Nio is a Chinese auto maker that offers an alternative to charging: just swapping out the whole battery whenever you need it. I borrowed one of their cars. ■...
I find this kind of comments so stupid. The technology is well beyond proven. Logistics have had swappable batteries for over 15 years since the time of acid batteries. Nio is a rental company first and for them the model seems to be working. It’s compelling for road trips specially since most of the charging stations are broken most of the time and for extremely dense cities where people aren’t allowed to access power plugs at parking spaces. I mean, on the suburbanite hellscape, charging at home will always make more sense, but the US is not the entirety of the world. This things seem to be ripe for success in Asia and Europe.
Sure it can be broken, but since the company runs it and it’s not a set and forget facility, they have a higher incentive to keep it serviced, specially as the company owns the batteries. Tesla’s answer to broken stations is usually “we don’t care use the one next to it that’s derated and only charges at the lowest speed”. While apparently this facilities can fit 3 or 4 swap stations on the same space. One station out of order adds no wait time, and as a last resort it can still have a regular charging station next to it. I fail to see how people settle so quickly on the status quo that companies force them to, and as soon as anything vaguely threatens the status quo they purportedly hate, they jump and attack the alternative. Having options is a good thing, having multiple companies trying different things is a good thing, silver bullets don’t exist, we are all in this together, what is not good is a zero-sum mindset where only monopolistic one-size-fits-all offers can exist.
I find this kind of comments so stupid. The technology is well beyond proven. Logistics have had swappable batteries for over 15 years since the time of acid batteries. Nio is a rental company first and for them the model seems to be working. It’s compelling for road trips specially since most of the charging stations are broken most of the time and for extremely dense cities where people aren’t allowed to access power plugs at parking spaces. I mean, on the suburbanite hellscape, charging at home will always make more sense, but the US is not the entirety of the world. This things seem to be ripe for success in Asia and Europe.
Do you think the battery swap station won’t be broken too?
Sure it can be broken, but since the company runs it and it’s not a set and forget facility, they have a higher incentive to keep it serviced, specially as the company owns the batteries. Tesla’s answer to broken stations is usually “we don’t care use the one next to it that’s derated and only charges at the lowest speed”. While apparently this facilities can fit 3 or 4 swap stations on the same space. One station out of order adds no wait time, and as a last resort it can still have a regular charging station next to it. I fail to see how people settle so quickly on the status quo that companies force them to, and as soon as anything vaguely threatens the status quo they purportedly hate, they jump and attack the alternative. Having options is a good thing, having multiple companies trying different things is a good thing, silver bullets don’t exist, we are all in this together, what is not good is a zero-sum mindset where only monopolistic one-size-fits-all offers can exist.
Nice.
That’s where I stopped reading.