Battery Swap [video]

Re:Battery Swap [video] by JoeAltmaier on Friday June 21, 2013 @07:37AM (#5917514)

I saw it and wondered "what about dirt"? Dust, gravel, spilled oil, the stray coke can. Rain (yes it does sometimes rain in California). This is a fine stage demo, but really? We're talking enormous sealed electric bombs, swapped out by automated wrench and jack platforms, then a subterranean battery-storage-and-recharge system. The bigger technology than 'doing it at all' is 'keeping it working under environmental conditions'. Any info about that?

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by jroll on Friday June 21, 2013 @10:20AM (#5918137)

FWIW, GM conducts full submersion tests on their batteries. I would hope Tesla does the same.

These things are in the floor of a car. I would imagine cars deal with much worse environmental conditions than a dedicated battery swapping station.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by calinet6 on Friday June 21, 2013 @09:23AM (#5917884)

Please, you think they haven't thought of those problems? I'm sure it's a sealed system designed for real-world use. Otherwise why would they even create it?

You could say the same about the car itself, but that appears to work just fine in the elements.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by JoeAltmaier on Friday June 21, 2013 @11:20AM (#5918439)

Generally, doing open-heart surgery on a car requires a clean environment, a careful mechanic, and lots of attention to detail. A subterranean automated wrench platform is a whole 'nother thing.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by forrestthewoods on Friday June 21, 2013 @12:18PM (#5918887)

There are many words I'd use to describe an auto-shop. Clean is not among them.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by sliverstorm on Friday June 21, 2013 @01:14PM (#5919443)

A good shop is clean. Not hospital room clean, not eat-off-the-floor clean, but clean. Floors swept and rinsed, fluids captured in drain pains, etc.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by chockablock on Friday June 21, 2013 @10:30PM (#5922317)

This changing station could well be inside such a tidy and enclosed area at the Tesla Station.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by JoeAltmaier on Saturday June 22, 2013 @08:38AM (#5923386)

Its supposed to be drive-thru. If its not, then add opening the garage door (one coming, one going) and waiting in line to the supposed 90-second swap time.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by calinet6 on Saturday June 22, 2013 @10:46PM (#5926057)

These are literally all engineering problems that can and have been solved. You have no idea what you're talking about as it applies to this situation.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by JoeAltmaier on Sunday June 23, 2013 @03:34PM (#5929045)

I am an engineer, and I am a driver. What else do I need to be?

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by calinet6 on Monday June 24, 2013 @11:01AM (#5933338)

An engineer at Tesla, who has actually worked on the problem, rather than someone who believes he has enough information to make a judgement on a problem which you have not studied or thought about for more than a few minutes. /internetproblems

I'm out, this argument is pointless.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by abalone on Friday June 21, 2013 @01:48PM (#5919711)

As with most high tech, these problems were worked out by military applications at taxpayer expense. Better Place (the Israeli predecessor to this) based their swap stations on the tech used to load bombs onto jets. No doubt Tesla is standing on those shoulders.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by rattray on Friday June 21, 2013 @09:49AM (#5917999)

It's probably reasons like those -- and other challenges, like actual installation -- that are keeping them back from announcing these stations as being available rather than just planned for an unknown point in the future, which is all we learned today.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by ChuckMcM on Friday June 21, 2013 @11:17AM (#5918425)

I don't doubt they have all of those issues covered, but was looking at some of the damage reports from Hurricane Sandy on the subway in Manhattan and thought "hmm if a surge of saltwater submerged one of these things you would only have a limited time to get it un-submerged before the saltwater got into the packs. When that happened you'd be in a world of hurt.

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Re:Battery Swap [video] by shabble on Friday June 21, 2013 @02:03PM (#5919836)

There was some drama about a bunch of Fisker EVs catching fire[1] after immersion, but apparently[2] not (directly) battery-related.

Offhand, I'm not sure if the specific battery chemistry requires vents for in/out-gassing, or whether you could reasonably fully seal them. Or I suppose you could[3] have the battery pack detect such a condition and use its power to electrolyse some water to keep the pack at positive pressure. Or maybe some kind of self-destruct that dumps the stored energy into a chemical reaction or passivates the cells somehow (wave hands)

[1] http://jalopnik.com/5956179/more-than-a-dozen-fisker-karma-h...

[2] http://www.motorauthority.com/news/1080277_fisker-determines...

[3] points will be awarded for the number of different ways this is a bad idea

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