Comments by "Bo McGillacutty" (@Mrbfgray) on "Will Tesla’s TRUE competition come from China ?" video.

Batt swapping must be a massive penalty for NIO requiring 2 batt packs for every vehicle and vastly greater charging infrastructure. I don't see how that model can last long.
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@mho0 That's a good point, maybe only say 1.5 or less per car and a modest size warehouse of packs at every station. Failed biz model regardless unless the CCP is going to subsidize the heck out of them indefinitely. That's assuming there is only ONE size/shape of pack which is naturally another penalty to that method...severely restricts car design and purchase options.
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@mho0 Say it takes 5 min to perform a swap and the station is running full speed (small line of cars constantly) and it takes 1 hr to cycle the batts, that would only be a dozen packs required but meanwhile you pay not only for the full time attendant plus significant chunk of a 2nd batt. If the station is running at that rate your likely to have a few cars in front of you so 15 or 20 minutes to get in and out vs. a "Supercharger" 30 min to deliver extra 200 miles of range. I'll opt for the cheaper option and plug in myself where I'm paying only for the electric with say a 20% mark up. (assuming there are enough chargers that you almost never wait for one, reasonable given you can buy 50 chargers for every swap station) If there is no line at the swap station then you have to also pay for the employee idle time between cars. Granted in China labor is still cheap but in the USA the combination of paying for the employee, extra infrastructure and batts is surely going to add some 50% to the price of charging. No? (((yes those numbers are guesses but reasonable)))
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@mho0 Great points. A quality mfg won't have any batt pack issues for half a M miles. You won't have the volume available for 150kwh anytime soon, not on most car designs, but around 100 plus. A swappable batt will demand a heavier less efficient, marginally more expensive chassis which translates to lower range and less electric efficiency too. Mass is your enemy. But as you said, the smaller 'daily' pack would benefit you in that respect so maybe it's a wash. I don't think the tradeoffs would be worth it to me but options and competition are always good. Super chargers probably cost 2% of a swap station but you may need 20 to 30 of them to match the swap station capacity.
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@mho0 One of my assumptions is that "Supercharging" times will approach 15 minutes in the coming yrs, well before the end of decade. I could be wrong about that but it appears that's where it's going, that to me largely negates the primary swap argument and swapping will cost significantly more if only to pay for attendant. It might be informative that Tesla early adopters were not interested in the swap proposal offered back then even when range and charging options were a lot worse.
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@mho0 The goal is safe long lasting reliable batts and I think that has largely been achieved already, for some options, and definitely will be. Don't plan on doing maintenance but instead make them maintenance free for say 1/2M miles.
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