Is NIO the NEW Revolution in Electric Vehicles? . ….. Mehhhh
No my friend battery swaps and Neo are still not a good idea or a good combination I’ve made a whole video about it and I’ve upset a number of the Neo faithful and they’ve come at me with brand new citations that are so amazing uh If Only They were rooted in fact I
Tried playing this it does not play well uh it is the text is very very small but we will get to that uh number one oh by the way I’m Brian welcome to my Tesla weekend I should welcome new YouTube channel members of Brett and Andrew I
Think Andrew is returning uh that’s cool thank you so much uh your decision to support the channel is how I can go to cool places do cool things and spend as much time as I do developing the analysis that ad do so swapping this is according to the
Co-founder of Neo the nine benefits of a battery swap swapping is as quick as refueling taking only 3 minutes for each swap what is this an auction you keep going lower what’s what come on 3 minutes it’s not 3 minutes and if anyone’s in line in front of you it’s
Longer uh 4 to 6 minutes 4 minutes is what they’re targeting 5 to six is what they’re actually doing eliminates range anxiety making travel to any destination conven vent any no sir you have to build the stations you have to build infinite stations in China they have deployed
Many many stations this is very helpful but the world is very large and the difference between a charging station and a swapping station is charging stations increasingly are brand agnostic swapping stations not so much I know that there is a coalition that’s trying to get behind this so that we can use
The same protocols and all that it’s going to take forever it’s going to be a problem and then what you’re beholden to Neo for their network is that really what you want to do no need to exit the vehicle fully automated process more comfortable than charging so no need to exit the vehicle
That means those 6 minutes cannot be spent going to the bathroom so if you need to do anything on your break on your stop stretch your legs go to the bathroom grab a snack add that time on you can’t multitask it like you can at a charger so that’s not the benefit you
Think it is and fully fully automat automated process that’s the goal I understand that’s the goal but if you look at photos and videos of Neo stations especially in China but around the world you will see that almost all of them have one or more technicians on hand
Almost all the time the objective is to fully automate they’re not there it’s very expensive in the short term and in the longer term to be determined flexible upgrades allowing small batteries for City driving and larger batteries for longdistance Journeys I haven’t seen anything in the pricing that delineates between the cost
Of a small battery and a big battery in terms of the swap it just says $14.55 why would I want who’s going to pick a smaller battery unless it’s somehow significantly cheaper and how would it be why would it be that doesn’t make any sense and now your station’s going to
Have what two three four different kinds of batteries sitting around Jordan gizi did a wonderful piece on the limiting factor talking about how it doesn’t make sense to have different batteries at one location because you’re going to run out of one or the other now if I get a too
Large of battery you can artificially cork it you can software lock it so I don’t get the full range kind of a jerk thing to do but okay but if I paid for the big battery and you give me a small battery I’m going to be a very unhappy
Customer so what are you going to do have 10 of each size just laying around in the back ready to go that’s getting complicated these stations are expensive they have to have all the charging infrastructure you would have for a charging station plus all this nonsense and if you don’t think it’s complicated
Let’s look again at the Picture This Is How complicated their setup is how which would you rather be in charge of building this rubbe Goldberg device or a stationary handle cuz this is I mean it just it’s a beautiful animation but it spells disaster it’s
Not even done what are we doing here oh it keeps going it’s endless oh it’s terrible why would you why would you want that less pieces less Part Parts procedures processes all of it just crazy number five separation of vehicle and Battery reducing the barrier to entry by eliminating the need
To purchase the battery separately that looks good in a bullet point they charge $199 a month for the battery in the us your warranty period is minimum 8year 100,000 mil over 8 years you’re going to spend $10,000 uh sorry $220,000 $119,400 on this battery 196 that’s not
Cheaper cuz at the end of the warranty when your battery was still covered anyway you don’t own the battery you own a car without a battery that’s that’s worse that’s way worse that doesn’t lower the bar for entry sure my car payment’s less but my total payment is
The same or higher that doesn’t make any sense at all each swap includes a battery health check ensuring safer battery usage so all cars have Diagnostics that check battery health all the time you can check it in the back if you’d like but it’s the same Diagnostics the
Diagnostics will still be performed in the in the circuitry of the battery that’s that’s not a thing that shouldn’t be a bullet point unless you don’t know how batteries work in an EV but even then it’s misleading at best so number seven optimize charging current extends battery life compared to fast charging
Methods does it we’ve seen studies conducted where they looked at the battery health after years and years of fast charging and found found the degradation was minimal if you’re going to be using these in any kind of high volume they’re going to be abused a bit
If you’re sending them out at 90% which you are cuz they’re not going out at 100% can’t compare it to a gas fill up because a gas fill up nobody stops at 90% either put in a couple bucks or you fill the tank they’re not sending them
