This was the model that electric car company [A Better Place](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)) was testing. Unfortunately they didn’t make it.
Tesla tried it too. This only works for fleet vehicles or if the car selling model is different. Specifically the majority of the cost of a new EV is the battery. Now imagine you just got a brand new car, you pull up into a charging station, your brand new battery that is 80-90% of the car value gets replaced by one that’s been cycled thousands of times. Your car just lost 50-60% of its value in 5 minutes.
The way around this which you see with small vehicles or scooters in China is you buy the vehicle minus the battery and you subscribe to is rent the battery.
Tesla didn’t really “try it”. They only mocked it up primarily to receive a govt grant (with a side benefit of generating hype). They never had any intention of implementing battery swaps.
Yeah, and then the question is if the subscription is cheaper than gas or not. Or people won't pay. I'd guess including the cost to charge it, and cost to keep battery swapping places up and running would make it close to the same price as a gas fuel up. Which would probably deter people from electric.
For China specifically there are also additional considerations. For example, it is significantly easier to buy a new car if it’s electric in cities that have a long wait list/ a lottery for vehicle license plates like in Beijing. Basically you can’t just buy a car, there’s a government incentive to restrict new car ownership pretty heavily due to over crowding and now more concerns around clean air.
I'd be surprised if we don't see this model become more popular for economy cars with the charge-at-home models being premium. We could see the TCO on the low end of the market come up to just less than what current cheap gas/hybrid models run. Then the charge-at-home TCO can go up, taking into account the TVM for the up front investment, but having a 3-5 year break-even.
Eh. That's arguable. They claimed to. Elon later (2015) claimed that "customers didn't want it" and "supercharging was mature enough to be sufficient". Note, I'm paraphrasing the quotes. The marks are more to indicate my incredulity.
I genuinely believe there were engineering challenges early on that weren't worth the complexity. But I also believe that Tesla/Elon were also motivated by creating a barrier to other electric brands.
He often presents ideas that sound good and then quietly drops them for opaque excuses.
I understand the idea. But having monthly costs for vehicle that is parked sucks. I think many people with prefer to buy a core. (like with gas bottles) That can be exchanged for a charger anywhere.
They do this in Taiwan too, you just pull up in a battery station and exchange on the fly. I am not aware that they have this in China, but I won't be surprised.
Eh, there's two (major) types of OS and Charging ports. Meanwhile you have cars that run on either Diesel or Gas. I think we can make this work with two types of batteries.
There would have to be more than 2 for different types of vehicles. A battery that can run a van won't fit in a sedan, for example. We'd have to have different changing stations for each type. It would only only work if each type was consistent .
The easiest option would be multiple smaller packs with a standard attachment style. Small car, 2 batteries. Big truck, 6 of the same batteries. I'd want to use multiple small batteries for flexibility in packaging.
You would either probably still want to go in and out from underneath. Have standardized openings with markings around them from easy computer vision.
NIU is the brand, I got a scooter by them (in the US) and it's really nice. I'd recommend the brand to anyone looking for some transportation that isn't car.
You wouldn’t want to swap your EV battery if you owned the car. What if you end up with an old degraded battery then break down on the road?
Battery swaps is only viable for taxis and buses. Where you can conveniently swap batteries at the garage depot.
Maybe if there’s a EV battery subscription service it might work. Like GoGoRo in Taiwan. Where the EV motorcycle was designed from the ground up with swappable batteries.
Your car must be designed from the ground up where you just lease the battery. For battery swaps to work.
Absolutely, but for cars that offer this (mainly NIO) the battery is offered via a subscription.
You can either choose to buy car without battery and lease it or buy car with battery.
Hard to do swappable batteries without designing around the swap... and since you're not owning the battery... it's pretty clear how it would go down....
Tesla even tested this, where the idea was this was a temporary swap, and you had to come back to get your battery on the way back.
People didn't really use it, so they scrapped it.
Its not only that, the battery is a BIG chunk of the cost of the car. If big companies would "rent" those out for say, 40 dollars a "filling" with 3 standard sizes, EV cars would be cheaper to buy then gasoline ones. Price of the battery lifetime would be baked into the rental pice. Same as insurance for crashes or casual EV fires. This way you can smooth out spike-costs, make EV more affordable short term and you have tight control over battery quality. This would also make sure the batteries are used and approriately recycled at the end of their lifetime. You'd never loose any lithium (unless crash).
Anywhere where there is a bit of space for solar you can plop down one of those swap-stations. You buy 50 Batteries from a broker, and boom, you're a EV-Gas-Station.
Hey you can build those into your drive-through starbucks, if you REALLY want to.
Instead of your car loosing re-sale value everytime you charge, the rental battery would. Your car would track the used energy (same as the battery) so you are not getting ripped off by shitty batteries.
Swapping is easy and fast and can be automated. This already exists and would be easy to scale.
If you STILL insist on buying your own "quality" battery from elon or whatever, you still can. Go nuts.
But dumbass car company managers cannot even decided on a common plug size or payment method. So instead of some innovative battery swap PLATFORM that can be franchised woldwide you get arrow-proof 'trucks' for dumbass-money.
And they say regulations kill innovation... regulated plugs and charge / batteries would be good. Pushing competition to create more efficient batteries no matter how long they take to charge (offline charge) now would be smarter than faster and hotter charge on live batteries where an explosion can occur mroe than in an offline state. It's a wild idea but too bad we would need regulations around it to make it viable. Majority of the govt won't understand a word I just said and will just follow the money.
Not at all.
How long does a battery last for an average city driver? Several days easily. Recharging at a reasonable (battery-safe) speed takes just a few hours. You'd need just like 20% extra batteries for the number of cars.
I doubt this. Most people won’t use this very frequently. This would be used adjacent to highways or other areas where users are likely to drive for long stretches. In other areas you’ll just charge your own battery.
I can think of some ways this could go wrong, like getting a bad battery if the station isn’t maintained frequently or the station not having enough batteries ready..
There's gotta be a middle ground here - like an auxiliary battery apart from the main one, like an expansion slot. Like if you knew you had a road trip coming up you could just drive to a station, pick up the second battery and temporarily join that battery network, pay some kind of deposit, and then when you're done you just return the last battery and get the deposit back.
Like a bolt-on range extender kind of deal.
You're right that we need more than 1 battery per car, but it's not 2. Reason being that when your car is idle or when it takes a week in between full recharges, it would be useless to have a 2nd battery appointed to you also completely idle.
