A San Francisco start-up called Ample wants to make changing electric vehicle batteries work in the United States, contradicting a history of space failures.
When electric vehicles were gaining ground in early 2010, Tesla and a start-up called Better Space promised that all of its customers would have the convenient option of changing batteries.
“Hopefully, this is what finally convinces people that electric cars are the future!” Musk said, gathering a crowd in a flashy demonstration in 2013, before sending them out to enjoy a party. In that demonstration, Musk said the battery in a Tesla Model S could be replaced in about 90 seconds.
But the two companies failed to make the exchange commercially viable – Better Place closed in May 2013, despite raising $ 850 million in venture finance, and in June 2015, Musk said customers were not even interested changing your batteries.
Meanwhile, electric vehicle companies have improved their battery and charging station technology, so that their cars can drive more kilometers on a single charge, and owners can spend less time connected to charging stations when they don’t charge overnight. at home or in hotels.
Modular batteries for electric vehicles from Ample.
Wide
Because now?
But Ample thinks it is the right time to try again.
Ample now operates five battery exchange stations in the San Francisco Bay area specifically for Uber drivers. Participating drivers with compatible electric vehicles can exchange a used battery for a fully charged one in less than 10 minutes. At launch, Ample supports the Nissan Leaf – which is the main electric vehicle used by Uber drivers, and some Kia electric vehicles, but does not support Teslas or many other popular EV models. At the moment, the stations have a maximum capacity of 90 cars per day.
Eventually, Ample hopes to make switching an option for all EVs.
Even though EV batteries have improved over the past decade, Ample believes the exchange will be popular with fleet, delivery, service and tour drivers. They log hundreds of miles a day and don’t want to wear out their batteries by quickly recharging them each shift, explained Ample founder and CEO Khaled Hassounah.
Hassounah said his company’s approach is technically different from previous efforts.
The company spent about seven years developing robotics that can remove spent battery modules from a car battery and replace them with fully powered modules in less than 10 minutes. The Ample can replace just a few modules in a package or all of them, depending on how much of the battery has been discharged and how far it needs to go before returning home for an overnight recharge. In the past, companies that attempted battery changes exchanged only the entire package, not the individual modules within them.
Drivers can sit in the car or get out and stretch their legs while the switch is complete. The company is struggling to find time for a switch under 5 minutes this year.
Large battery changing stations are designed to be installed quickly along a route – they are prefabricated and assembled wherever they are desired, but do not require complex construction or permission. They only occupy the space of about two parking spaces.
Like most companies in the emerging field of electric vehicles, Ample is also looking to reduce the environmental impact of power generation to attack electric vehicles inside and outside the United States.
“With a kind of continuous battery update, a 10-year-old car can run even the newest model being launched this year,” he said.
Hassounah explained: “Electricity shouldn’t be a difficult decision … But it has to be cheaper and simpler, because we are not yet competing with gas.”
By removing and charging spent batteries during off-peak hours or using electricity from renewable energy sources to charge them before an exchange, Ample can help fleets achieve environmental goals and spend less on electricity.
The co-founders also said that the switch should allow used electric vehicles to remain on the road, performing flawlessly longer, instead of turning into electronic waste.
So far, the company has raised $ 68 million in risk finance led by the risk arm of a fossil fuel company, Shell Ventures, along with Repsol Energy Ventures and ENEOS Innovation Partners, energy companies that face disruptions while governments pressure for a wider adoption of electric vehicles. Transport and mobility investors Moore Strategic Investors and Hemi Ventures also invested in Ample.
Ample electric vehicle battery exchange station.
Wide
Challenges
Long-time electric vehicle researcher and automotive writer John Voelcker says any effort to change batteries in North America will face guaranteed skepticism.
“Changing batteries has huge challenges in terms of capital requirements,” he said. “Like bicycle sharing, it is not evenly distributed. It may make sense to have stations along a specific route, but the demand may increase during travel, such as during Thanksgiving. They will have to carry heavy batteries from one place for another to make it work. ”
Scott Case, CEO of Recurrent, a Seattle start-up that measures the health of an electric vehicle’s battery, said: “It’s definitely a professional that you can update your battery over time without paying for a brand new one. But there are a few risks that are low-tech if you are going to take batteries out of your vehicle repeatedly, such as dealing with dirt and grime from the road that may be introduced into your system. “
Ample says it was designed around this, in part by including a battery monitoring system on each replaceable module that can alert a driver if there is a problem and can disable only the affected module until the car can get in for a replacement.
Hassounah and de Souza know that they are facing skeptics. But, the CEO said, “We are making a big transition, a third of human energy consumption is shifting from one form to another. And whenever we make that kind of change, we will have to take a step back and rethink things.” For Ample, that means revisiting a good idea that didn’t work out, but that should probably work.
The company is not entirely alone. A high-tech EV manufacturer, Nio, has succeeded in launching a battery exchange service for its customers in China. NIO’s shares were up, being traded by more than 1,000% in the past twelve months, even after a recent downturn amid a broader market sale.