I don't particularly care what the EcoGoblin or "right-On" governments want to achieve.

I want to get from A to B in as least time as possible with the least amount of hassle.

For the Electric Revolution to happen the following has to happen:


1. The Technology has to half in Price. I'm not paying £20K or more for a battery driven bike, especially as batteries wear out, and are half the cost of the Motorcycle. Battery replacements have to be in the pennies to make this affordable.

2. Charging points have to be ubiquitous, they MUST be as easy to find as a petrol station.

3. Range must get close to the least worthy of touring motorcycles i.e. 150 miles. Current models claim 200 mile ranges but those testing are finding this is not realistic. 100 miles max is the best honest review I can find.

4. Charging must take minutes. Not 40 minutes but 5.


I can't remember where it was, but an experiment was taking place in a S.E. Asia country that gave me some hope.
They had pluggable, replaceable battery units.
At the roadside there were Amazon type lockers. You removed a battery unit from your bike, plugged it into a spare slot and you got a fully charged unit from the "locker".

Before the Model T, most workers could not afford a car. Ford made it possible for more and more workers to afford a car.
Range for early cars was low, now you can get a Prius that get 50 mpg. When autos started to be sold, few towns had a gas station/auto mechanic(now we have "auto techs") If batteries can be rented at a charging station, charging times will be zero. When I was younger (40 years ago) my home town still had rings set into the sidewalks so you could hook up you wagon--no kidding. They weren't being used, but they were still there.

Here in OZ we have "SWAP'n'GO" BBQ Gas Bottles at every petrol station & at hardware stores, no waiting to have your bottle filled just swap & go.

That would be the way to go with bikes as well (SWAP'n'GO batteries) who`s going to trademark that first then?

Mezo.

I can't see a roadside battery exchange scheme working. Quite aside from there being no "universal" battery shape and capacity to work from, I think you'd run into resistance from people who'd just bought expensive new full capacity batteries and didn't want to swap them for some roadside POS that only held 50% of the charge.

I think that the point is that you never actually own the battery packs - you are leasing them. So no-one will actually get new batteries themselves but they may pick up new ones in the normal churn that will develop.

For it to get started I would guess that you need to get the agreement / co-operation of:

• At least one high volume vehicle manufacturer - would Ford start to use the Toyota standard voluntarily? Unlikely but if there was a standard set by a selection of manufacturers they. Would be backed into a corner by the market
• A couple of battery manufacturers - spreads the risk
• A couple of finance companies - too much money to get everything set up for an individual company I suspect
• Regional power companies - need to work alongside the power supply side to get the power and to allow the power companies to use the battery banks as strategic power banks to smooth power supply

For it to get traction then the battery technology needs to be stable or the batteries easily recycleable - as things are at the moment the technology is rushing forward so fast that no-one wants to commit. The benefit to going down the lease route is that as technology continues to develop as long as the voltage is consistent at and the size, shape and contacts are fixed then it doesn’t matter what is in the battery pack as far as technology goes as long as it meets the accepted minimum power.

The question now, for many on the HUBB, is whether the battery packs would fit into a motorbike...... if they do then the long distances between battery stations becomes academic as you just rent a spare set or two for the times you need them

__________________
You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Go to any retail establishment that sells batteries, it doesn't matter who makes the batteries, they are all the same size--AA,AAA,D,C(and have the same charge). In the USA all electrical outlets and plugs are the same, differing only when the charge is more(120, 240, 480). Any retailer who would sell undercharged batteries would be looking at legal trouble. The different car companies will need to standardize plugs, batteries,etc, the same as most other companies do with their products right now. All DVD's fit into the same players, they are not different sizes for different companies.

I had the same misgivings the first time I was told I could exchange, but not refill, a propane tank. I discovered that since I never actually owned the tank itself, I didn't care if I got a ratty old beat-up one--I just took it in and exchanged it whenever it was empty. Sometimes the replacements were new and pristine and sometimes old and beat-up (within legal limits, e.g., no rust, fittings intact, etc.).

If I'd really cared, I could easily have hung onto one of the nice, shiny new ones and figured out a way to fill it myself. You could do that in a battery exchange program too, but you'd probably relent when you realized how inconvenient it was.

The trouble is energy density. The best current batteries hold a third to a fifth of the same wheel output you'd get for petrol (a tenth of the energy density but converted more efficiently to movement).

You either have an assembly that weighs the same as two passengers to swap out or reduce range or speed. The result is a poorer method of transport. If it was better they wouldn't have to force us to have it.