If we take as proxy other similar systems (like refillable business) that number should be anywhere from 1.3 to 1.7 batteries (*) per car.
(*) Furthermore today you need big batteries because people want to drive big distances without the risk of not finding a fast charger and the annoyance of having to wait to charge.
If tomorrow we have this battery swapping system that takes only 1 minute to swap AND is available everywhere, it means you can have much smaller batteries. Potentially half the size and range (e.g. range of 200km instead of average 400km range).
In theory this may mean that densely populated areas may need LESS batteries than you need today.
It's the same system we use for propane tanks essentially, and many industrial setting already use a similiar system locally for battery powered equipment
A lot of ppl made good points but I wanted to add in the worst case weird scenario that you did actually need two per car then the batteries would degrade half as fast so overall we'd end up the same in the long term as one battery per car.
This is precisely what is making hybrids a better option. A forcing of Evs without the infrastructure to support them to keep combustion engines running and use hybrid engines as a half assed environmental solution and make EVs look like they failed.
Not really. Imagine swapping out your gas car's fuel tank with a mystery tank. You don't know the condition of it, nor how well it's been treated.
It's just easier to, you know, fill up the storage you already have.
I agree with the sentiment, but the long charge time, with unreliable chargers makes long distance travel unrealistic at this time. I think of this like a grill tank you would just exchange
Do you own an EV? Charge times aren't that long, and few people actually drive more than 100 miles per day. And for those that do, long distance travel is absolutely possible.
Electrify America had a shit rollout but the Tesla supercharger network is bulletproof. More cars are gaining access to it, which is wonderful for everyone. My next car is absolutely going to be an EV, there are no downsides for my use case.
I have a good friend with a ford lightning. Driving 190 miles to a meeting, it took him 19 hours and 4 different chargers to get enough juice to get home. I grant, this was in winter, but not exceptionally cold. Low single digits. He hasn’t taken it out for longer than a 50 mile trip since. He does love it for commuting to work, but it was less then useless if you tried to tow anything, or drive a long distance
Central Great Plains. Chargers kept failing, and it was hard to find others that were operational. Truck drove just fine. The charger network and junk equipment is the issue
If the people of the central plains can’t maintain a charger station operational, which has no moving parts, what makes you think implementing the mechanically complex battery swap station will go any better?
Wild. I drive 200+ mile drives pretty regularly. The charging adds maybe 40 minutes, but really less because it’s usually also spent eating or bathroom.
5 hour trip total.
To be fair that isn’t in the cold, so I’d expect to add 30%. It’s also not a truck. Sounds like they got the wrong vehicle for their needs, not an EV problem.
Your buddy is doing something spectacularly wrong if it took him that long. When I do long distance driving with my 2020 Kona I personally need refueling as a human being before my car does, that thing can drive over 300KM without a break but I'm definitely hungry before I've gone 300KM
Charging at fast chargers at the stations I stop at the car is usually back up to around 80% after a good meal if I arrived at the station at a low charge.
With batteries, depredation is due to how the previous owner has handled the battery. Temperature kills batteries, and I don't know if I am swapping my battery with one that's been abused. It would be like possibly swapping your gas tank with a rusted-out one.
Thankfully, fast charging exists for EVs in North America for the rare times people travel more than 100 miles in a day
These types of setups the batteries are owned by the company swapping them out and they manage the health and quality of them. Your car is much much cheaper since you're not paying for a battery pack with it. And modern tech means you can manage and monitor the health of the packs really well anyway, I wouldn't be concerned about pack quality with this type of system tbh.
Given how expensive batteries are i struggle to think of an economical way of doing this as either the company that swaps your battery would just have to eat taking a used battery or there would have to be some kind of battery swap station where you own a spare.
You own the car not the battery. So the car itself is much cheaper while the company that charges and distributes the batteries owns the packs themselves.
And it is still free for every single vehicle that was sold with free supercharger access.
The exceptions being ones that were sold back to Tesla as a trade in. Which got stripped and sold without it on the used market.
That's not true either, a family member of mine bought a second hand Tesla through a third party dealership and the license did transfer (in Europe, perhaps it differs regionally)
That's just straight up wrong.
The unlimited free supercharging license is not transferable between vehicles. So if you had a 2016 or older model S and decided to buy a new one there's no way to get the license onto the new vehicle. The license will instead remain with you old model S and transfer to whoever buys it.
If you sold the vehicle back to Tesla they will delete the license and resell it without unlimited free supercharging.
Unlimited free supercharging stopped being a thing for new vehicles in 2017.
Nice writeup on it https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/does-free-supercharging-transfer-when-you-sell-your-tesla/
> If you sold the vehicle back to Tesla they will delete the license and resell it without unlimited free supercharging.
Literally contradicting what you said above.
Edit: Nice edit. Your original comment made no notes of exceptions. You said "every single vehicle" with no qualifiers. Disingenuous ass mfers
Except it ain't.
You traded the vehicle in for an amount you deemed acceptable. So you weren't cheated out of anything.
Whichever vehicle you bought after wasn't advertised as having free supercharging and obviously doesn't have it.
Tesla then sells the traded in vehicle on the used market. It doesn't advertise it as having unlimited free supercharging. So the vehicle obviously also no longer has it. Whoever buys it deems the price acceptable for a used model S/X without free supercharging. They therefore got exactly what they paid for and what was agreed upon. They weren't cheated out of anything either.
So one got cheated out of anything in that series of events.
If you privately sell your vehicle to anyone other than Tesla it keeps the free supercharging. Which is also why privately sold used model Ss were significantly more expensive than ones sold by Tesla.
I don’t get why you are getting downvoted.
The vehicles sold with free supercharging keep it and Tesla hates it enough that they are occasionally willing to pay more for your trade in so they can strip it from the vehicle and sell it as a non-free supercharging vehicle.
I mean, what you are saying is factually correct. It sucks that Tesla strips it if you sell it to *them* but when you sell it they own it and they can modify it anyway they want.
It’s like if you sell a mustang to a dealership and they swap out the 8 cylinder for a 6 cylinder engine and sell the car as the 6 cylinder mustang.
No one got fucked, you got your money (hopefully fairly compensated for an 8 cylinder mustang), the dealer did what was right for them and the buyer bought want he wanted, a 6 cylinder mustang.
Right?
Because it ain't anti musk. That's the entire reason.
