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xkcd #2948: Electric vs Gas (xkcd.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Alt text:

An idling gas engine may be annoyingly loud, but that's the price you pay for having WAY less torque available at a standstill.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)

You're arguing in favor of quickly swappable batteries.

China's got your back.

https://hbr.org/2024/05/how-one-chinese-ev-company-made-battery-swapping-work

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Wow, that would actually make electric cars viable for more, than just an expensive city car.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

It's not going to work out. Battery connections need to be standardized across manufacturers, which is a lot more complicated than standardizing a plug. The garages to do swaps are a lot more complicated than chargers. It forces certain decisions on battery placement, which cuts out things like integrating the battery into the frame to save weight.

Charger deployment has raced ahead. We need a lot more of them to support the EVs we already have, and need even more for the EVs that are going to be purchased over the next decade. Switching over to swapping would send the EV market into whiplash that just isn't necessary.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'm not understanding your "it can't be standardized if it's too complicated" argument. That hasn't seemed to have been a big issue for, for example, computer motherboards.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

A counterpoint to that is things like batteries, ram, motherboards, etc. in laptops (and pretty much every other device that uses rechargeable batteries). The fact is that for better designs the batteries are probably not going to be easily standardized in electric cars (also kills innovation).

PC motherboards aren't trying to use the least amount of space possible, because desktops can be large. The same isn't true with cars, the space matters.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 months ago

Notebooks can be small. Those motherboards are also using standardized elements.

This is just silly defeatism.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Motherboard standardization is not even close to comparable.

You have to standardize the dimensions and unlatching mechanism of a huge battery out from under the car and latching a new one in. It has to support a battery that weighs around 2 tons. This isn't just a matter of scaling up a AA battery connector. And then you have to convince all, or at least most, of the manufacturers to do that in order for network effects to help the process. Since we've had to do a lot before manufactures settled on a plug design, we're not likely to do the same for batteries.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

And then you have to convince all, or at least most, of the manufacturers to do that in order for network effects to help the process.

Yes, that is how standardization works.

Since we’ve had to do a lot before manufactures settled on a plug design, we’re not likely to do the same for batteries.

Unless it's regulated for them to do so. Time for the EU to step up.