đ Car Talk - Issue #38 (Battery Swaplandia)
Hi friends
In this weekâs newsletter, on top of the weekly updates in new mobility, I present what I consider a centered view about battery swapping. The title of the newsletter references this great Pulitzer prize finalist.
Buckle up!
Battery Swap - All The Rage. All Over Again.
The SF startup âAmpleâ that is working on a battery-swap solution for electric vehicles was on my radar more than usual this week. Some friends wanted insight into the company as a potential investment, others as a potential employer. I figured Iâd give it my honest assessment.
The solution that a quick battery swap provides is that it lets us mimic our ICE driving behavior at a gas station. Philosophically, Iâm chafed by the very idea. The concept of filling up at gas stations is fairly new behavior, all said. Iâm massively simplifying here but before the Ford Model T was invented, we got around using horses - ride them all day long, leave them with a stack of hay in the evening to fuel themselves for the next day. The concept of having to stop your mode of transport every so often to fill it up must have seemed foreign. But as with all changing technologies, we grew used to it. Gas stations sprung far and wide with an amazing fuel distribution network to enable it.
With EVs, we are returning to our horse-riding behavior - drive battery EVs all day long, charge them overnight. But some insist to hold onto old ways of doing things, so letâs talk about ways to minimize charging-related stoppages and be on the go quickly:
Vehicles with massive batteries: If your cars can go > 500 miles, like Teslaâs new Plaid+ Model S or Lucid Air Dream Edition, or > 1000 km like Nio ES7, youâve really solved 99.9% of the use cases. Unless youâre attempting a Cannonball run record, or driving in the Patagonia in the dead of winter (like Ewan McGregor in Long Way Up), your daily commute will not exceed 500 miles. Will you need battery swaps? Super unlikely, unless youâre a poor planner, or have had a grid outage like the one in Texas.
Fast charging stations: Okay fine, you arenât loaded enough to buy a Plaid+. Then what? Teslaâs 250 kW V3 chargers can let you charge from 10% range to 70% in 18 minutes, or 75 miles in just 5 minutes, if youâre in a hurry. Superchargers from Electrify America go as high as 350 kW. The smaller your battery pack, the faster it fills up, youâre on your way. Will you need battery swaps? Ample currently takes âless than 10 minutesâ to swap out modules. Feels like a hassle to swap battery packs when you can charge it enough to get through the day.
Auxiliary battery packs: A few companies like Rivian have patented auxiliary battery packs that act as ârange extendersâ, letting you get to your destination after a long day of driving. Will you still need to swap batteries? Very unlikely.
Swap the pack (or modules in a pack) with a fully charged ones: So if somehow youâre a demographic that isnât addressed by #1-3, you end up in Swaplandia. According to Ample:
Even though EV batteries have improved over the past decade, Ample believes swapping will be popular among fleet managers, delivery, service and ride-hail drivers. They log hundreds of miles a day and donât want to put wear and tear on their batteries by rapid charging them every shift, Ample founder and CEO Khaled Hassounah said.
My guy Khaled had to sneak in just one word in there and Iâd have accepted the entire battery swap thesis. That word is - autonomous. Autonomous fleets like Zoox robotaxis, or Nuroâs autonomous delivery vehicles will likely want the pods running 24x7 at 100% utilization to move goods and people. (Actually, mostly goods. People will want to sleep in their beds after a long day of Zooxinâ!)
What about delivery and ride hail drivers, as Ample claims? Dashers drive anywhere from 70-290 miles/day per this survey. Wouldnât they want to charge their Nissan Leafâs 200 mile battery overnight? Okay maybe they donât have access to a garage and a charger. In that case, yes, a case could be made for battery swaps if youâre making really long delivery runs on an EV with a really small battery pack. Feels like a narrow market, however.
For such a customer, they could still supercharge by the way. Yes, the battery will degrade but Nissan Leaf has a 100,000 mile warranty on their battery where theyâll replace it if it drops below 75% range. That is ~8 years of driving before you have to worry.
Supply chain issues: What is the procurement plan for an OEM-agnostic company like Ample? Will they stock swappable batteries for all cars? They say
Eventually, Ample hopes to make swapping an option for all EVs.
Very interesting! But how? Every OEM is using a different type of cell chemistry, different form factors in their battery packs. Has Ample figured out a way to standardize packs across OEMs? That would be game changing. In the electric motorcycle world, key players have agreed upon standardized swappable batteries. Nothing like this exists in the electric car world (yet).
In the absence of a standardized pack across OEMs, Ample will have to find a way to procure additional battery packs to keep charged up and ready to go. Where would they get battery packs?
Buy them used? Great in theory but prices for used batteries are higher than for new batteries. It will make for some crazy unit economics.
Buy packs directly from OEMs? Again, great in theory but battery capacity all over the world is really supply constrained, and will be for many years. Letâs pick the two partners General Motors and LG Chem - will they earn more profit by putting a battery pack in an EV and upselling options like leather interiors, 22 inch wheels, or will GM earn more profit by selling just a battery pack to a startup like Ample?
