Why Not Swap Batteries?

Electric vehicles have so many advantages.  No tailpipe (you're welcome joggers), low-maintenance, and crazy cheap to operate.  Are there downsides to driving an EV compared to a gasoline-burning car?  Yes there are, and charge time can be a big one.  That's why I wonder why battery-swapping isn't taken seriously.

The problem is that it takes significantly longer to charge an EV compared to a gasoline-burning car.  This may not be a problem just driving around town, but what about going on the road?  Having a car has always promised the freedom of just getting in and driving, but with an EV now you have to plan out your route and think about how you're going to stay charged.  You can't just jump in the car and drive to Las Vegas or Yellowstone National Park; you have to think about where to charge and for how long you'll be there.  Even with a Tesla your "refuelling" time is three or four times longer than a conventional gasoline car, sometimes much longer.  This is the problem I feel battery-swapping could solve.  

Swapping your depleted EV battery out for a freshly-charged one could be completed automatically in a minute or two, as famously demonstrated by Tesla about seven years ago.  No more waiting around or meticulously planning your stops; just get in your car and go.  

Not only does battery-swapping solve the charge-time problem, it could also solve the battery cost and degradation problems.   

A drawback to most EVs (Tesla much less so) is that their batteries degrade over time, so you end up with less range every year.  I own a Nissan Leaf,  which has the worst battery degradation of any modern EV.  It started life in 2011 as a 70-mile car, and now it's a 30-mile car.  Anyone who's owned a cellphone for two or three years knows the story of battery degradation too.  With battery-swapping even a 20-year-old car would have like-new range. (If only I could swap the pack in my Leaf...)

EV batteries are very expensive.  They are the big reason that buying a teeny commuter car like the Chevy Bolt costs around $40,000.  In a battery-swapping economy, it would be possible to spread that cost out more efficiently, thereby reducing the cost of buying or using an EV.  Instead of sitting for most of the day, an EV battery could be used more often by more people, meaning its shared ownership cost would be lower than a single person buying it outright.  

So why is this solution all but dead?  I might speculate that it is because cooperative action tends to be anathema among capitalists.  The game just isn't played that way.  Or another way to say the same thing might be that the industry is not yet mature enough.  So here we go down the road of Tesla single-handedly creating a national charging network and other players doing a kind of shabby job trying to catch up.  Here we go down the road of trying to engineer charging schemes that pump massive amounts of energy into batteries in ever-shorter times.  It's like cooperative effort is so undesirable that we'll do anything else to solve the problem.  Is battery-swapping an impossibility with no historical analog?

The propane industry may serve as a comparison for what a battery-swapping economy would look like.  That industry has a 100-year history, standardized tank sizes, standardized safety protocols, and a leasing model. Although propane wasn't specifically for cars, it is form of energy that people wanted to use.

Like propane tanks, EV batteries could have standardized sizes like an A, B, and C size, possibly with variants and initially some proprietary sizes.  I could imagine some manufactures remaining proprietary for a while (I'm looking at you, Tesla) until customer demand drove them to standardize.  Who wants to own a car you can only fill at a special gas station?  

Speaking of gas stations, they could change into battery swapping stations and be ubiquitous.  Unlike propane tanks that have to be centrally filled, EV batteries would be "filled" right at the station on a basic L2-- this is another efficiency.  EV batteries would circulate kind of like a Redbox DVD, going from station to station around the country.  

The propane industry has customers that lease larger, more expensive propane tanks because it reduces upfront cost a lot and improves safety.   I wonder why we couldn't use a similar approach with the super-expensive EV battery packs?  

What if you could buy a good quality EV for around $20,000?  That could be possible if you could buy the car and lease the battery.  If you didn't have to pay in full for the expensive battery pack, I estimate that the $40,000 Chevy Bolt I mentioned earlier would cost around $18,000.  

In the propane industry it's possible for a customer to purchase outright the expensive propane tank.  The same could happen in the EV industry; a customer could opt to purchase the pack outright and escape any leasing arrangement.  

What do you think of battery-swapping?  

Winter Shenanigans

No Snow Tires

For some reason I decided not to put on my studded snows this winter.  Maybe I was feeling bold about taking on Winter...maybe I was thinking it would be mild.  Maybe I was just feeling like pushing my cheapness and saving the $120 that my local tire store would charge me for putting them on and taking them off.  Whatever my motive, I didn't put on my studded snows.  Instead I bought a basic set of "easy" passenger car chains.   

