The future of electrics ?

[TK4]

Forum Sponsor

Yamaha Motor and the other members of the Big Four—Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Kawasaki Motors, Ltd., and Suzuki Motor Corporation—made a joint announcement that we will join forces with ENEOS to create Gachaco, Inc.

This new joint venture among the five companies (Equity: ENEOS 51%; Honda 34%; Kawasaki Motors 5%; Suzuki 5%; Yamaha Motor 5%) is aimed at providing swappable batteries—with a common specification agreed upon by the Big Four—for electric motorcycles and other mobility as well as developing the requisite infrastructure for its services.

Gachaco is scheduled to launch its battery swapping service by autumn this year in Tokyo and other major cities in Japan, with swapping stations located at convenient locations such as train stations and at ENEOS service stations.

In the future, Gachaco looks to promote the use of these standardized swappable batteries for other applications, such as storage batteries installed at commercial facilities and private homes, and expended batteries will be collected via ENEOS’ "Battery as a Service" (BaaS) platform for secondary and tertiary use before final recycling for cyclical battery usage.

 

[GreyGhost]

Yamaha Motor and the other members of the Big Four—Honda Motor Co., Ltd., Kawasaki Motors, Ltd., and Suzuki Motor Corporation—made a joint announcement that we will join forces with ENEOS to create Gachaco, Inc.

This new joint venture among the five companies (Equity: ENEOS 51%; Honda 34%; Kawasaki Motors 5%; Suzuki 5%; Yamaha Motor 5%) is aimed at providing swappable batteries—with a common specification agreed upon by the Big Four—for electric motorcycles and other mobility as well as developing the requisite infrastructure for its services.

Gachaco is scheduled to launch its battery swapping service by autumn this year in Tokyo and other major cities in Japan, with swapping stations located at convenient locations such as train stations and at ENEOS service stations.

In the future, Gachaco looks to promote the use of these standardized swappable batteries for other applications, such as storage batteries installed at commercial facilities and private homes, and expended batteries will be collected via ENEOS’ "Battery as a Service" (BaaS) platform for secondary and tertiary use before final recycling for cyclical battery usage.

I'm still reasonably in the camp of swappable batteries for most use cases are a bad idea. Far more weight and packaging and seriously constrains vehicle design. It's hard to find good numbers but current packs are in the order of 250 lbs in the livewire. Add in all the housing and packaging to install that in an least five pieces and space and weight would both probably increase by at least 20%.

For low speed, low range (like ebikes), a battery you can carry inside to charge while leaving the bike outside makes some sense. When required battery grossly exceeds 50 lbs, I don't see swapping as a viable option for most people most of the time. Since they are starting in Tokyo, maybe that specific situation makes sense with ultra high density and little charging infrastructure. Throw a charger that looks like a vending machine in each parking lot instead of 25 EV charge points.

 

[AFJ]

.

 

[mimico_polak]

I've seen this posted before, and it will be tough to get the swaps if they're too heavy...but as battery tech advances this issue may eliminate itself.

Time will tell. I'd buy a ZERO today if I had the $ and could justify it to myself.

Gogoro electric scooters, swappable batteries continue rolling around the world

Gogoro’s international expansion has been going quickly, with the Taiwan-based swappable battery and electric scooter company now announcing a partnership...

electrek.co

 

[800over]

Electric vehicles, cars, trucks or motorcycles, have a clear future in places like Ontario where 94% of the electricity is generated by non-fossil fuel means. But in many locations coal, oil or natural gas is still a significant way of generating electricity.
So the "carbon footprint" of a lot of electric vehicles will still be substantial.
AFJ

The thing is even including the states that burn the most coal.....the efficiency is much higher than burning gas in individual cars....so a car using electricity from a coal using state (West Virginia etc) is still producing less emissions than a gas car over its lifetime. I may be wrong but I would assume that translates to motorcycles (which have worse emissions than cars per litre of gasoline used).

