by "bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
Published 11/08/2017 at 06:32
by "bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
Published 11/08/2017 at 06:32
Tags: 2wheelsgood
; vespa
; piaggio
; electric vehicles
; scooters
STARS: 0
So, Piaggio announced more details on the Vespa Elettrica yesterday, and crushed my hopes for it being anything interesting.
It’s rated for 2 kW continuous, 4 kW intermittent, meaning it’s playing in the moped class (and I’d guess will likely end up limited to 45 km/h) - so I’m not interested. That’s not where I think they don’t get it, though - there’s plenty of market for that level of performance.
Where I think they don’t get it is that... charging involves plugging the scooter in, and they’ve got a range extended model.
This is a scooter . It’s for urban environments. With apartment dwellers. Where exactly do they expect you to plug it in - who wants to spend 4 hours at a public charger every 100 km? (OK, you could partially charge more often instead. But, still.) Battery swapping is, IMO, the way to go for scooters, at least up to the 150 cc class if nothing else - the batteries can be small and light enough for the rider to carry them into their apartment to charge, or you can implement a Gogoro-style swap network.
Honda seems to get it, as I’ve mentioned before , although it sounds like the PCX Electric may well be moped class - Honda’s Japanese site claims 0.98 kW rated power (AFAIK that’s continuous, so intermittent will be quite a bit higher).
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Also, a range extender... on something moped-class? If it had removable batteries, 100 km range would be more than enough for most riders, and for delivery applications and the like that need more, swapping to fully charged batteries would be an option - so this is fundamentally not getting it. While I think hybrids can make sense for longer distance riding (starting in the 125/150 cc class), in the 50 cc class, it’s not like you’re going to ride long distance trips that would need the range extender.
"pip bip - choose Corrour" (hhgttg69)
11/08/2017 at 07:08, STARS: 1
still better than any Harley-Davidson though.
"Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction" (rustholes-are-weight-reduction)
11/08/2017 at 07:13, STARS: 1
I completely agree, but would also add: why not putting a standard on battery packs for cars, allowing for quick, sub-5 minute changes, and create a subscription based network, taking range anxiety out of the process of driving an electric car?
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/08/2017 at 08:04, STARS: 1
I don’t see it being practical at car scale, for multiple reasons, really.
The first is
that I don’t see automakers adopting such a standard. The batteries are too
much of a point of differentiation for automakers (due to the technology being
in flux), they’re too tightly integrated into the chassis structure to be
shared between different platforms, and the vehicle’s width and wheelbase end
up being defined by the battery (assuming a skateboard platform). This means
that automakers would likely feel too confined by the battery as far as their
freedom to develop vehicle architecture.
The second
problem is that battery swapping is
hard
and
expensive
to do. Precision machinery that can do
all of the operations necessary to remove and install a 1200 pound battery pack
from the bottom of a car ain’t cheap.
And, really,
it’s been tried.
Tesla tried it, and basically nobody used it. Granted, some will
argue that it was meant to fail – it cost about $60 for a battery swap (versus
free Supercharging), there was only one swap station, you had to schedule
the swap ahead of time, and you had to come back and get your old battery.
However,
Better Place seriously tried it, based around the Renault Fluence Z.E. (with a
much smaller battery), and they got nowhere.
Ultimately,
I feel that cars, at least outside of motorsport, don’t need battery swapping
that much. Outside of extreme road warriors, here’s how you could do a long
road trip,
today
, in, say, a Model S
100D, if you don’t go too far over the speed limit:
· Depart in the morning with a full charge
· Run down to ~10% around noon, plug in at a Supercharger near
where you’re eating, come back to a significantly recharged car
· Stop for 15-30 minutes to use the restroom, stretch, and charge
up a bit at a Supercharger
· Back down to ~10% for dinner, you might have a fully recharged
car at the end of this
· Hit the road for a few more hours, possibly with another short
stop, and then arrive at a hotel and charge overnight
Now, in endurance motorsport, I think battery swapping will be necessary simply because the built-in breaks that someone on a roadtrip would make aren’t there – pit stops have to be fast. In trucking, battery swapping will be necessary because truckers tend to run longer distances between stops and with less downtime, and semis need more energy (so quick recharging would be higher impact), but it’s more feasible because a large battery could be on the trailer (maybe a smaller one on the tractor to get it between loads), and swapping trailers could swap batteries. And, in scooters, the batteries are small enough to be human portable, eliminating almost all of the infrastructure cost of battery swapping – the owner can lift the batteries out of the scooter and carry them to a swap station or to their apartment for charging.
"FTTOHG Has Moved to https://opposite-lock.com" (alphaass)
11/08/2017 at 08:21, STARS: 1
Range extender on something in this class is dumb. I like the idea of swappable/removable battery packs, but I don’t like the idea of standardized ones - each make/model should be using their own optimized to their frame and motor. Long term, I see quick changing and supporting infrastructure making the most sense. If there were outlets all over and we can get to maybe 25 km of range with a 15 minute charge, battery swapping becomes moot except for long distance travel, which is essentially only an issue for 150cc+ class like you said. TL;DR I don’t agree with all your points but I do agree this Vespa is dumb.
"Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction" (rustholes-are-weight-reduction)
11/08/2017 at 08:39, STARS: 0
Depends on how you design your car and battery packs, really. If your battery is embedded in the frame, it surely won’t be easy to change it, but if you take a smaller battery and put it on some slider system made for quick changes. The trick would be to make it a standalone module with a standard interface, as for aftermarket stereos.
The swap could be made quick and easily, if everyone worked in the same direction. But since manufacturers can’t even get a common charging port, I doubt that this can happen.
You could also imagine some kind of hybrid solution with a fixed battery and a piggyback battery.
The second issue I have with electric cars: why do they have to look terrible?
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/08/2017 at 08:57, STARS: 0
The big thing is that right now, automakers don’t care about compatibility, they care about capacity, and your proposals end up reducing space for capacity.
As far as electric cars looking terrible... depends on your metric of terrible, but there’s two basic answers: #1, they need to look Different(TM), and #2 they’re aiming for optimized aerodynamics (although to that I say, the Model S doesn’t look terrible - a bit anonymous, yes, but not terrible).
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/08/2017 at 09:03, STARS: 1
I’m personally not sure how I feel about standardized packs. It does make swapping networks like Gogoro’s easier - Gogoro actually intends to allow other light electric vehicle manufacturers to use their packs (because they openly admit that they’re an energy company that’s selling scooters to use their (subscription) batteries, not a scooter company - similar to the claims I made earlier that Tesla isn’t a car company).
However, straight-up removable and chargeable off the bike is enough, IMO, to make things much easier for apartment dwellers.
That said, for conductive charging, 25 km in 15 minutes should be easily doable - at 100 km claimed range, that means at a 1 C charge rate (which nowadays is considered pretty conservative for fast charging), you could get exactly that. (1 C means the full capacity in an hour (ignoring tapering at the end, anyway), which means 1/4 capacity in 1/4 hour, which means 25 km in 15 minutes.) The 4 hour claimed charge time that this Vespa has, though, is lame - I’d guess that this bike probably has 2-3 kWh, and 1 C charge rate could basically be done on a standard European outlet.
"Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction" (rustholes-are-weight-reduction)
11/08/2017 at 09:09, STARS: 0
Exterior is meh to me, but that giant screen in the middle console is worse than any stick on screen by Mercedes or Mazda
"Tekamul" (tekamulburner)
11/08/2017 at 09:22, STARS: 0
Having a combo of built in and removable is a no go. Power controllers cannot handle largely unbalanced charges, and the lack of balance shortens battery life.
As far as swappable, because the life of the battery largely depends on how you treat it, nobody wants to do swaps.
"Tekamul" (tekamulburner)
11/08/2017 at 09:25, STARS: 0
I didn’t see anywhere the voltage/capacity of the battery, which would determine just how removable it could be.
In my Zero, each pack is 42 pounds, and packaged to maximize volumetric efficiency, so they are essentially a cube. A very dense cube. Lugging them around is not fun, and makes me a little weary, since they’re $2500 a pop.
"Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction" (rustholes-are-weight-reduction)
11/08/2017 at 09:30, STARS: 0
That’s where the subscription part comes in. You rent your batteries, old batteries in the network get refurbished or replaced, and you don’t have to deal with your own battery not holding charge anymore after 5 years
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/08/2017 at 09:32, STARS: 0
This thing’s in the moped performance region, though...
Gogoro claims 110 km range at 45 km/h on their latest model, IIRC, and that’s with two 1.3 kWh packs, each under 10 kg (so under 22 lbs). And, they’re designed to be easily carried:
So, that’s why I’m thinking about 2-3 kWh total in the Vespa - that’d be about right for 100 km range at 45 km/h max.
"Tekamul" (tekamulburner)
11/08/2017 at 09:55, STARS: 0
But like any pool, that punishes the mindfull, rewards the neglectful, and adds a layer of built in profit for a middle man.
Not something early adopters enjoy.
"Tekamul" (tekamulburner)
11/08/2017 at 09:57, STARS: 0
That seems more reasonable.
"Rustholes-Are-Weight-Reduction" (rustholes-are-weight-reduction)
11/08/2017 at 10:05, STARS: 0
For early adopters, no. But I can imagine some variant of this happening with more widespread useage.
People do all kinds of stupid things for comfort: selling your car to the dealer to not have to hassle with a sale? Buy a new car to have a warranty that covers repairs if anything breaks?
If you offer quick battery changes and never have to worry about battery life? I can see this work
"415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°)" (415s30)
11/08/2017 at 10:39, STARS: 1
I’ve had lots of old vespas over the years, this guy used to do an electric kit for large frames. Since the engine is mounted on the swing arm and the fuel tank is back there he had room for batteries, he made a pretty cool toy. But I guess he stopped because all searches of the name etc.. lead to nowhere. I hate the new look of these, the bigger ones are better but they don’t really do it for me.
"bhtooefr" (bhtooefr)
11/08/2017 at 11:19, STARS: 1
Yeah, I’ve seen some conversions, the poor stock packaging of an old 2-stroke Vespa actually makes them ideally suited to electrification. Put a hub motor on there, drop 1.5 or 2 kWh of battery where the fuel tank went, figure out something to use the former engine space for, and you lose no space.