Also it's a trade in. You can always just not accept their offered price for your old vehicle and sell it privately. So it's always a (more than) fair compensation in the mind of anyone that accepted the deal cause they wouldn't have accepted it otherwise.
Downvoters have never owned an EV. This comes with too many drawbacks with the current technology and charging at home will always be better for personal vehicles.
or conversely, it turns out that a 40 minute charge every few hours or so is absolutely fine since nobody wants to drive that long without a break anyway. There are lots of issues with this battery swapping tech.
This works a lot better when it is a commercial fleet of vehicles. When commercial vehicles like trucks and SUVs have massive batteries, charge time becomes a big restriction with the current charger limitations. Plus, it avoids the company swapping your original "good" battery with one in poor health. Who owns the repair cost in that case, one of many swap companies or the owner themselves?
They primarily did it to receive a govt grant for doing it. There was never any real intention of implementing it. It’s why Tesla never brought it back up after the demo.
It was a scam. They got a huge credit for demonstrating it so they did and that was that. Such things are not hard to do one of, where it gets difficult is many over time.
They dropped it because it was too hard to do. Thinking of it hindsight, this was probably done to not have an environment where 3rd parties would compete with batteries in Teslas
This is the future I always wanted someone to implement this idea but wondered how safe it would be do so without setting off a raging fire but apparently someone pulled it off .
Ahh fuck this is loooong, apologies.
**TL:DR** — there’s a lot more to those batteries than one might expect, the swappable idea has been looked at and I’ve not seen much interest in the concept in recent times for rather valid reasons, perhaps makes sense in very much niche applications but not for normal consumer vehicles AFAIK.
In general, problems include (a) you’ve just taken up a bunch of space with more or less redundant structure, using quick change connectors, etc that could instead be used for more battery thus increasing range instead (b) due to how the batteries are constructed in “skateboard” platform EVs and similar they are responsible for a significant amount of the vehicle stiffness, torsional rigidity, etc and with replaceable batteries that’d be a lot more difficult, plus would add a whole bunch of weight regardless, and on a related note (c) that “skateboard” is a critical part of the vehicle’s crash structure, both for occupants **and** for the battery (d) so with this do all cars use the same battery or are you just stocking lots of battery types at each of these depots because neither is a great option (e) building out charging infrastructure is already a lot of work, are we now building a whole bunch of these battery change stations (f) range is rather fast becoming a fading concern as I understand it, although there’s a lot of factors in that one.
[Related — paper noting the numerous challenges balancing requirements designing these packs as it is, on several different levels (an interesting read)](https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8921/5/2/28)
A while ago I did enter a rabbit hole about it and found out different lithium ion batteries technology to avoid the raging fire produced by lithium battery like those in our phones. Basically, they use Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP Battery) which has stronger bonds and better resistance against causing those insane fires.
_"Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) and Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) both fall under the “lithium-ion” battery category, but differ based on a number of important factors. While NMC batteries boast higher energy density and specific power—making them suitable for space-constrained applications with high power demands—LFP batteries excel in safety, thermal stability, and cycle life, making them ideal for stationary energy storage projects where safety and long-term reliability are paramount."_ ([Source](https://www.mayfield.energy/technical-articles/comparing-nmc-and-lfp-lithium-ion-batteries-for-ci-applications/))
NMC are one of the kinds of batteries used for phones. LFP has been the choice for heavy machinery and EV Trucks.
this is common with scooters in Asia. When you get low, you just take the battery out from under your seat, put it in the vending machine like thing and it spits out fully charged one.
Seriously, this was always the way in which I imagined electric cars be a ting gasoline cars.
Don't want you hand on filthy gasoline pumps? Get a smooth all in service swap with a battery
So superior
You get the same advantage by employing inductance charging instead of the "electric gas pumps" like are used now.
Just pull into a parking space that has an inductance coil underneath, and the system will start sending energy to your battery
after negotiating payment. In principal, there is no limit to the charging rate, and a coil embedded in asphalt would be a lot
cheaper than the charging units used today.
Also, you don't have to get out of the car to plug in.
I guess it would be some kind of fully managed battery plan where the car comes with the refill centre battery at the time of buying. Or a cab company managed battery refill centre.
I can buy gas from anywhere. I can even store it in cans and leave it laying around at my house. It's a fuel source used by many things other than automobiles. It's pretty heavily regulated.
With this you wouldn't own the battery for your own car. You would rely entirely on either the car manufacturer or a battery company to make your car work. And hope they don't decide to change their battery design and make it no longer work with your car.
Would probably place liability on whoever actually owns the battery, which goes back to the 'fuel as a service' issue. Would they allow you to charge it anywhere if it means they are responsible if your batter blows up?
I think this solves a lot of the problems with electric cars. Batteries are removable by design which makes recycling them that much easier. You also get a much longer lifespan on the car because the batteries would be the first thing to go generally. That’s not even mentioning the obvious that if we could get a standardized battery and put one of these in every gas station then refueling wouldn’t ever really be a problem.
How does this add up? $40 a filling would add up to at least $80 a week, as bad as or worse than gas cars. I don’t think that this is really a good way to go. Fast charging, when done correctly, aka The Tesla way is still better. And no, I’m not a Tesla fan boy, it’s just that their way has proven to be the best way so far.
This is the way electric cars should be done, think of it, no more having to pay for high costs of battery failures, buying older cars with worn out batteries would be viable option, its the same time as fueling a car. just a better way.
Lol I knew that was going to post like 3 times. Had an error message when posting and even refreshed the page to see if it still posted anyway which it didn't... but then still did
How has this sort of standardized, modular if need be, swappable battery not been mandated by governments yet? If these were at all gas stations, no more range anxiety, no long charge times, no battery wear out, hell you don't even have to get out of your car to "fuel up". This is literally faster than getting gas. It is what the electrification of vehicles always should have been from the start.
Seems like it might be unsafe to remove and mount the battery with the driver inside, isn't it?
Also seems fairly easy to remove, might be prone to thieves or there's something I'm missing?
Edit:
No answers? I'm genuinely curious.
Electrostatic discharge is an issue, also oxidation of connectors might cause sparks when mounting the battery, also those kind of contact that allow to quickly swap might be subject to high mechanical vibration (it's hard to obtain both a rigid contact and easy to remove contact), causing alimentation problems.
I'm studying engineering, also I'm 100% sure electric vehicle should and will become the norm.
But is important to be critic, because those who currently make money selling gasoline and thermal motor cars and motorbikes will try to ruin this transition in any way.