Ski Hill Failure

With my chains on, I drove up to our local ski hill.  Facing freezing sleet on the way down, I was forced to turn on my defrost to maximum.  Chains and the defrost conspired to drain my range, and for the first time ever I ran out of range and had to call a tow truck.  Many thanks to the good people at the Silver City Saloon for letting me warm up and even plug in while I waited for the tow truck. 

Leaf Pulls Tundra

As much as I hate the chains (noisy and a hassle), they saved the day for a nearby Toyota Tundra that had stuck itself in deep snow.  Unfortunately my camera-person missed the actual moment of the successful pull, but you get the idea.  The Leaf had adequate torque to yank the Tundra out of the snow bank. 

Leaf Yanks Tundra from Snowbank

Camera-person captures me unhooking from Tundra

An Old Argument Settled

About five years ago I read an online conversation at plugincars.com between some SoCal folks about the Leaf's range.  A person called "ex-EV1 driver" guesstimated that after seven years the Leaf could get as low as a 27-38 mile range.  You can see the whole conversation here.

Many others disagreed with ex-EV1 driver and criticized both his analysis and him personally.  His critics said his estimate was way too low.  If only they had had a time machine to settle the argument...

Thanks to the inexorable forward motion of time, we can look back on that argument with the wisdom of experience.  My 2011 Leaf is approaching that seven year mark, so I thought it would be fun to compare this gentleman's prediction with my reality up here in Helena, Montana.

In a nutshell, he's right. 

I'm down to nine capacity bars and I typically charge to 80%.  Montana has cold winters and my town has hills and Mountain passes that lurk on nearby highways and Interstates.  I always drive in ECO mode and I am pretty gentle on the accelerator. 

Last winter I documented one trip wherein I went 26 miles before my LBW.  It was really cold; around zero degrees.  I ran the heater about 50% of the time.  My feet were cold. 

Two weeks ago I drove out to Winston (48 miles round-trip) and back on slightly less than 100% charge.  I drove at 65mph because going much slower than that is too slow.  I had a LBW about eight miles from my house but made it home just fine.  Actually I made it to Starbucks and bought myself an overpriced latte. 

Five years ago ex-EV1 driver suggested that prospective owners be told that a seven-year-old Leaf would get 30-40 miles, and he took a lot of heat for his opinion.  Experience shows he was right on the money. 

The TCU Works!

After a second trip over to Missoula the TCU works, hurray!  Both Nissan and the Nissan dealership were helpful; Nissan made good on its promise to reimburse transportation cost and the dealership refunded my brake software update.  

Because Nissan refused to put its promise in writing, I was skeptical it would deliver, leaving me to pay almost $500 to transport my Leaf to the nearest dealership.  Nissan's motive is obvious-- stay in control and be able to deny promises.  Thankfully Nissan was inclined to honor this promise!  For that I am pleased but let me be clear: it is shady to make verbal promises and then refuse to put it in writing.

On the brake software issue, I was polite but clear with my request for a refund.  What's the expression, "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar"?  I took as much responsibility as I felt I fairly could by acknowledging that I should have asked in advance about any potential cost for the upgrade and I think the service manager respected that.  It's not the brakes are ridiculously bad...it's that zone after the hydraulic brakes kick in that could be a little smoother.  

Missoula Nissan Hyundai and Leaf Brakes

Not my car, but can happen with abrupt braking!

Many Leaf owners report that their brakes feel "grabby" at low speeds.  That it to say that the brakes either 1)don't act strongly enough or 2)act too forcefully relative to the amount of pressure applied to the pedal.  It's like you're either slamming on the brakes or barely touching them.  It can make your driving less smooth and potentially exposes the Leaf driver to a rear-ending.  It can also result in your passenger's latte ending up outside the cup.

Nissan has recognized this and has a few service bulletins out to correct it.  Because it's a recognized problem affecting the brakes, I assumed the software update would be no cost for Leaf owners.  Safety first, right?

Yeah, we'll charge for that.

Missoula Nissan Hyundai does not agree and charged me $112 for the service.  Yes, I know, I should have at least had verbal confirmation of the cost before I consented to the work.  Or better yet had it in writing.  But I didn't.  My belief is that two parties doing business can both act reasonably.

I haven't noticed an improvement in brake performance, so I called Missoula Nissan Hyundai today and expressed my desire to return the software for a full refund.  I don't know if the service person took me seriously.  It seems reasonable to me that if a customer pays for some benefit and doesn't receive it, he ought not pay.  I believe attorneys say "no conferred benefit, no consideration."

