How to battle range anxiety
Even though we have made a lot of progress in the previous years, range anxiety is still an important stumbling block for EV adoption. So I thought I’d discuss some alternative charging methods that I came across in the past months and years:
BATTERY SWAPPING
Battery swapping promises to be an efficient alternative to conventional charging: instead of plugging in, you just replace your battery with a full one. It’s interesting, and there seems to be some demand - with Nio for instance recently investing in expanding stations in the Netherlands - but I also believe that this infrastructure may become obsolete in as little as 3 years. Battery swapping still takes up 10–15 minutes, which nearly rivals the efficiency of 20-minute fast-charging to 85%. So, I see this mostly as an expensive, complex and short-term alternative for a problem that will be solved in a few years. On the other hand, companies like Nio might also view this as a marketing cost they need to make in order to gather as big of a market share as possible in these pivotal years.
CHARGERS FROM LIGHTS
Recently, AT&T announced it has been partnering with startup Voltpost to turn streetlights into EV chargers, which are internet connected & report when they need repair. I find this is a fantastic example of practical problem-solving, enabling fast and cost-efficient infrastructure development by upscaling existing structures.
CARS WITH SOLAR PANELS
Though the concept of having your car charged through integrated solar panels may sound appealing, the reality is underwhelming. Since cars can’t fit enough solar panels to power the whole battery, they are at best provided with a few extra miles of range. At the very least, they only power the lights, heating or air conditioning. Like I said, pretty underwhelming. It’s also an extra cost added onto an already expensive car and, last but not least, the extra electricity boost depends on weather conditions. Don’t get me wrong, I love that there is so much experimentation in energy transformation, but, in its current form, this is not the right approach.
ROAD CHARGING
At the beginning of this year, Detroit installed the first wireless electric road in the US, allowing EVs to charge up as they drive. Though roads charging your car may sound like terrific UX, at a cost of nearly $2m per mile, I think it’s safe to say that this is not a great business model, especially in the long term.
It reminds me of the Nokia story, which in 2007, acquired Navteq to gain an edge in GPS navigation by building an expensive global sensor network. Waze, on the other hand used its mobile users' GPS data to create real-time traffic predictions. By 2012, Waze leveraged a far larger network of sensors, making its traffic models more accurate and cost-effective.
So I guess my lesson is here: road charging is too complex and expensive to solve the temporary problem of range and infrastructure.
Battery swapping promises to be an efficient alternative to conventional charging: instead of plugging in, you just replace your battery with a full one. It’s interesting, and there seems to be some demand - with Nio for instance recently investing in expanding stations in the Netherlands - but I also believe that this infrastructure may become obsolete in as little as 3 years. Battery swapping still takes up 10–15 minutes, which nearly rivals the efficiency of 20-minute fast-charging to 85%. So, I see this mostly as an expensive, complex and short-term alternative for a problem that will be solved in a few years. On the other hand, companies like Nio might also view this as a marketing cost they need to make in order to gather as big of a market share as possible in these pivotal years.
CHARGERS FROM LIGHTS
Recently, AT&T announced it has been partnering with startup Voltpost to turn streetlights into EV chargers, which are internet connected & report when they need repair. I find this is a fantastic example of practical problem-solving, enabling fast and cost-efficient infrastructure development by upscaling existing structures.
CARS WITH SOLAR PANELS
Though the concept of having your car charged through integrated solar panels may sound appealing, the reality is underwhelming. Since cars can’t fit enough solar panels to power the whole battery, they are at best provided with a few extra miles of range. At the very least, they only power the lights, heating or air conditioning. Like I said, pretty underwhelming. It’s also an extra cost added onto an already expensive car and, last but not least, the extra electricity boost depends on weather conditions. Don’t get me wrong, I love that there is so much experimentation in energy transformation, but, in its current form, this is not the right approach.
ROAD CHARGING
At the beginning of this year, Detroit installed the first wireless electric road in the US, allowing EVs to charge up as they drive. Though roads charging your car may sound like terrific UX, at a cost of nearly $2m per mile, I think it’s safe to say that this is not a great business model, especially in the long term.
It reminds me of the Nokia story, which in 2007, acquired Navteq to gain an edge in GPS navigation by building an expensive global sensor network. Waze, on the other hand used its mobile users' GPS data to create real-time traffic predictions. By 2012, Waze leveraged a far larger network of sensors, making its traffic models more accurate and cost-effective.
So I guess my lesson is here: road charging is too complex and expensive to solve the temporary problem of range and infrastructure.