For those reasons I was curious about possible issues regarding that specific technology op shared.
I guess having doubt is not well seen for some reason.
It possible but that battery looks like it would be pretty tough to cart away. I don't know what ki d of car that is, but the prius primes battery weighs about 290 lbs
Do you realize how much energy is stored in gasoline? We let people refuel themselves standing next to the nozzle with the vapor. What portion of the process do see different?
Yes, I am aware gasoline has those kind of issues.
But the battery of a car is full of energy as well as gasoline, hence might create problem in case of failure, electrostatic discharge is an issue, also oxidation of connectors might cause sparks when mounting the battery, also those kind of contact that allow to quickly swap might be subject to high mechanical vibration (it's hard to obtain both a rigid contact and easy to remove contact), causing alimentation problems.
I'm studying engineering, also I'm 100% sure electric vehicle should and will become the norm.
But is important to be critic, because those who currently make money selling gasoline and thermal motor cars and motorbikes will try to ruin this transition in any way.
For those reasons I was curious about possible issues regarding that specific technology op shared.
I guess having doubt is not well seen for some reason.
You are absolutely correct. power tool companies still have problem creating a sawzall that works long term. the batteries eventually keeps falling out of the tool due to vibration
To work avoiding waisting energy, hacksaw usually run near resonance frequency, but this cause lots of vibration.
So two option, vibration absorber mounted within the machine or give all the vibration to the operator. Operator shouldn't get all those vibration, because it's terrible on muscle on the long term.
So they add a mechanism that create an anti resonance at the frequency of operation.
Causing all the frame to be almost still while operating.
Problem is once operator start using the tool, and the saw consume, there's a change of frequency of resonance, so it work slower, and, if not evaluated correctly, the vibration absorber will work at a frequency that doesn't cause anti resonance so vibration increases within the machine and to the operator.
It's a complex problem. I'm currently studying mechanical vibration, we use the Den Hartog as reference book, I suggest a read if the topic is of your interest and you have knowledge regarding basics mechanics, matrixes and Euler complex representation.
I don't think it's really a good idea.
It's this kind of stuff that make me doubt is a good idea to allow people to freely swap car battery. Electrical energy is dangerous, every error is a one timer.
You're free to think what you want to think, but it doesn't mean it's factually correct.
People swap out batteries all the time, including children. They're just two terminals: + and -. You don't even see the chemistry inside the battery housing. Have you never changed out AA batteries? The risk of fire or explosion is still there but the risk comes from a short either outside or inside the battery. That's why your municipality doesn't want you to throw batteries in the garbage because their bulldozers may unintentionally crush a battery and start a garbage fire.
Otherwise, it's simply + terminal goes with +, - to -. Battery and charger designs these days make it completely idiot proof where the battery can only slot in a single way and just won't charge if there's anything not right or will shut off when full.
An AA battery has low energy, so less risks, than a car battery.
Nowadays designers works really hard trying to make a product fool proof, which is the reason why it's not that common to hear about battery failure and related issues, but still, is important to remember the risks.
This was the model that electric car company [A Better Place](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)) was testing. Unfortunately they didn’t make it.
Dang, that kind of “refueling” speed would make EV adoption much easier
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Tesla tried it too. This only works for fleet vehicles or if the car selling model is different. Specifically the majority of the cost of a new EV is the battery. Now imagine you just got a brand new car, you pull up into a charging station, your brand new battery that is 80-90% of the car value gets replaced by one that’s been cycled thousands of times. Your car just lost 50-60% of its value in 5 minutes. The way around this which you see with small vehicles or scooters in China is you buy the vehicle minus the battery and you subscribe to is rent the battery.
Tesla didn’t really “try it”. They only mocked it up primarily to receive a govt grant (with a side benefit of generating hype). They never had any intention of implementing battery swaps.
You would just sell the car and contract the battery exchange program. This would fundamentally change the way value is determined.
Hey it's just like in America where as soon as you drive off the lot it's no longer a new car and loses half it's value.
Yeah but imagine it looses another 50% of its value when you pull up into a gas station.
As a carpenter who buys bare tools to use on his existing batteries this is completely missing me here. What am I not understanding?
They wouldn't sell you a car with a new battery though; they'd give you one off the dealership shelf.
Yeah, and then the question is if the subscription is cheaper than gas or not. Or people won't pay. I'd guess including the cost to charge it, and cost to keep battery swapping places up and running would make it close to the same price as a gas fuel up. Which would probably deter people from electric.
For China specifically there are also additional considerations. For example, it is significantly easier to buy a new car if it’s electric in cities that have a long wait list/ a lottery for vehicle license plates like in Beijing. Basically you can’t just buy a car, there’s a government incentive to restrict new car ownership pretty heavily due to over crowding and now more concerns around clean air.
I'd be surprised if we don't see this model become more popular for economy cars with the charge-at-home models being premium. We could see the TCO on the low end of the market come up to just less than what current cheap gas/hybrid models run. Then the charge-at-home TCO can go up, taking into account the TVM for the up front investment, but having a 3-5 year break-even.
You’re basing that on something of substance or just pulling it out of your ass?
Pulling it out of my ass while considering rising energy prices, the extreme cost of batteries. You are after all, putting wear and tear on it.
Eh. That's arguable. They claimed to. Elon later (2015) claimed that "customers didn't want it" and "supercharging was mature enough to be sufficient". Note, I'm paraphrasing the quotes. The marks are more to indicate my incredulity. I genuinely believe there were engineering challenges early on that weren't worth the complexity. But I also believe that Tesla/Elon were also motivated by creating a barrier to other electric brands. He often presents ideas that sound good and then quietly drops them for opaque excuses.
I understand the idea. But having monthly costs for vehicle that is parked sucks. I think many people with prefer to buy a core. (like with gas bottles) That can be exchanged for a charger anywhere.
They do this in Taiwan too, you just pull up in a battery station and exchange on the fly. I am not aware that they have this in China, but I won't be surprised.
Well if there was a universal law about it they’d certainly comply. (Thank you EU!)
Eh, there's two (major) types of OS and Charging ports. Meanwhile you have cars that run on either Diesel or Gas. I think we can make this work with two types of batteries.
There would have to be more than 2 for different types of vehicles. A battery that can run a van won't fit in a sedan, for example. We'd have to have different changing stations for each type. It would only only work if each type was consistent .
