If Ford pull this off my Mav will be short lived and the Lightning will be in my yard.

[clippedwings]

Lol! It would have to be in my yard. Wouldn’t fit in my garage!

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[Platinum2]

.....and the battery station employee places the battery on a large underground charging rack.

You mean the robots.

 

[RebellaE]

I had experience with the BMW i3 for 5 years. Both were leases since battery tech seems to be following Moore's law for now and I didn't think there would be much resale value in them.

The first i3 was the one with the Range Extender built in. On pure electric the range was 64 miles I believe and the Range Extender added 30 or so to that (although you could stop and refill that as you go if you needed more range). That was a 2 year lease and in the 2 years I had it there was only one time I used the Range Extender to actually extend my range...the other times it would kick in once a month just to make sure everything was operating correctly. So when that lease was up, I renewed with a pure electric version (the range was now up to 130 miles I think it was) that one fit our needs perfectly.

The i3 was strictly used for commuting, we always had at least one regular car at home for use on longer trips. My round trip would involve both city driving and expressway, covering 60 miles per day total. I was lucky that at that time my office was close to a mall that had free chargers so I would simply park there in the morning and then pick it up at lunch time. I would also "top up" at home using a Level 1 charger. The lease per month on the i3 was $350...so for less than it was costing me per month to fill up the Explorer I had before that, I had a new car and no fuel costs.

The i3 was great for zipping around in city traffic, was a real hoot to drive and also handled extremely well in Chicago winters...those skinny tires got a lot of traction.

My use case has changed considerably since then though, but I'm still intrigued by the Lightning. Still wouldn't buy an EV though...leasing is the only way to go with something like that that is evolving so rapidly.

We have a similar experience with the i3. My husband had test driven a new i3, but we decided it wasn't worth the price they were charging. A couple of years later, husband wanted a Tesla, but it was over our budget. We ended up finding a 3 year old i3 (off a lease) for 35% of the price for new. It had a few "negatives for resale" that made it so affordable used : it did not have the range extender and was an older model, so it had a max range when new of 64 miles. The shape is also quirky enough to not appeal to everybody.
We also have a Ford Flex that we use for camping, road trips, etc. We just trade vehicles depending on who needs to drive a long distance that day. Our jobs are pretty close to our house, but commuting plus our kid's sports practices and games do exceed the 64 mile range some days, especially with heavy A/C or heater use. I'm excited to have a hybrid Maverick to replace the Flex, and we actually just ordered a VW iD4 for my husband. My son will inherit the i3 when he gets his license soon.

 

[brnpttmn]

I don't see swappable batteries for BEVs happening.

Beyond the engineering challenges and trade-offs, and the impracticality of swapping 100s of lbs of batteries, there would be complex issues related to provenance.

Who owns the batteries? Who pays for them? Who replaces them when they get damaged/warn out? Sure, there could be some sort of "sharing" service, but then you're getting into the same proprietary infrastructure issues as charging networks (where are my nearest "in network" batteries).

Otherwise, you'd likely have to register, take out some sort of insurance/deposit, and supply personal information every time you want to fill up your car in order to drive away will thousands of dollars of someone else's property. Also, the nightmare of having to make a claim because you got a 60% capacity battery and having "easily removable" expensive components (you think cat converter thefts are out of control).

 

[jtpc2021]

I still think developing easily swappable batteries is where it's at. Then, go to the battery station and swap it out, or charge at home overnight. The need to bolt the batteries to the bottom of the car and develop an automatic system where the car drives over a bay, the battery lowers and a new one is raised. The car drives off and the battery station employee places the battery on a large underground charging rack.

Sounds nice; but we all know large car ev batteries are not plentiful right now. All manufacturers can’t get their hands on enough, so pretty sure they don’t have thousands extra to go using in a swapping service at the moment.

Tesla abandoned their trial/prototypes of this a long time ago.

 

[Nw_adventure]

I still think developing easily swappable batteries is where it's at. Then, go to the battery station and swap it out, or charge at home overnight. The need to bolt the batteries to the bottom of the car and develop an automatic system where the car drives over a bay, the battery lowers and a new one is raised. The car drives off and the battery station employee places the battery on a large underground charging rack.

That's what they do in other parts of the world- You just swap batteries, no need to wait all night for a charge or even find an available one while traveling-

 

[PCL]

If EVs still give you range anxiety (and you ignore that most households own a second car that can be the "roadtripper"), take a look at Ford's patent for an ICE range extender that sits in the bed like a toolbox. Clever idea that eliminates most remaining legitimate concerns.

 

[hsinking1932]

Well, instead of a Tesla charging station, make it a battery swap. It's impossible to get a battery to charge fast enough to compete with gas stations. I don't care how fast they get it to charge, it's not going to happen. Swapping or enough range for any possible trip are the only possible solutions.

Are you trying to find a way to make money faster for Prius catalytic converter thefts?

 

[Okie from Muskogee]

The USA power grid could not support a massive switch to evs. The delay in battery technology with a growing emphasis on hybrid is a blessing while the issues of the power grid gets worked out.

 

[2022EOW]

In 50 years you'll have a battery the size of a cell phone that you will just replace as needed in the dashboard. Some of you will laugh at that, but just a little over a hundred years ago, horses were still a major form of personal transportation

 

[ttthhasdf]

In 50 years you'll have a battery the size of a cell phone that you will just replace as needed in the dashboard. Some of you will laugh at that, but just a little over a hundred years ago, horses were still a major form of personal transportation

And they will charge them up with the spent nuclear waste we created, that they mine like we mine coal.

Or if things go the other way they will hit each other with rocks.

 

[clavicus]

Battery swaps: my first thought is that you would need a VAST surplus of extra standardized battery packs spread out across the country, otherwise the system would be useless if a “station” runs out of full batts half past 8am. Does that make sense to anyone else how it could work without a ridiculous amount of extra batteries to go around?

 

[The Weatherman]

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...evs-as-quickly-as-gas-station-fill-ups.11297/

I am hoping they electrify the Maverick in the next 5 yrs. if so I will definitely be looking to move over.

 

[eRock92]

If EVs still give you range anxiety (and you ignore that most households own a second car that can be the "roadtripper")...

See... the first part of your comment is what I was referring to in another comment. I'm a single Millennial who does not own a house. I know plenty of others just like me. We can't afford a 2nd vehicle. Many of us who aren't helping the family out back home are living in apartment with not charging stations. This is why EV range is so important.

For me specifically, I have to drive ~45 miles to a 7-mile long job site that I sometime have to go back and forth on. 90 miles round trip + avg. 25 miles of site driving puts me at about 105 miles daily, 525 weekly. I know coworker that drive from Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania who rack up my weekly average in a couple days.

I'm all for EV's. Would love to get one someday in the future. But we really need to take off the road tinted glasses and recognize it's going to be a while before EV's are practical across the board for most walks of life. The data might show what the "average" American does, but that doesn't distribute evenly across the country let alone a metropolitan region.

I'm sure PCL you were not implying anything in my little rant, I've just seen these little comments for so long online and from people's mouths in real life. Both statements can be true: EV's are the next best innovation in automobile technology and we still have a long way to go before ICE vehicles go the way of the horse carriage.

 

[Garbone]

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...evs-as-quickly-as-gas-station-fill-ups.11297/

There is a bit of disconnect on the charge rate thing. I have used pay DC charging twice in 9400 miles since February, both times on free weekends at Electrify America. (btw this weekend AE is free for the holiday). Car is always 90% charged in the morning, why wast time waiting at a DC charger. I do go to Race Trac because I get free coffee every day because I use their rewards and used to fuel up there. There Icecream is good for free also.

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