I find the idea we cannot lose by doing this odd. We switch to these poorly performing vehicles but the USA keeps their V-8's and China burns brown coal to make all our batteries for us. We are basically stepping back from the free for all high density energy grab. Either some future generation loses out because the world ends anyway or we are poorer for not grabbing our share.

Andy

The fundimental problem is the world is overpopulated , and there is no real solution , all we are doing is putting sticking plasters over the problem !

I entirely agree. Money has a habit of regulating this kind of thing and people who have handed in a factory fresh battery pack with a (say) 250 mile range are going to complain loudly when the off the shelf replacement only does 150 miles. They'll be paying the same amount for that one as the next person who gets the recharged 250 mile battery. No doubt there would be all kinds of 'Honest John' battery quality schemes thought up but the economics of battery swapping would make them worthless. Unless the replacements are priced by range the good ones will be removed from the market by people keeping them. What are you going to do when you want to sell the car - include whatever luck of the draw battery happens to be in it or drive around until you get a good one. Someone who ever only home charges is going to pay a premium for a good battery.

Comparisons with propane cylinder exchange don't work for me because propane is sold by weight and as long as the cylinder doesn't leak you get the contents you pay for. With batteries the packaging may look the same but who knows what's in there. There's no easy way of telling without some sort of capacity meter. It'd be a bit like going in for replacement tyres and not knowing whether you were going to end up with brand new or barely legal part worns.

The theory doesn't seem impossible.

You have a 30+ kg battery so some sort of mechanical handling is probably needed.
This solves the problem of electrical and possibly water cooling connections, you can't expect Joe public to whip out the spanners.
The handling kit will be expensive so getting the flat battery into storage and on charge means better utilisation.
This is all just industrial machinery, nothing difficult in the design.
The racked battery can be monitored so you could buy by charge level, maybe even a premium if you want a 200 miler, discount if you'll take 20 miles to get you home.
Roll up, tell it how many miles you need, do card stuff while the robot picks and fits a suitable module, wait for the green light on what you are returning.

If you want man handling you need multiple batteries per vehicle (which makes bikes easier and lets you carry extra as luggage) but the same rack, charge and monitor.

The challenges are:

1.Standardise the battery and installation. Its tougher than a filler cap and length of hose on a pump. Certain brands are going to want their own features, so at best a VHS vs Betamax thing at worst the dealers and trying to get them to understand their own product like we did with laptop batteries.

2. Install the handling equipment. It probably wants to be under most cars and sharing with petrol sites raises safety concerns. Planning permission and safety regs need inventing. There needs to be security they have value.

3. Fund a reserve stock of batteries (once working these help balance the loads on the generator system) but if you don't want a bad service killing the technology you have to feed the supply of spares ahead of demand. Whoever does the work will be undercut by a budget version the second the technology is stable, so non-ideological investors will be wary.

Compare this to building a railway line across London or London to Birmingham, something the Victorians did, and then convince me it can be up and running in 12 years

Andy

The problems with standardization get ironed out by all industries in time(usually not long). All light bulbs fit standardized plugs. I have not yet found a home appliance that can't use the same extension cords. Most TV's can use the same universal remote. Clothes and shoes use universal sizes, size 10 shoes are the same size--universal clothing sizes began with the Civil War when the government needed to buy 100,000 pairs of size 8 shoes. You may need a different size because it is wider, higher with different companies. Be not afraid, the monsters usually do not bite.

Fascinating discussion, with input from plenty of you who know a lot more than I do.

My understanding, such as it is, is not technical--aside from limited experience with gas cylinder replacement schemes (at home and in West Africa), I'm looking at the increasing use of battery-powered cars by my neighbors. They're not as widespread as in Norway, but still there are perfectly rational people paying a (subsidized) premium for electric vehicles despite the paucity of fast-charging stations and the inconvenience of running extension cords out windows overnight. Something's happening here, and the fact that I don't understand it doesn't alter the fact that it's moving quickly.

I'm not alarmed by the subsidies. My government has been subsidizing gas and oil for a long, long time--directly and indirectly, including by taking land out of food production in order to produce inefficient ethanol, by endless medical and environmental amelioration schemes, and by sacrificing money and lives overseas to protect supply chains. I expect this will continue in slightly different forms past the end of my lifetime.

In the end, most posting here are vastly privileged in being free to complain loudly and bitterly about changes which nonetheless don't much affect our ability to live at a comfortable standard. We'll be ok, more or less.