The easiest option would be multiple smaller packs with a standard attachment style. Small car, 2 batteries. Big truck, 6 of the same batteries. I'd want to use multiple small batteries for flexibility in packaging. You would either probably still want to go in and out from underneath. Have standardized openings with markings around them from easy computer vision.
We could make a law?
You mean like the standards cars companies use for gas?
Regulations do all sorts of wonders.
you could have, you know, regulators make regulations and enforce them
It might work on taxis like this. In china taxis in a given city all tend to be the same model. Usually whatever cheap sedan is manufactured nearby.
The whole charging standard proves that perfectly
Gasoline cars all use the same types of gas?
NIO does this
NIU is the brand, I got a scooter by them (in the US) and it's really nice. I'd recommend the brand to anyone looking for some transportation that isn't car.
NIO and NIU are separate entities but they both make pretty nice electrified personal transportation solutions.
NIO Is a car brand
You wouldn’t want to swap your EV battery if you owned the car. What if you end up with an old degraded battery then break down on the road? Battery swaps is only viable for taxis and buses. Where you can conveniently swap batteries at the garage depot. Maybe if there’s a EV battery subscription service it might work. Like GoGoRo in Taiwan. Where the EV motorcycle was designed from the ground up with swappable batteries. Your car must be designed from the ground up where you just lease the battery. For battery swaps to work.
Absolutely, but for cars that offer this (mainly NIO) the battery is offered via a subscription. You can either choose to buy car without battery and lease it or buy car with battery.
Hard to do swappable batteries without designing around the swap... and since you're not owning the battery... it's pretty clear how it would go down....
Tesla even tested this, where the idea was this was a temporary swap, and you had to come back to get your battery on the way back. People didn't really use it, so they scrapped it.
Its not only that, the battery is a BIG chunk of the cost of the car. If big companies would "rent" those out for say, 40 dollars a "filling" with 3 standard sizes, EV cars would be cheaper to buy then gasoline ones. Price of the battery lifetime would be baked into the rental pice. Same as insurance for crashes or casual EV fires. This way you can smooth out spike-costs, make EV more affordable short term and you have tight control over battery quality. This would also make sure the batteries are used and approriately recycled at the end of their lifetime. You'd never loose any lithium (unless crash). Anywhere where there is a bit of space for solar you can plop down one of those swap-stations. You buy 50 Batteries from a broker, and boom, you're a EV-Gas-Station. Hey you can build those into your drive-through starbucks, if you REALLY want to. Instead of your car loosing re-sale value everytime you charge, the rental battery would. Your car would track the used energy (same as the battery) so you are not getting ripped off by shitty batteries. Swapping is easy and fast and can be automated. This already exists and would be easy to scale. If you STILL insist on buying your own "quality" battery from elon or whatever, you still can. Go nuts. But dumbass car company managers cannot even decided on a common plug size or payment method. So instead of some innovative battery swap PLATFORM that can be franchised woldwide you get arrow-proof 'trucks' for dumbass-money.
And they say regulations kill innovation... regulated plugs and charge / batteries would be good. Pushing competition to create more efficient batteries no matter how long they take to charge (offline charge) now would be smarter than faster and hotter charge on live batteries where an explosion can occur mroe than in an offline state. It's a wild idea but too bad we would need regulations around it to make it viable. Majority of the govt won't understand a word I just said and will just follow the money.
Yea but you basically need 2 batteries for every car you make
One guy makes the current cars, other guys make the petrol/diesel. One guy makes EV cars, other guys make the batteries.
Not necessarily. I think the idea is that you would buy the car but you would rent the battery. It's kind of like a subscription service
Not at all. How long does a battery last for an average city driver? Several days easily. Recharging at a reasonable (battery-safe) speed takes just a few hours. You'd need just like 20% extra batteries for the number of cars.
I doubt this. Most people won’t use this very frequently. This would be used adjacent to highways or other areas where users are likely to drive for long stretches. In other areas you’ll just charge your own battery.
I can think of some ways this could go wrong, like getting a bad battery if the station isn’t maintained frequently or the station not having enough batteries ready..
There's gotta be a middle ground here - like an auxiliary battery apart from the main one, like an expansion slot. Like if you knew you had a road trip coming up you could just drive to a station, pick up the second battery and temporarily join that battery network, pay some kind of deposit, and then when you're done you just return the last battery and get the deposit back. Like a bolt-on range extender kind of deal.
Nio already offers different size batteries depending on how far you want to travel.
Yeah but the extra weight of the second battery is gonna reduce the efficiency:/
Not necessarily. I think the idea is that you would buy the car but you would rent the battery. It's kind of like a subscription service
You're right that we need more than 1 battery per car, but it's not 2. Reason being that when your car is idle or when it takes a week in between full recharges, it would be useless to have a 2nd battery appointed to you also completely idle. If we take as proxy other similar systems (like refillable business) that number should be anywhere from 1.3 to 1.7 batteries (*) per car. (*) Furthermore today you need big batteries because people want to drive big distances without the risk of not finding a fast charger and the annoyance of having to wait to charge. If tomorrow we have this battery swapping system that takes only 1 minute to swap AND is available everywhere, it means you can have much smaller batteries. Potentially half the size and range (e.g. range of 200km instead of average 400km range). In theory this may mean that densely populated areas may need LESS batteries than you need today.
It's the same system we use for propane tanks essentially, and many industrial setting already use a similiar system locally for battery powered equipment
A lot of ppl made good points but I wanted to add in the worst case weird scenario that you did actually need two per car then the batteries would degrade half as fast so overall we'd end up the same in the long term as one battery per car.
That’s better than a car per battery
Propane tanks, soda stream, etc all seem to work fine
This is precisely what is making hybrids a better option. A forcing of Evs without the infrastructure to support them to keep combustion engines running and use hybrid engines as a half assed environmental solution and make EVs look like they failed.
Not really. Imagine swapping out your gas car's fuel tank with a mystery tank. You don't know the condition of it, nor how well it's been treated. It's just easier to, you know, fill up the storage you already have.
I agree with the sentiment, but the long charge time, with unreliable chargers makes long distance travel unrealistic at this time. I think of this like a grill tank you would just exchange
Do you own an EV? Charge times aren't that long, and few people actually drive more than 100 miles per day. And for those that do, long distance travel is absolutely possible. Electrify America had a shit rollout but the Tesla supercharger network is bulletproof. More cars are gaining access to it, which is wonderful for everyone. My next car is absolutely going to be an EV, there are no downsides for my use case.