In a world where its hard enough to find 1 battery pack for 1 vehicle, Ampleâs business model is predicated on >1 battery pack for every 1 vehicle. Tough spot to be in.
Technical Issues: This is where Iâll spend the least amount of time because many have addressed this in the past:
Swappability of packs is the enemy of reliability, generally speaking. If connectors donât mate properly, youâre looking at a vehicle stranded by the roadside soon enough.
Dirt, debris every time the innards of a pack are exposed to the elements
Design wise, companies like Tesla are working on structural packs where the cells will be a part of the body of the vehicle. CATL in China is trying the same idea. Try swapping these structural packs out.
Ultimately, battery swaps only enable us to hold onto habits from a time that will soon be gone. Charging when and where you sleep will be the new norm. Packs will get bigger. Charging will get faster. The use-cases to swap packs will shrink by the day.
I tried hard to be even keeled, let me know if I missed something. Micromobility use-cases, perhaps? But thatâs now what Ample is leading with.
Mobility In The US
CA will require all AVs to be ZEV: All autonomous vehicles in California will have to be zer0-emissions by 2025 if this bill passes. Huge deal? Nah, I donât believe so. Link
VW gives a VeryWeak teaser: VolksWagenâs trinity sedan will be the sedan to end all sedans, if they are to be believed. It will set new standards for charging times, range, and might even cure male pattern baldness. Link
TuSimple to go public in March: I like TuSimple. Theyâre planning to go public this month! If autonomous trucking becomes cost competitive as a $/kg basis, what does that mean for the countryâs railway network I wonder? Link
LimeBike will spend $50M on expansion: The money goes towards doubling the cities Lime operates in, as well as launching a new e-bike with 25 miles of range, swappable battery (heyo thereâs a use case for Ample!) and a 350 Watt motor for those steep San Francisco uphills! Link
Top US utilities collaborating to build EV charging stations: Charging everywhere! Look Ma, no swaps! The regions covered will be the Atlantic Coast, through the Midwest and South, and into the Gulf and Central Plains regions. Link
IronMan invests in copper: I mean, Robert Downey Junior invested in an electric motor company, but it made for a catchy headline. Theyâre calling these motors âsoftware wrapped in metalâ. Everything is SaaS these days, isnât it? Link
Porsche Taycan Wagon: Porsche unveiled a $90k wagon under their all-electric Taycan brand. Call me biased, but that is not a good looking vehicle! Link Link2
Lucid will miss spring delivery timeline: Jony Ive is taking his time to sharpen his pencils. Lucid said:
it canât produce a car âat the level of quality we insist on providingâ until later in the year.
Nice humblebrag there! Link
Mobility Around The World
An amazing ready on Chinaâs EV titans: A state of the union on Nio, Xpeng, Baidu and Geely. Seriously, save this and read at your leisure Link
Related, millions in China are embracing off-brand EV competitors: These tiny cars are less that 1.5 meters in length, and their top speed is between 40 and 56 kilometers an hour. Very cute to look at! Link
German flying taxi company raises $241M: Volocopter raises $241M. Is there a pun in there? Iâm not sure. Iâm glad its not a SPAC. Link
Good Reads
Will future carmakers outsource all manufacturing?: Came for the analysis, stayed for this gem:
As AMD co-founder and past CEO Jerry Sanders once remarked âReal men have fabs.â The only conclusion I draw from that statement is that semiconductor fabrication is perhaps the one example in nature of human males competing for bragging rights as to who has the smallest feature size.
Nicely done! Also, to the original question posed - hard to imagine, unless you hate margins and quality. Link
Sidewalk robos get legal rights as pedestrians: This means my 5-year old canât run after them, block them on the streets of Mountain View? She wonât be happy about this development. Link
I see a white rotor and I want to paint it black: Okay, not really new mobility, but the news made me happy. Painting just one rotor black on a wind turbine reduces avian deaths by 70! Link
Fossil fuel cars make >100x more waste than EVs: âOnly about 30kg of raw material will be lost over the lifecycle of a lithium ion battery used in electric cars once recycling is taken into account, compared with 17,000 litres of oilâ. Damn! Link
Missing in the EV revolution: enough places to plug in!: Donât deny this. Which is why I was excited about my chat with John Reister of GoPowerEV, a startup aiming to solve that exact problem. Link
State Of Mobility Report: Investment & Sector Trends To Watch: CBInsights puts out great reports but they are behind paywalls and I have no way of sharing the reports with you. Still, feel free to bookmark and ask a friend in VC or PE who might have access. Link
Thatâs all from me folks! Have an amazing week!
By Sachin Seth
This weekly newsletter on new mobility is curated by me as a passion project. Yes, the name is an homage to the NPR show of the same name! If you like it, please forward it to whoever is interested in this space. Cheers!
I have worked for many years on automotive products and currently work @ Tesla. All opinions are my own.
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