Yes, Electric Cars Are Cleaner, Even When The Power Comes From Coal

One argument that has been made against electric vehicles is that we must decarbonise the power system first otherwise cars are no cleaner than if they use gasoline. But a new study suggests that EVs help to tackle climate change in all but the most coal-reliant countries - 95% of markets globally.

www.forbes.com

 

[sburns]

Maybe gas stations will go back to being service stations, where someone will help you exchanged batteries or they will have some semi automated system to help load and unload them.

 

[GreyGhost]

Maybe gas stations will go back to being service stations, where someone will help you exchanged batteries or they will have some semi automated system to help load and unload them.

If the design is constrained to the point where automation is viable, this is dead in the water imo. They do that for forklifts in a factory but they all do the same job over the same surfaces, need the battery in the same location for counterbalance, have the same owner, etc.

 

[800over]

Maybe gas stations will go back to being service stations, where someone will help you exchanged batteries or they will have some semi automated system to help load and unload them.

It'll be like at costco....you go in and pay for your propane...then go outside and wait for the guy who fills up your tank/replaces your battery while the old guy in front of you with the caddy replaces 6 batteries at a time for his 20 year old EV.

 

[killvino]

I'm still reasonably in the camp of swappable batteries for most use cases are a bad idea. Far more weight and packaging and seriously constrains vehicle design. It's hard to find good numbers but current packs are in the order of 250 lbs in the livewire. Add in all the housing and packaging to install that in an least five pieces and space and weight would both probably increase by at least 20%.

For low speed, low range (like ebikes), a battery you can carry inside to charge while leaving the bike outside makes some sense. When required battery grossly exceeds 50 lbs, I don't see swapping as a viable option for most people most of the time. Since they are starting in Tokyo, maybe that specific situation makes sense with ultra high density and little charging infrastructure. Throw a charger that looks like a vending machine in each parking lot instead of 25 EV charge points.

+1. Unless they use robots, you will have ergonomic issues.
another big thing is the cost. unless you rent batteries like one of the car manufacturers is doing in China, it makes little sense. The most valuable part of an EV is the battery, I wouldn't be swapping my new, well-maintained battery for god knows what if I paid for it. And then who's to stop someone trading in duds and taking all of a station's good stock?
add to this, how charging speeds are progressing I don't really see this taking off except for niche scenarios (delivery ebikes, fleet, etc.)

 

[Brian P]

Battery swapping requires:
- All vehicles involved to use the same physically interchangeable batteries. All same shape, all same size, all same connectors. Means those design aspects get "locked in" and can never change.
- Unless you are going to build a vast network of swap stations with lifting apparatus to deal with it safely (and that's expensive!) - The capacity of the battery is limited to what someone can ergonomically lift. Single-digits kWh capacity for the foreseeable future.
- The design of the vehicle is limited by the physical needs of battery swapping. Aside from accommodating the shape and size and connector design of the universal battery design, it also has to be easy and ergonomic to get it out and in.

For simple small around-town light scooters and so forth, perhaps this makes sense (and I believe this is what it is aimed at). They don't need much range. They don't need high performance. The shape of a scooter lends itself to having a battery under the seat or some such thing, which is easy for someone to lift out and carry inside to plug it into a charger.

For a "real motorcycle" (or any bigger vehicle), battery swapping is impractical and does not make sense.

With more and more availability of DC fast-charging, it makes even less sense.

One thing that is often overlooked is that the design of the J1772 AC and DC fast charging connectors is battery-agnostic. It doesn't care what battery the vehicle uses. You plug in the connector, the car communicates a signal that says "I'm ready for X amps at Y volts", the charging system says "OK here you go" and delivers that to the connector, the details of how that ends up charging the battery is sorted out on-board the vehicle by its battery management system that eventually communicates another signal "I'm full. Stop". The charging system doesn't care what sort of battery, how big, what shape, what chemistry, etc. We are not locked in to lithium-ion. If someone comes up with something better/faster/cheaper/?? - No problem.

Forum Sponsor