Out at 100 because they know that would degrade the batteries they’ll send them out at 80 90% but as a owner you’re G to drive it all the way down if you’re going to make it into the next station with 3% you’re going to do it why wouldn’t you I don’t
Feel like stopping it’s not my battery anyway users will abuse these batteries and that’s the next battery you’re going to get there are incentives to treating your battery well and it’s because you own it I don’t know if you’ve ever seen how people treat rental cars but it’s
Not great sometimes they launch plaids into the air don’t do that optimize charging curve okay batteries can be easily disassembled facilitating Recycling and reuse you’re adding complexity you’re adding weight you’re adding cost anything that can be easily put back together and easily taken apart is expensive compared to something that
Can’t it’s got a got to have a lot more pieces this isn’t going to make recycling any cheaper or easier in any meaningful way and reuse car batteries already are used in second applications whether it’s in an antique car or off-grid storage a variety of things
Grid storage in the case of BMW in Germany at their headquarters this doesn’t help a swappable battery means you’ve added complexity cost and points of failure and weight you’ve added weight and I’ll be very curious to see how these connections hold up in places where the roads are salted where in the
Winter the roads are just caked with ice and mud on the bottom of your car how good’s that swap station going to work when there’s all that on the battery and then it’s going to go down into the machine now the machine’s full of salt water and and mud that’s I
Mean okay and the last one on here it’s tough to see vehicle to grid integration helps with Peak shaving reducing energy wastage and creating social value vehicle to grid intera action now they don’t mean vehicle to grid because once the batteries are in there they’re not vehicle but they vehicle batteries
Close enough that’s just that could be a semantic issue doesn’t matter so what if all these batteries yeah we’ve got 20 30 40 batteries sitting around yeah so what if we’ve got half a million dollars in batteries sitting at every location littering the world it’s fine because we
Can just use it to feed back to the grid we can be the deao mega pack the deao peer plants great most places most utilities do not have a program for that yet so you can’t in places where programs like that exist you need to file paperwork submit with Regulators to
Be listed as a utility and then wait years in many cases and in the US we don’t have a Utility Authority Most states don’t even have a Utility Authority it’s a patchwork quilt of utilities and wherever you are there are different protectionist rules that’s not going to
Work that would be a whole separate business with its own whole separate challenges and it’s not going to work and these people say yeah but it’s only $14.55 to swap it out for now for now they are losing money on every swap because they have to to make this look
Like it works so more people will do it so they can hit critical mass when Tesla rolled out the first superchargers they sold power at and in some cases below cost because that’s what they needed to do to get their foot in the market to get people comfortable driving cars
Distance people are comfortable with that not everybody most people and if you’re telling me that somebody well I live in an apartment the overlap between people buying 50 60 $70,000 cars and people living in apartments that can’t afford to get a charger is minimal they exist but they are not the
Most common a lot of people in apartments don’t have cars they might live in places walkable areas have Apartments the other thing is a lot of places have free charging you can go on plug share find all kinds of free Chargers oh yeah they’re level two they’re slow chargers right but they’re
Free that’s a better solution than this because this isn’t going to work and I don’t mean to pick on you Millennium Millennium is by his own admission a Neo investor since IPO superfan owns 28,000 shares I am not incapable of celebrating Neo’s successes but battery swap is not
One of them Neo did I believe he posted this one I saw it somewhere posted huge numbers for the year they exceeded expectations here it is yeah 4 7 to 49,000 for the fourth quarter was the guidance and they beat it you know barely but barely counts beating their
Own guidance that’s great now think how many cars they could have sold if they weren’t dumping all of those batteries into stations but putting them in cars think how many more cars they could have sold if they weren’t adding the weight the cost the complexity of a swappable battery system this
Number the 50,000 should be higher I’m not saying Neo doesn’t make a good car I have not experienced Neo’s cars myself I do not have an opinion on that I’m sure they’re fine these sales figures are quite good but the swap idea especially in New Markets is terrible it’s an idea whose
Time never came what did I miss what did I misunderstand if you leave a nasty comment about how I just hate Neo you better have watched this far in the video um because uh you won’t if you’re that deep into it this video is not for
You this video is for people who are capable of thinking critically and are willing to invest with their eyes wide open stay tuned stay juicy and I can’t wait to hear from you clever robots on the next one
You can support even better content creation at https://www.Patreon.com/GlossyNews, by becoming a YouTube channel member here: https://www.youtube.com/@MyTeslaWeekend/join, or subscribing on X.com here: https://www.Twitter.com/4kPodcast. Different methods offer different benefits like early access, bonus content, and less (maybe even no?) ads. Use my Tesla referral code and SAVE! https://ts.la/brian684642 Thanks for your support!
Huge courtesy to @OutOfSpecReviews for a few clips in the middle.
Edited by: Roshan Khatiwada
#Tesla #TSLA #EVs