I'm surprised that Missoula Nissan Hyundai even charged for a brake-related software update...it creates the appearance that it cares more about its bottom line than the safety of its customers.  It is quick to tell me that my brake update was "not a recall", but rather an optional performance upgrade to the brakes.

I might remind Nissan that it's cheaper to put safety first, and that it ought to oblige its dealers to do anything remotely safety-related at no cost.  I don't think anyone outside of Missoula Nissan Hyundai believes that correcting a braking defect is an optional upgrade.

Hyundai tried a similar argument when a barely-defective steering knuckle failure resulted in Trevor Olson's Hyundai Tiburon veering into oncoming traffic on highway 93.  The 19-year-old Olson and his younger cousin died in that accident, and the jury was angered to hear Hyundai try to blame the Olsons for the fatal crash.  The result was a lot of bad publicity and a $150 million-dollar judgement against Hyundai.

Upgrading a stereo or adding comfort features are optional, sure.  But brake performance?  Come on, that's safety.

The bottom line is don't give excuses, just fix it.

TCU Upgrade

SIM ID?  We don't need no stinking SIM...

On Thursday, July 28, Missoula Nissan Hyundai performed the TCU upgrade to my 2011 Leaf.  The cost was $199.

Unfortunately the new TCU doesn't work!  According to Nissan technical support, the TCU is missing critical information such as the SIM ID.  Anyone who's used a cellphone knows that, without a valid SIM, the phone won't work.  Technical support said that this information was supposed to be entered at the time of installation, suggesting the technician may have missed it.

I contacted Missoula Nissan Hyundai, and the service department assures me that it did everything per the instructions, so the error must be elsewhere.  I don't care too much where the error is, I just want a working TCU or my $199 back!

I'm frequently asked, "Isn't there a Nissan dealership here in town?  Why aren't you using it?" so allow me to answer that question.

Nissan dealerships don't all work on Nissan Leafs...due to the independent nature of dealerships they can simply choose to opt out, leaving Leaf owners in a lurch with no service center (another reason to end the dealership racket and instead support direct sales ala Tesla).  So even though I have a Nissan dealership in my town (Robert Allen Nissan), I have to go 118 miles away over a mountain pass to get service in Missoula.  Guess who pays to transport the Leaf?  I'll give you a hint: it wasn't the dealership!

Adding insult to injury, Nissan wants me to return the Leaf to Missoula so the dealership and Nissan can correct their error.  Missoula Nissan Hyundai offered no assistance nor did it take any responsibility, but to Nissan's credit it has offered to reimburse transportation expenses.  Being a savvy consumer, I asked Nissan to put that promise in writing.

"Ah, sorry sir, we're incapable of doing that."

Well-played, Nissan!  Now after I pay a second time to transport the Leaf you can deny having made any promises!  I can hear it now...

"Reimbursement?  No you must have talked to the wrong person, we can't do that.  Let me transfer you, and by 'transfer' I mean 'hang up'.  Have a nice day!"

So for the record, I did talk to someone named Jeffrey Cruise on Friday, July 28, and received a case number,  27880601.  During the conversation Mr. Cruise was explicit: if I pay to tow my Leaf to Missoula and back, Nissan will reimburse me.  I called back today, July 31, and spoke to a different customer service rep who confirmed that Mr. Cruise made the promise to reimburse the entirety of the round-trip transportation costs between Helena and Missoula.  I asked if I had to use a particular transportation company and the rep said no.  Mr. Cruise recommended Nissan Roadside Assistance-- they quoted me $476 one-way, so about $1k for the round trip.

If Nissan makes good on its promise, they will have paid $1,000 because of their own internal error-- ouch.  I remember a woodworker once telling me, "I'm a lazy man, I take my time and do the job right the first time."  That wisdom seems to have been missed here.  As I already mentioned, it's an excellent reason to allow car makers to simply own their own stores.  It boggles my mind that Nissan is willing to spend a grand because my local dealership, Robert Allen Nissan, is unwilling to service the Nissan Leaf.  What a waste of money, fuel, and time.

Helena to Missoula

Ok, I didn't drive my Leaf to Missoula-- I towed it using a borrowed Nissan Frontier and a rented U-haul tow-dolly.

The trip went well.  My brother-in-law persuaded me to just borrow his truck instead of trying to drive it from the top of the pass.

I had Missoula Nissan Hyundai Inc perform the TCU upgrade and returned to Helena the same day.  More on that in the next blog post.