See, Apple? Even cars can do it :)
So I can give an example. Here in Taiwan, Gogoro has put up a lot of battery swap stations for their electric scooters. When you buy the scooter, it comes with removable batteries which you can charge on your own. Or, you can buy a monthly subscription on top of it that gives you access to those battery stations, where you can ride up to one and swap a pair of freshly charged batteries into your scooter. Subscription price is tiered by Ah per month, if you go over the limit you pay extra per Ah.
In this case, yes I think Gogoro is in charge of maintaining/replacing old batteries. Subscription is separate from the scooter cost, so buying used should not affect your ability to subscribe to the plan.
it comes with removable batteries which you can charge on your own
so it is your battery and got additional batteries you can swap on the road with a subscription? That looks promising.
However, this works for scooters is because the battery pack is small enough for hand carry and install. It won’t be on typical 4-wheel vehicles as those are about a thousand pound. Even if we can modular and miniaturize it like how Gogoro does, where to install it is a big problem. Obviously we can’t install it in the front compartment as that will be a fire hazard when crash.
so it is your battery and got additional batteries you can swap on the road with a subscription?
No, you don’t get additional batteries. Once you start using the swapping service, the battery that came with your scooter goes into circulation. I suppose when you decide to stop subscribing to the service, the batteries that you have currently will be yours to keep. (I don’t own a Gogoro btw)
Yeah, and I agree that this system works great with scooters but not for cars.
Shame. It will be nice if I get a set of batteries I know well when the scooter used less frequently and charging at home makes more sense. Rather gambling on what’s the quality/wear level of the next set will be.
Guess that’s how they introduce new batteries into the system, and cost them lesser. As long as there are new scooter owners and using the service, there will always be new batteries entering the circulation. All they have to do is pull out old batteries not fit for using out of the loop, and maybe repurpose them for something else, like grid power storage system.
