Why Are Electric Car Batteries Not Removeable?
There have been a lot of new electric cars coming out recently, but we keep hearing about the "range" of the car, as though once you charge up the battery that's it. Most of us have jumper devices we can keep in our non-electric cars that'll recharge our batteries, and it would be a lot more convenient if we could remove the car battery and charge it in our home. We've also had ultracapacitors and other advances in battery and power supply technology for decades that one would think would make this a fairly simple problem.
So what's the limiting factor here? Why do we still have to run power cords out to our cars? And why can't we use solutions that already work with gas powered cars, with electric cars?
Suggestion:
Tesla Motors has talked about battery changing stations in the future. If that becomes reality the range will not be an issue at all and having to replace and maintain your battery should not be either.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Electric car batteries are very heavy. Not something you would just lift out of a car on your own strength. around 400 lbs give or take.
Because the manufacturers do not want you messing around with them. They often use a 48 volt buss, not a 12 volt buss as in your car.
The chances of an inexperienced "joe six pack" killing themself is very high, not to mention the potential of arcing and fire.
Firefighters have had to go through training procedures to know how work around those batteries because the lithium ion batteries have a tendency to explode. They will go off with more force than the inadvertantly triggered air bag.
There were suggestions of an infrastructure being established where a person could pull into a service station and get a fresh battery swapped in in about as much time as filling a gas tank- but the big oil companies had no interest in implementing it. Plus with no standard size a station would have to carry an inventory of dozens of batteries. And most just do not have the space.
The Chevy Volt as maligned here as it has been was designed to achieve what you suggest.
Joe backyard mechanic has no business tinkering with a 10 or 15 K battery pack. These packs are live and are about as dangerous as sticking your hand inside a 480 Volt live bunch of bare wires! Although it is DC Voltage it still would FRY you in an instant! I see morons every day hook up battery jumper cables backward every day. These people would be frying 15K worth of batteries every day. These packs are not like car batteries! They are cooles by piping have heat sensors that must be caliberated' and other sensors that need to be left to the experts..As far as a useful ULTRACAPACITOR? Vaporware! Might as well ask for a zero point module!
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