Better Place

It can't support ubiquitous fast charging.

From one article that hasn't been confirmed by BP directly, it appears that BP intends to do at least some fast charging at their battery swap stations. Even if they didn't I don't think the inventory burden issue you raised is all that troubling, but with some fast charging, it definitely wouldn't be an issue.

Well I don't know what is so hard to get? 1) Most people won't buy EVs if they have to wait 20 minutes to charge in order to respond to a change in plans or an emergency errand or whatever makes them need more electrons than their battery already has.

2) What company is currently stepping up to the plate to install fast charging stations in enough locations to make any difference? I haven't heard of any.

3) If it isn't done in an organized, and systematic way, how reliably will you find one when you need it? BP's software calculate how many electrons you need to go where you want and will direct you to where the closest swap is as necessary. You'll be on your way again in a few minutes.

4) Agassi's business model allows the infrastructure to be fully in place before any contracts with customers are signed. The chicken and the egg problem of infrastructure / cars is gone.

BP's plan does not depend on people doing swaps instead of charging at home. Dude, why do you forget that I said that the vast majority of BP charging will occur at home, overnight.

It's those random, unexpected events that require charging away from home or the occasional battery swap. Electric cars have to be a better deal and more convenient in every way for them to replace the gas car- which is an absolute imperative. End of story.

Very few people would put up with the inconvenient stuff that you have to drive an electric vehicle.

Most of the time yes.

I think they would have to be more numerous if EVs were common, Any one fast charge location might not be able to accomodate very many cars at once. Imagine driving up and finding a queue where each car in front of you needs 20 minutes. Suddenly you're waiting an hour or more.... Even if 4 cars were queued up at a swap station, you'd still only be waiting 8 minutes.

Swap stations now only cost half a million each.

But if you want to own a reasonable affordable battery and want to end it's life sooner by doing fast charging, that's your business.

But what business is going to build the fast charging infrastructure or do you expect the governments to do it. How is that a sustainable business model? Where is the revenue to pay for these fast charging stations? Nobody is going to build them if they aren't guaranteed to be successful at generating sufficient revenue fairly quickly. And for that reason there won't be sufficient coverage and the system will be piecemeal at best.

No what is needed is an ultra convenient, large and organized system that takes every customer by the hand and says, we will be there to make sure you always have the juice (freedom) to drive wherever the road takes you. That's Better Place.

 

I don't see any swap stations in my neighborhood yet. All I see is a lot of talk about how BP is going to bring on the Age of Aquarius.

No matter what anybody does, most Americans are not going to switch to electric until they can no longer afford gas. Then they'll have to switch or stay home.

I don't see BP being able to raise the billions of dollars it would take to install all these switching stations.

I don't believe they are going to have a nation-wide system in place before they sell a contract. Rather, they'll put in a few stations in a metropolitan area. Customers will be unable at first to leave the city. Then they'll connect a few major areas. Customers will be able to go from city to city, but only between a few nearby cities, probably on the crowded eastern seaboard. In 20 years from now they'll have the interstate highway system covered, but not the secondary highways.

Meanwhile, as the gas runs out, gas station owners will install fast-charging stations so they have something to sell. My prediction is merely that the network of independent operators of fast-charging stations will provide better coverage than BP, and customers will resent being limited to BP's coverage area, and will prefer to own their own battery.

Right now, these are both just concepts. The closest thing to fast charging that actually exists are a few 4-hour Tesla charging stations like the one in the article above. And there is no car actually on the road with a swappable battery.

Your version of BP's plan, to have a complete, nationwide system in place before it sells a contract, amounts to it's becoming a trillion-dollar corporation before generating a penny of revenue, and that's just not how economic development and infrastructure construction happen.

 

I never said BP would have a nationwide system in place in America before it signed customers. But the entire nation could have a BP infrastructure installed for the cost of 1 or 2 years worth of oil imports, so it is completely doable if the whole country decided to get it's proverbial head out of it's nice person.

 

We are agreed that the country has its head in its nice person. And on that note of agreement, I think we've exhausted this topic.

