The Pros And Cons Of EV Battery Swapping

The battery is the weakest part of any electric vehicle. This is the reason why recharging takes so much longer than refueling an ICE car. The battery is also the reason why most EVs have the driving range of a gasoline car with a half-full tank. If EVs could somehow get beyond the shortcomings of lithium-ion batteries, gasoline engines would be as obsolete as steam cars.

A lot of proposed battery solutions have been floating around the EV industry. One of them is battery swapping. This is not the same as replacing a dead battery in an EV. Battery swapping means that whenever an EV battery uses up its charge, it gets removed and replaced. The old battery can then be recharged for the next person who comes to the swap station.

This means that optimistically, no one would ever have to wait at an EV charger ever again. However, battery swapping may have too many problems to be worth it.

In order to give you the most up-to-date and accurate information possible, the data used to compile this article was sourced from various manufacturer websites and other authoritative sources.

How Battery Swaps May Overcome Lithium-Ion Shortcomings

• EVs are too inconvenient for most people due to their short ranges and long charging times.
• Battery swaps could eliminate long charging times.
• Fast-charging can eliminate long waits at the charging station, but it shortens the battery’s lifespan.

Despite the EV industry’s efforts, battery charging takes a lot longer than refilling an ICE car. This has no doubt been a boon to convenience store owners (it’s hard to resist the temptation of a snack and cold drink when waiting for a long time). However, both EV manufacturers and owners would rather see charging times get faster. Internal combustion has allowed drivers to get happily accustomed to four-minute refueling times. Few people want to turn short refueling errands into long waits.

EV Owners Wouldn’t Need To Find Somewhere To Plug In Every Day

Battery charging is one of the biggest inconveniences of EV ownership. Unless someone only drives about 20 miles a day, the car must be on a charger whenever possible. ICE car owners don’t need to stop at a fuel station every day, but EV owners must constantly think about where to recharge the car next. Battery swapping would eliminate this problem. And not everyone lives somewhere that provides a place to plug in the car every day.

Battery swapping would eliminate all these problems. Instead of waiting for a few hours at a charging station, EV owners could simply exchange their battery and drive away.

Fast-Charging May Make EVs More Convenient, But It Shortens Battery Life

Many readers will point out that fast-charging can eliminate long waits at the charging station. However, it does so at the expense of the battery itself. All electric batteries, regardless of what kind they are, prefer a slow stream of incoming energy. A massive surge of electricity can wear them out internally. This is why ICE owners use a trickle charger, even if it is maddeningly slow.

Of course, daily fast-charging doesn’t destroy batteries in one month. However, EV owners will soon notice that the car doesn’t seem to get as far as it used to between charges. Since the battery is one of the most expensive parts of any EV, this can dramatically reduce the car’s lifespan. It doesn’t take long before the cost of battery replacement is higher than the value of the car.

Battery Swaps Can Eliminate The Problem Of Aging EV Batteries

• With most EVs, the battery wears out long before the rest of the car does.
• Battery replacement is currently one of the most expensive repairs out there, often exceeding the value of the car.
• Battery swaps could lengthen the useful lives of EVs. Cars would no longer be perfectly functional except for the aging battery.

All-electric drivetrains are extraordinarily robust. There simply aren’t as many parts that need to be machined to a tenth of a millimeter, or retimed to a hundredth of a degree. One only needs to compare the recommended maintenance schedules for any given EV and ICE car to see that the EV has a much shorter list. There are no valves to readjust, no timing to inspect, no emissions to check— the list of things one doesn’t have to do with EVs goes on and on. Many EVs reach the end of their battery lives with relatively few problems under the car. Battery swapping would theoretically eliminate the problem of perfectly good EVs going to the pick-and-pull because a new battery was too expensive.

Swapping Out Batteries Allows For Them To Be Inspected For Degradation

If a car’s battery is swapped out every time it loses its charge, it can be inspected for its condition. This would mean that EV batteries theoretically get checked for signs of degradation every time they need to be recharged. Because of this, battery swapping could extend the life of EVs. After all, if an EV never gets saddled with a badly aged battery, no one will ever need to choose between the cost of a new battery and the cost of a new car.

The Finite Lives Of EV Batteries

Even for owners who diligently keep the battery charged to optimum levels and avoid fast-charging, lithium-ion batteries (which are currently found in every EV) don’t last forever. Eventually, drivers will notice that the car’s range has dropped. For most people, that is the end of the problem– they either replace the battery or replace the car. However, if a battery degrades too much (which, to be clear, is very rare), its internal structures can break down, causing an internal short circuit.

In other words, all the energy that would have moved the vehicle for hundreds of miles gets released in an instant. As one might imagine, this can be a bit explosive.

But if the battery of a car is replaced every time it gets recharged, this would never have the chance to happen. EV owners would never reach the point of wondering why they need to recharge more often. In theory, any battery that is too old would be sent off for recycling and metal recovery, while the rest of the EV could keep driving until the axles fall out.

Lithium Shortages, And Other Reasons Battery Swaps May Be Impossible

• In order for battery swaps to be feasible, there would have to be a lot more EV batteries in circulation than there are at present.
• Given the twin problems of impending lithium shortages and poor battery recycling rates, an industry-wide battery swap system may be impossible.
• Battery swaps would require a vast battery collection and redistribution network which currently does not exist.