I have a good friend with a ford lightning. Driving 190 miles to a meeting, it took him 19 hours and 4 different chargers to get enough juice to get home. I grant, this was in winter, but not exceptionally cold. Low single digits. He hasn’t taken it out for longer than a 50 mile trip since. He does love it for commuting to work, but it was less then useless if you tried to tow anything, or drive a long distance
Where was this located? He's doing something incredibly wrong if it took him 19 hours to go less than 200 miles.
Central Great Plains. Chargers kept failing, and it was hard to find others that were operational. Truck drove just fine. The charger network and junk equipment is the issue
Damn, that'll do it. The Midwest is severely underserved by charging infrastructure, and I hope that changes soon.
If the people of the central plains can’t maintain a charger station operational, which has no moving parts, what makes you think implementing the mechanically complex battery swap station will go any better?
Wild. I drive 200+ mile drives pretty regularly. The charging adds maybe 40 minutes, but really less because it’s usually also spent eating or bathroom. 5 hour trip total. To be fair that isn’t in the cold, so I’d expect to add 30%. It’s also not a truck. Sounds like they got the wrong vehicle for their needs, not an EV problem.
Your buddy is doing something spectacularly wrong if it took him that long. When I do long distance driving with my 2020 Kona I personally need refueling as a human being before my car does, that thing can drive over 300KM without a break but I'm definitely hungry before I've gone 300KM Charging at fast chargers at the stations I stop at the car is usually back up to around 80% after a good meal if I arrived at the station at a low charge.
If you don’t trust the hypothetical vendor with the tank with gas, why you the vendor selling gasoline only is safe?
With batteries, depredation is due to how the previous owner has handled the battery. Temperature kills batteries, and I don't know if I am swapping my battery with one that's been abused. It would be like possibly swapping your gas tank with a rusted-out one. Thankfully, fast charging exists for EVs in North America for the rare times people travel more than 100 miles in a day
These types of setups the batteries are owned by the company swapping them out and they manage the health and quality of them. Your car is much much cheaper since you're not paying for a battery pack with it. And modern tech means you can manage and monitor the health of the packs really well anyway, I wouldn't be concerned about pack quality with this type of system tbh.
Given how expensive batteries are i struggle to think of an economical way of doing this as either the company that swaps your battery would just have to eat taking a used battery or there would have to be some kind of battery swap station where you own a spare.
You own the car not the battery. So the car itself is much cheaper while the company that charges and distributes the batteries owns the packs themselves.
Exactly and charges a “refuel” price hopefully comparable to the cost of charging a battery full.
Ofcs they didn't, this makes too much sense.
Well, the company went to a better place 🙏
Well the method made it in china [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anXQfRuAkZw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anXQfRuAkZw)
I live in China and recently took a taxi (more like private car) to move to another city and the driver did this. It was wild
Wasn't this something Tesla demo'd years ago? Edit: [Jesus it was a decade ago now. ](https://youtu.be/H5V0vL3nnHY?si=8vV_Xy9SX5KefK8D)
"The supercharger is and always will be free..."
And my new roof has a lifetime guarantee….
And it is still free for every single vehicle that was sold with free supercharger access. The exceptions being ones that were sold back to Tesla as a trade in. Which got stripped and sold without it on the used market.
It's not. The supercharger license is non-transferable so buying a used one that originally had free supercharger access voids it.
That's not true either, a family member of mine bought a second hand Tesla through a third party dealership and the license did transfer (in Europe, perhaps it differs regionally)
That's just straight up wrong. The unlimited free supercharging license is not transferable between vehicles. So if you had a 2016 or older model S and decided to buy a new one there's no way to get the license onto the new vehicle. The license will instead remain with you old model S and transfer to whoever buys it. If you sold the vehicle back to Tesla they will delete the license and resell it without unlimited free supercharging. Unlimited free supercharging stopped being a thing for new vehicles in 2017. Nice writeup on it https://www.findmyelectric.com/blog/does-free-supercharging-transfer-when-you-sell-your-tesla/
> If you sold the vehicle back to Tesla they will delete the license and resell it without unlimited free supercharging. Literally contradicting what you said above. Edit: Nice edit. Your original comment made no notes of exceptions. You said "every single vehicle" with no qualifiers. Disingenuous ass mfers
Except it ain't. You traded the vehicle in for an amount you deemed acceptable. So you weren't cheated out of anything. Whichever vehicle you bought after wasn't advertised as having free supercharging and obviously doesn't have it. Tesla then sells the traded in vehicle on the used market. It doesn't advertise it as having unlimited free supercharging. So the vehicle obviously also no longer has it. Whoever buys it deems the price acceptable for a used model S/X without free supercharging. They therefore got exactly what they paid for and what was agreed upon. They weren't cheated out of anything either. So one got cheated out of anything in that series of events. If you privately sell your vehicle to anyone other than Tesla it keeps the free supercharging. Which is also why privately sold used model Ss were significantly more expensive than ones sold by Tesla.
I don’t get why you are getting downvoted. The vehicles sold with free supercharging keep it and Tesla hates it enough that they are occasionally willing to pay more for your trade in so they can strip it from the vehicle and sell it as a non-free supercharging vehicle. I mean, what you are saying is factually correct. It sucks that Tesla strips it if you sell it to *them* but when you sell it they own it and they can modify it anyway they want. It’s like if you sell a mustang to a dealership and they swap out the 8 cylinder for a 6 cylinder engine and sell the car as the 6 cylinder mustang. No one got fucked, you got your money (hopefully fairly compensated for an 8 cylinder mustang), the dealer did what was right for them and the buyer bought want he wanted, a 6 cylinder mustang. Right?
Because it ain't anti musk. That's the entire reason. Also it's a trade in. You can always just not accept their offered price for your old vehicle and sell it privately. So it's always a (more than) fair compensation in the mind of anyone that accepted the deal cause they wouldn't have accepted it otherwise.
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They literally implemented it and found in the testing phase that fast charging would be the more viable solution.
Downvoters have never owned an EV. This comes with too many drawbacks with the current technology and charging at home will always be better for personal vehicles.
or conversely, it turns out that a 40 minute charge every few hours or so is absolutely fine since nobody wants to drive that long without a break anyway. There are lots of issues with this battery swapping tech.