 

I have a google alert that sends me articles and blog posts on the terms "better place agassi" so if something new and juicey comes along I'll add it to the thread. Until then, Au Revoir.

 

Thanks.

 

A really good synopsis...

Newsmaker: Shai Agassi - Better Place CEO speaks out - Aftermarket Business - Wholesaler, retailer automotive parts

 

The Biofuels vs Electricity Debate - The Economist. Better Place contributes

Economist Debates: Fill 'er up: Statements

 

Better Place update: 1000 batteries swapped with no flaws or problems - International Business Times -

 

Another interview....

Better Place\: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance

 

Interesting interview. The guy is a very good speaker. A few points:

1. He claims that battery switching is faster than swiping your credit card. I've never used a credit card at a gas station pump. Does it really take more than a minute???

2. He creates a straw man when he says the definition of insanity is watching a machine do something a hundred times and then arguing with it. Nobody is arguing that the swapping machine won't work. We are arguing that the economics are not viable.

3. He promises to sell a car to the consumer cheaper than the gas car the consumer could buy, and yet more convenient. Unless the cost of batteries comes down considerably, I do not believe he can do this, considering the cost of the infrastructure he must build for charging and swapping, UNLESS he gets so much investment money that the return to investors is vanishingly small. Example:

Say he gets a million dollars in investment capital for each car sold at a price consumers like. The consumer drives 15,000 miles a year and pays BP $3,750 per year. (That's assuming the "same cost per mile to consumer" is based on a 20 mpg car and $5/gallon gas.) The return on investment is 3750/1,000,000 = 0.00375, or one-third of one percent.

How many investors would invest in a company that returned one-third of one percent?

This has been my argument from the start: The return on investment is too small for the BP model to be an economic success. In order to return 5% to the investors, they'd have to get their total investment (including the car, its battery, the spare batteries available at swap stations, and all the swap stations themselves) down to $100,000 per car sold, and use a comparison price of close to $7 per gallon of gas. Or they'd have to compare to the cost of driving a hummer.

Now if you assume that the comparison car is a Prius, getting 50 mpg, they'd have to assume a comparison cost of gas of something around $20 per gallon, when charging the consumer "the same cost per mile."

The numbers just don't work.

But as long as Agassi can keep bringing in new investors, he can keep paying himself a hefty salary until the investors figure out what's going on and stop investing. At that point, the investors lose everything, consumers who have bought cars cannot drive them, and Agassi has a very big bank balance after several years of his salary.

 

No. I alway use my debit card and refuse to purchase fuel at stations that don't have pay at the pump. It take ~ 30 seconds to swipe my card and enter my pin. That included the processing time which I use to remove the gas cap. The entire process of getting out of the car, swiping the card, and opening the tank might take 1 minute.

 

I thought that interview might get your juices flowing again. And I think he said payment cycle at the cashier not at the pump.

 

Why would anyone waste their time paying a cashier? I actually use cash for almost everything but I just can't see waiting in line to pay for fuel while the cashier sells cigarettes and lottery tickets.

 

Yeah I never understood that either.

 

Somehow, I don't trust the gas pump with my credit card. I know this is totally illogical because I trust everyone else with it. It takes me 2 or 3 minutes to walk inside and pay the cashier in cash. I seldom stand there for more than a minute.

 

I don't trust the pump's ability to give the number of Litres it says it's giving me. The credit card process is the same as inside, but faster and you don't have to leave/lock your car.

 

I know you are right. But when I go inside I pay cash. Somehow I don't like giving the gas pump my card. Maybe it's just an intense emotional reaction to the gasoline the pump is there to sell.

As far as locking and unlocking the car, well, with SKS that's not a problem. Just touch the button to lock it, and it unlocks when I touch the handle.

On my Porsche I actually have to press a button on the key. But then, I never have to put any gas in it. It gets its electrons at home.

 

That is a good idea, as long as the mark up for the power isn't as steep as the mark up for compressed air at $0.75 a minute or whatever.