Electric Vehicles

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Electric Vehicles are a key part of our tomorrow and how we get there. If we can get all the fossil fuel vehicles off our roads, out of our seas and out of our skies, we'll have a much better environment. This community is where we discuss the various different vehicles and news stories regarding electric transportation.

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Kia And Hyundai Are Exploring Structural Battery Packs Which, If Successful, Would Significantly Improve EV Range But Could Complicate Battery Upgrades Or Replacements (www.torquenews.com)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I think the "swapping" may be a different use case the author is talking about. I don't think the author was referring to an end-user executed swap to simply put in a charged battery.

This would be a service center option where a mechanic would have to take tools and removed panels and connectors to make the swap. Something done maybe only a few times, if ever, for a car during its life.

A structural battery pack is constructed to not be serviced in parts. The author calls this out with his comments on "replacing a single bad cell". He's right that this is a concern for structural battery packs. Here's a Tesla structural battery pack when it was attempted to be disassembled:

There was more of that pink foam wrapping around the cells now exposed. All of that pink foam is needed for strength and its thermal properties because the battery pack is part of the structure of the vehicle carrying load forces.

Clearly replacing a bank of cells would be difficult to do if there was a cell failure, and no wear near cost effective for a consumer to have done on their car. The author is suggesting having some of THIS type of battery, but also another part of the battery in the standard hard plastic modular cases where the whole module could be removed and replaced ("swapped")

The author is suggesting SOME of the battery be the pink foam type that is unserviceable, and SOME of the battery be behind panels in cases that a technician can swap at a service center when the module has reached the end of its life.

I had spare batteries for my smartphone for events like all-day conferences/conventions to swap batteries in the afternoon.

Sure, but how often are you going to all-day conferences. Once a year? Twice? Is it worth having the possibly 20% less battery capacity the other 363 days a year for that swapability?