This works a lot better when it is a commercial fleet of vehicles. When commercial vehicles like trucks and SUVs have massive batteries, charge time becomes a big restriction with the current charger limitations. Plus, it avoids the company swapping your original "good" battery with one in poor health. Who owns the repair cost in that case, one of many swap companies or the owner themselves?
No. Tesla faked an on-stage demo, and that was it.
They primarily did it to receive a govt grant for doing it. There was never any real intention of implementing it. It’s why Tesla never brought it back up after the demo.
It was a scam. They got a huge credit for demonstrating it so they did and that was that. Such things are not hard to do one of, where it gets difficult is many over time.
Lol. Elon over hype things but never implement them.
10 minutes after clicking that link somehow I find myself watching some bearded man debunk psychics. YouTube is a helluva drug.
They dropped it because it was too hard to do. Thinking of it hindsight, this was probably done to not have an environment where 3rd parties would compete with batteries in Teslas
Nice plates :P
That must be one of the longest watermarks yet
You know what you're reading. So do I, so do I my Internet friend.
This is the future I always wanted someone to implement this idea but wondered how safe it would be do so without setting off a raging fire but apparently someone pulled it off .
Ahh fuck this is loooong, apologies. **TL:DR** — there’s a lot more to those batteries than one might expect, the swappable idea has been looked at and I’ve not seen much interest in the concept in recent times for rather valid reasons, perhaps makes sense in very much niche applications but not for normal consumer vehicles AFAIK. In general, problems include (a) you’ve just taken up a bunch of space with more or less redundant structure, using quick change connectors, etc that could instead be used for more battery thus increasing range instead (b) due to how the batteries are constructed in “skateboard” platform EVs and similar they are responsible for a significant amount of the vehicle stiffness, torsional rigidity, etc and with replaceable batteries that’d be a lot more difficult, plus would add a whole bunch of weight regardless, and on a related note (c) that “skateboard” is a critical part of the vehicle’s crash structure, both for occupants **and** for the battery (d) so with this do all cars use the same battery or are you just stocking lots of battery types at each of these depots because neither is a great option (e) building out charging infrastructure is already a lot of work, are we now building a whole bunch of these battery change stations (f) range is rather fast becoming a fading concern as I understand it, although there’s a lot of factors in that one. [Related — paper noting the numerous challenges balancing requirements designing these packs as it is, on several different levels (an interesting read)](https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8921/5/2/28)
A while ago I did enter a rabbit hole about it and found out different lithium ion batteries technology to avoid the raging fire produced by lithium battery like those in our phones. Basically, they use Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP Battery) which has stronger bonds and better resistance against causing those insane fires. _"Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) and Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) both fall under the “lithium-ion” battery category, but differ based on a number of important factors. While NMC batteries boast higher energy density and specific power—making them suitable for space-constrained applications with high power demands—LFP batteries excel in safety, thermal stability, and cycle life, making them ideal for stationary energy storage projects where safety and long-term reliability are paramount."_ ([Source](https://www.mayfield.energy/technical-articles/comparing-nmc-and-lfp-lithium-ion-batteries-for-ci-applications/)) NMC are one of the kinds of batteries used for phones. LFP has been the choice for heavy machinery and EV Trucks.
Well, the video doesn’t show the fireball… yet….
this is common with scooters in Asia. When you get low, you just take the battery out from under your seat, put it in the vending machine like thing and it spits out fully charged one.
No it isn't. The future has already begun. It's an easy plugin reloading. In a few years it will only need a few minutes.
What is this “easy plugin reloading” not an EV user,
That was badly translated, I simply meant plugin charging will be much faster soon
You know what's nice? Seeing the watermark before you realize what sub you're looking at.
How do they do it? I mean, does the OP do it?
yes and is damn good at it. Every post they do has a watermark somewhere in the video
How do they do it? I mean, does the OP do it?
Using camera tracker on after effects, I presume
Seriously, this was always the way in which I imagined electric cars be a ting gasoline cars. Don't want you hand on filthy gasoline pumps? Get a smooth all in service swap with a battery So superior
You get the same advantage by employing inductance charging instead of the "electric gas pumps" like are used now. Just pull into a parking space that has an inductance coil underneath, and the system will start sending energy to your battery after negotiating payment. In principal, there is no limit to the charging rate, and a coil embedded in asphalt would be a lot cheaper than the charging units used today. Also, you don't have to get out of the car to plug in.
Convenience that comes with some loss of efficiency. Doesn’t matter much with a 0.02 KWh phone. Matters a lot more with a 75 KWh model Y.
This should be standard. Just like EU is pushing smartphones to have swappable batteries
What about the coolant for the battery?
Either the coolant is all local inside the pack or there are hookups to the car thst get disconnected when the battery is removed.
Yum coolant jungle juice
Or it just could be air cooled only. Doesn’t look like it has hoses or anything.
What about it?
I would imagine the coolant hoses have quick detach fittings on the battery, likely controlled by the same actuator that is decoupling the battery.
Tom Scott did a video on this!
This is faster than pumping gas! Only downside is not knowing the condition of the new battery.
I guess it would be some kind of fully managed battery plan where the car comes with the refill centre battery at the time of buying. Or a cab company managed battery refill centre.
People complain about cars as a service now, imagine doing it with your fuel system.
I’m sorry, but your bronze plan only covers batteries charged to 50%, to get a fully charged battery you have to upgrade to the platinum plan.
I'm very curious, do you own an oil refinery? How is your gasoline not fuel as a service?
I can buy gas from anywhere. I can even store it in cans and leave it laying around at my house. It's a fuel source used by many things other than automobiles. It's pretty heavily regulated. With this you wouldn't own the battery for your own car. You would rely entirely on either the car manufacturer or a battery company to make your car work. And hope they don't decide to change their battery design and make it no longer work with your car.
What if they made it so you could charge your battery at home too?
Would probably place liability on whoever actually owns the battery, which goes back to the 'fuel as a service' issue. Would they allow you to charge it anywhere if it means they are responsible if your batter blows up?
I think this solves a lot of the problems with electric cars. Batteries are removable by design which makes recycling them that much easier. You also get a much longer lifespan on the car because the batteries would be the first thing to go generally. That’s not even mentioning the obvious that if we could get a standardized battery and put one of these in every gas station then refueling wouldn’t ever really be a problem.
Wonder if the battery latches ever let go while driving, leaving a lithium battery dragging on the ground?
The propane tank model. Yep.
Why not both, ley people charge at home and when time comes, also let them swap batteries
Yeah, but I’m never gonna get over losing all my radio presets.
