M3lover
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2005
- Messages
- 1,958
- Car(s)
- S204 Mercedes-Benz C200 CDI BE T
I've had a bit of a eureka (or possibly dumb idea, you decide) moment here, thanks in part to photography. Make the most of it because it doesn't happen often.
For electric cars to work now they need to think differently. If the battery in a pro photographer's camera runs out, he doesn't wait to recharge it, he takes it out and replaces it with another that has been charged and is ready for use.
This is what needs to happen with these cars. A standard battery design must be agreed on, some kind of cartridge that can be taken in and out of the car. It would probably be long and narrow, with 3 or 4 fitted side by side behind an access panel at the back of the car. Instead of charging stations there would be battery replacement stations, where automated units will withdraw the battery and replace it with one that has been in the machine charging.
This removes the problem of charging because a new battery goes right in and is fully charged and also removes the problem of old batteries, because the batteries are owned by the company that runs these units. You would rent the battery from them, much like you do with a gas bottle. When it's empty you go back and get another that's topped up.
The only flaw I can see in my plan is range. If you drive 80 miles to work and back then you'd be changing batteries quite regularly, so range would need to be extended to suit, and battery replacement units would have to charge based on remaining battery power. Clearly, as all plans, it needs work.
It would certainly remove the 13 hour charge issue...
Hehe, your idea is actually good enough for someone to go ahead and do it soon.
Better place is planning to set up excactly what you descibed in Denmark, with battery switch stations.
See "switch stations" under "the solution". You even get a neat little video of it.
If you had thought of this 10 years earlier and patented it you could be a rich man now
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