The biggest problem with battery swapping also tends to be the dullest-sounding one: finite resources. It’s hard to grab attention with such non-catchy phrases like “materials shortage,” but the world’s supplies of lithium are decreasing. This is a problem that hangs over the EV industry in general, regardless of whether battery swapping takes off. However, battery swapping would make lithium shortages worse.

It’s tempting to say that battery recycling would increase under the threat of running out of lithium. Certainly, having a designated network of swap stations would make it easier to collect spent-out batteries and harvest the rare metals within. However, right now only about 5% of EV batteries are recycled worldwide. This does not suggest that battery swapping would lead to zero-waste materials recovery.

Why Battery Swaps Will Require A Lot More Batteries

Up until now, every EV has only required one battery. But battery swapping would require a lot of batteries for every car that uses them. If swapping takes off, there would need to be enough batteries to have a spare for every EV in existence. It might be an overstatement to say that this would double the demand for new batteries, but not by much.

Even if lithium was as plentiful as seawater, battery manufacturing is a very energy-intensive process. Even for those who get annoyed at “sustainability,” the cost of making multiple batteries per car would get passed down to the consumer. As a reminder, the battery is one of the most expensive parts of any EV.

There Is No Battery Swap Network

In theory, every mechanic can do a battery swap. However, battery swaps would require a lot more than a hydraulic car lift and a set of tools (with perhaps a few proprietary wrenches). Swaps would require a vast network of battery distributors, battery collectors, battery shippers, battery storage sites, and battery reconditioners. This infrastructure fundamentally does not exist. Indeed, the infrastructure for hydrogen cars is more built-out than the one for EV battery swaps– and hydrogen cars can’t go more than 200 miles away from the few cities with fuel pumps.

Before We Can Have Battery Swaps, We Need Battery Standards

• EV batteries are not interchangeable, which means any battery swap station would need to keep impossibly large inventories of different batteries on hand.
• For current EVs, battery replacement is a major operation. EVs would have to be designed so that the batteries can easily come out.

The topic of standardization can always be trusted to make people snooze, but it is crucial for making battery swaps work. The entire premise of battery swaps is that the battery can be quickly exchanged. In order for this process to be as fast as a complimentary wiper blade change, it needs to be easy for battery swappers to take out the old battery and put a new one in. This would require that all EV batteries be the same.

The Problem Of Proprietary Battery Designs

At present, EV batteries are not standardized at all. Proprietary batteries allow car designers to make them into whatever peculiar shapes take the best advantage of available space. Non-standard batteries also allow manufacturers to design batteries for the best weight distribution on any given car. After all, the battery is often the heaviest part of an EV aside from the frame itself.

But this would mean that every battery swap station would have to keep batteries for every EV in existence on its shelf. Of course, battery swap stations could restrict themselves to one EV manufacturer, which would make it a lot easier to maintain inventory. However, it isn’t realistic to imagine drive-thru battery swaps until EV batteries are all the same.

EV Battery Changes Are Very Laborious

Another problem with battery swaps is the cars themselves. EVs simply are not designed to remove and replace the battery in minutes. EV battery replacement is easier than an engine swap, but it still takes a long time. EVs would have to undergo a change in design for battery swaps to become viable. No one wants to wait for hours at a swap station every time the battery level gets low.

Indeed, it may be impossible to make EVs with batteries that can be changed fast enough. With ICE cars, the battery is usually at the top of the engine bay with at most four or five bolts holding it in place (unless the car is German, in which case it could be anywhere). Nevertheless, replacing a car battery still requires an inconvenient amount of time.

Battery Swaps Could Lead To EV Improvements, But May Not Be Worth It

Battery swaps could theoretically lead to a lot of things that the EV industry sorely needs in order to last through the next decade. A network of battery collection sites and shippers could easily give rise to a much more robust recycling system, which would prevent the looming lithium crash.

Battery swaps would also lead to EVs with easily-replaced batteries, which would dramatically reduce the associated labor cost. But perhaps one of the best possible outcomes would be battery standardization, which would make it a lot easier for EV owners to get an old battery replaced. However, battery swaps may not be the best use of all these hypothetical benefits.

Batteries Need To Change Before EVs Can Take Over From ICE

Whether battery swaps become commonplace or go into the recycling bin of automotive would-have-beens, the current generation of lithium-ion batteries is not good enough for most drivers. The continued prevalence of gasoline-powered cars proves this. Our own readers have told us that charging time and short driving ranges are the biggest shortcomings of modern EVs. Granted, lithium-ion batteries are good enough for short commutes and city driving. But internal combustion, even with its higher maintenance demands, continues to be more convenient.

Solid-State Batteries May Be A Better Option Than Battery Swaps

Of course, the EV industry has been working on solving its battery-related problems. One of the most promising technologies is solid-state batteries. These would theoretically provide anywhere between 500 and 1,000 miles per charge, depending on which company is issuing a press release about them. They also don’t degrade as fast as lithium-ion batteries.

Indeed, a few laboratory tests have suggested that solid-state batteries could last for decades. This would mean that the battery, like most engines, would be good for the life of the car. EVs could finally have the right to keep driving until they are stricken down by “old car problems.” Of course, in spite of years of research and billions of dollars, solid-state batteries have remained tantalizingly out of reach for the entire EV industry. But battery swaps remain just as unrealistic.

It is unclear whether battery swaps will become a routine part of EV ownership or not. However, they are one of the more interesting solutions to a problem as old as EVs.