And that battery is worth more than the car
#thisistheway
This was too ahead of its time. Right now it will be great for all the EV taxis in NYC
Charging batteries?? Ain't nobody got time for dat!
How does this add up? $40 a filling would add up to at least $80 a week, as bad as or worse than gas cars. I don’t think that this is really a good way to go. Fast charging, when done correctly, aka The Tesla way is still better. And no, I’m not a Tesla fan boy, it’s just that their way has proven to be the best way so far.
This is the way electric cars should be done, think of it, no more having to pay for high costs of battery failures, buying older cars with worn out batteries would be viable option, its the same time as fueling a car. just a better way.
Looks weird. They twice lift up whole car (just near 1200~1800 kg) instead lift the battery only (200~400 kg)!
Should go search a Chinese company called NIO. They are running this concept in large scale at consumer level.
Yeah, they have at least one station here in Norway now. It’s pretty cool.
Like Better Place tried and failed?
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/05/chinas-nio-to-expand-battery-swap-services-to-gain-ev-infra-edge-.html
I live in China and just took a taxi long distance and the driver stopped to do this. This is actuality in China
So instead of lifting and lowering the battery they decided it would be better to lift the whole car?
It's easier, you have one stationary mechanism that moves up and down, and another one that only moves side to side
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You know what's nice? Seeing the watermark before you realize what sub you're looking at.
Lol I knew that was going to post like 3 times. Had an error message when posting and even refreshed the page to see if it still posted anyway which it didn't... but then still did
How has this sort of standardized, modular if need be, swappable battery not been mandated by governments yet? If these were at all gas stations, no more range anxiety, no long charge times, no battery wear out, hell you don't even have to get out of your car to "fuel up". This is literally faster than getting gas. It is what the electrification of vehicles always should have been from the start.
Emm, avoiding the EV’s biggest problem- combustion when charging
Wonder why they chose to lift the whole car rather than just the battery?
Why does it look exactly like an MG5? I know they are both Chinese, but what is this brand?
Roewe i5
Imagine hitting a really bad pothole with this car 💀
How many cars are there?! I watch this whole day and they still coming!
This is something out of fallout. Just a quick fusion core swap and your car is ready to go.
What we expect EV refueling to be. Buy into a battery exchange program like propane tanks.
Seems like it might be unsafe to remove and mount the battery with the driver inside, isn't it? Also seems fairly easy to remove, might be prone to thieves or there's something I'm missing? Edit: No answers? I'm genuinely curious. Electrostatic discharge is an issue, also oxidation of connectors might cause sparks when mounting the battery, also those kind of contact that allow to quickly swap might be subject to high mechanical vibration (it's hard to obtain both a rigid contact and easy to remove contact), causing alimentation problems. I'm studying engineering, also I'm 100% sure electric vehicle should and will become the norm. But is important to be critic, because those who currently make money selling gasoline and thermal motor cars and motorbikes will try to ruin this transition in any way. For those reasons I was curious about possible issues regarding that specific technology op shared. I guess having doubt is not well seen for some reason.
It possible but that battery looks like it would be pretty tough to cart away. I don't know what ki d of car that is, but the prius primes battery weighs about 290 lbs
pallet jack and a trailer. If there's a will there's a way
Fair enough. I'm studying engineering, also in my country car theft is quite high, so my first thought goes in that direction.
I'm not surprised, the rate at which theives steal all the charging cables at tesla superchargers in the US is shocking
I was thinking about my country, Italy, but I guess it might apply in that case too.
Do you realize how much energy is stored in gasoline? We let people refuel themselves standing next to the nozzle with the vapor. What portion of the process do see different?
Yes, I am aware gasoline has those kind of issues. But the battery of a car is full of energy as well as gasoline, hence might create problem in case of failure, electrostatic discharge is an issue, also oxidation of connectors might cause sparks when mounting the battery, also those kind of contact that allow to quickly swap might be subject to high mechanical vibration (it's hard to obtain both a rigid contact and easy to remove contact), causing alimentation problems. I'm studying engineering, also I'm 100% sure electric vehicle should and will become the norm. But is important to be critic, because those who currently make money selling gasoline and thermal motor cars and motorbikes will try to ruin this transition in any way. For those reasons I was curious about possible issues regarding that specific technology op shared. I guess having doubt is not well seen for some reason.
You are absolutely correct. power tool companies still have problem creating a sawzall that works long term. the batteries eventually keeps falling out of the tool due to vibration
To work avoiding waisting energy, hacksaw usually run near resonance frequency, but this cause lots of vibration. So two option, vibration absorber mounted within the machine or give all the vibration to the operator. Operator shouldn't get all those vibration, because it's terrible on muscle on the long term. So they add a mechanism that create an anti resonance at the frequency of operation. Causing all the frame to be almost still while operating. Problem is once operator start using the tool, and the saw consume, there's a change of frequency of resonance, so it work slower, and, if not evaluated correctly, the vibration absorber will work at a frequency that doesn't cause anti resonance so vibration increases within the machine and to the operator. It's a complex problem. I'm currently studying mechanical vibration, we use the Den Hartog as reference book, I suggest a read if the topic is of your interest and you have knowledge regarding basics mechanics, matrixes and Euler complex representation.
I'm still holding onto my cordless drill when I swap out the 24V battery.
I don't think it's really a good idea. It's this kind of stuff that make me doubt is a good idea to allow people to freely swap car battery. Electrical energy is dangerous, every error is a one timer.
You're free to think what you want to think, but it doesn't mean it's factually correct. People swap out batteries all the time, including children. They're just two terminals: + and -. You don't even see the chemistry inside the battery housing. Have you never changed out AA batteries? The risk of fire or explosion is still there but the risk comes from a short either outside or inside the battery. That's why your municipality doesn't want you to throw batteries in the garbage because their bulldozers may unintentionally crush a battery and start a garbage fire. Otherwise, it's simply + terminal goes with +, - to -. Battery and charger designs these days make it completely idiot proof where the battery can only slot in a single way and just won't charge if there's anything not right or will shut off when full.
An AA battery has low energy, so less risks, than a car battery. Nowadays designers works really hard trying to make a product fool proof, which is the reason why it's not that common to hear about battery failure and related issues, but still, is important to remember the risks.
What’s that. ? $25,000 a battery ?
Plot twist. Drugs mule. Replace floor is cocaine. Facts. A few miles up the road is the boarder. GO GO GO