarily rare successful heist[1], banks get robbed of teeny tiny amounts. That problem is effectively solved. [1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/981...
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This is the key reason you'd want to do this in the first place. It not only solves the problem of quickly charging the battery, it solves the problem of battery quality over time! The mere fact that you have batteries being swapped in and out of cars means you can systematically track battery health and refurbish batteries that are getting low, without ever having to bother the customer or affect the driveability of…
So, $40 times 375 == $15000. That, what, 37500 miles? Sounds worse, not better.
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The cost is fine, about what it costs to fill a gas tank, give or take. But what about this: " Drivers who choose to swap must reclaim their original battery on their return trip or pay the difference in cost for the new pack. " That seems... inconvenient.
I imagine they must start out doing it like this until they test usage, etc.. Who knows how people could take advantage of it otherwise. It would prevent a possible initial problem of a ton of battery packs just building up in one location. They'd want the first users to to be regular users, and by keeping it to those who it works for, the service will be available faster + once again they won't need to build capacit…
The swap will cost between $60 & $80[1]. [1] http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/21/us-tesla-swap-idUS...
The cost is fine, about what it costs to fill a gas tank, give or take. But what about this: " Drivers who choose to swap must reclaim their original battery on their return trip or pay the difference in cost for the new pack. " That seems... inconvenient.
(Are the Model S batteries even that cheap?)
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I imagine they must start out doing it like this until they test usage, etc.. Who knows how people could take advantage of it otherwise. It would prevent a possible initial problem of a ton of battery packs just building up in one location. They'd want the first users to to be regular users, and by keeping it to those who it works for, the service will be available faster + once again they won't need to build capacit…
how can batteries build up in one location?
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I imagine they must start out doing it like this until they test usage, etc.. Who knows how people could take advantage of it otherwise. It would prevent a possible initial problem of a ton of battery packs just building up in one location. They'd want the first users to to be regular users, and by keeping it to those who it works for, the service will be available faster + once again they won't need to build capacit…
how can batteries build up in one location?