Introduction
It’s time for our weekly garage star guest again! Please give a warm welcome to our garage star @于米良, aka Brother Rice!
Let’s introduce him in a fancy way:
He is a fluent English speaker, a skilled mechanic, an accomplished racer, and a talented surfer. He has won many awards and honors, such as the third prize in the Fancy Race Destruction Derby, the runner-up in the Battery Endurance Championship, and two times winner of the Wool Cup. He is also a certified Level 2 researcher in the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and a victim of the lifetime free battery swap program of NIO.
Don’t miss this amazing @于米良!
Garage Debate: Is Battery Swapping a Rapid Energy Supplement?
Last week, a topic was released on our garage website: “Is battery swapping a rapid energy supplement?”
First, let’s see Brother Rice’s opinion:
“Battery swapping is just battery swapping, not a transition way.”
If a car cannot be charged and has no upgradeable battery swap feature, that’s another story.
If you say that NT1.0/2.0 is a transition product, I can partially agree. As for whether the “battery swapping” strategy on the market is a rapid energy supplement or not, it can be temporarily considered as NIO’s strategy.
NIO’s battery swapping is based on “rechargeable, replaceable and upgradable” functions. It gradually promotes a closed loop of high-voltage batteries, high-voltage supercharging, high-voltage battery swapping stations, and finally high-voltage vehicle charging. Meanwhile, it actively lays out energy supplement networks and launches larger capacity batteries and updates existing battery packs. Rapid energy supplement is not achieved by a single battery swapping or high voltage technology. NIO’s battery swapping is not in conflict with high voltage technology. Covering more products and markets with a single technology is a more important issue.
If NT1.0/2.0 is a transition product, then optimizing vehicle design is also a process.
“Of course, we also have many opposing opinions: ‘Battery swapping will eventually be eliminated.'”
Let’s see how @于米良, the senior surfer, responds to this:
Liu Lei: Although I’m fully supporting the battery swap service now, it’s undeniable that with the upgrade iteration of battery technology and swapping technology, convenient charging stations and the speed of being fully charged in a few minutes will eventually replace battery swapping. But I don’t know how long it will take to achieve this.
Answer: It’s been 20 years, is your phone battery baking done?
Stephen: Obviously, the cost issue is involved in battery swapping, affecting sustainable development. Only fast charging, anytime and anywhere fast charging is the fundamental problem.
Answer: It sounds like fast charging does not involve cost issues, then what exactly is fast charging?18-year-old 60 kW is called fast charging, 20-year-old 90 kW is called fast charging, and 22-year-old 120 kW is not even fast charging… Vehicles that cannot reach 800 V have no dignity?
What is the next technological milestone in hundreds of V? If super charging really breaks through the boundaries of physics and economics, it won’t cost much to charge the battery.
Xiao Xiao Bright: The cost of battery swapping is high, and it will also limit the design of the battery compartment under the car body. When the number of users increases, the battery swapping station will become insufficient (just like if there are fewer gas stations, refueling will also take a long time). Moreover, the construction cost of the battery swapping station and various requirements are much higher than that of the charging pile. The expansion speed is not as fast as the charging pile.
Answer: How much is the investment of 800 V super charging station? How much does it cost to expand? What about the peak service capacity of a field station that is much larger than the swapping station? The charging piles in the field station are also from NIO.
Rudy’s G Not Big G: The short-term dividend brought by battery swapping cannot be ignored, but it cannot be denied that it also limits the upgrade of battery pack modules. With the development of solid-state batteries, ctp and other technologies, the swapping architecture cannot keep up. At the same time, the battery swapping architecture also causes abnormal vehicle design, such as the high chassis of ET7 and ET5. In short, battery swapping is a double-edged sword, and in the long run, high-voltage fast charging is still the best choice for car companies.
Answer: In terms of technical routes, the ctb/ctc/swap mode is like BMX is BMX, mountain bike is mountain bike, speed downhill bike is speed downhill bike, road bike is road bike, track bike is track bike, and iron triathlon bike is iron triathlon bike. It may be okay to take the iron triathlon bike to the track, but it is outrageous to take it to the speed downhill race.
TIM Bear Not TOM Cat: The cost of battery swapping is too high, and the hardware standardization requirements are also high. Super charging and fast charging are still more promising.
Answer: I don’t know how high the standardization requirements of super charging are, and there are cases where the same model of car does not support the unique super charging, let alone old models of the same brand.
Do you agree with Brother Dami’s point of view? Welcome to leave your opinions in the comments section.## Random Thoughts at the End
Lately, I seem to have fallen into a state of uncertainty and panic, as they say online, I may be a “sheep delusion” patient, and maybe I’m not alone.
But I always believe that there is no winter that cannot be crossed, and there is no spring that will not come. Let’s move forward together and eventually overcome the cold winter and welcome the spring back to the world.
We met here because of the car, and I hope we can have a deeper connection.
Looking forward to seeing you here, see you next Monday.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.