RJ Scaringe recently said that all battery production capacity combined is not even close to 10% of what EVs will need in ten years. In other words, more than 90% of the manufacturing capacity we’ll need has not even been created. That shows how important it is to find clever ways to use our resources, and Fully Charged presented two of them in its latest video: wireless charging and battery swapping.
As we have already talked a lot about battery swapping, it is worth discussing more about what Momentum Dynamics has developed. The company installed wireless charging plates in Oslo in 2020 to allow passenger vehicles to use its system. We’re not sure the company already has private customers in Norway because the video presented a modified Jaguar I-Pace owned by Momentum.
As John Holland stated, having wireless charging is more than just a convenience – which it still is. Momentum’s commercial director for Europe and the Middle East said that the main advantage of wireless charging is being able to use a smaller battery pack in a vehicle without causing range anxiety. If the car can stop over a charging pad, problem solved!
The idea works better with vehicles with a predictable itinerary, such as buses, delivery vans, ambulances, and taxi cabs. If these vehicles have wireless chargers in all places where they stop, they can have smaller battery packs and still work 24/7.
The reason for that is simple: the car would just need enough juice to go from one stop to another, where another wireless charger would get more electricity back in its battery pack. Momentum’s chargers can deliver from 50 kW to up to 450 kW.
It is a similar idea to that used by the Nissan e-Power and the Honda e:HEV systems, even if a lot cleaner and more efficient: they use a small battery pack just to get started, using a combustion engine to charge it again. Lighter vehicles can make the most of the energy they have to move, which means they get further than heavier cars with the same amount of electricity.
For that to work with private vehicles, the necessary infrastructure would be insane. Apart from preparing all EVs with a receiver pad – if they have enough ground clearance – the charging plates on the ground would need power stations that look like little huts close to them.
Yes, it is convenient just to park and start charging your car with no need for cables. At the same time, the necessary investment for it to work with passenger vehicles would be massive, not to mention the raw materials that would be necessary to build the wireless charging stations.
Battery swapping seems to be a better idea and Fully Charged tested it with a NIO ES8 in Norway. One of the drawbacks pointed out by the presenter is that the concept only works with NIO vehicles. In that sense, swapping battery modules that can fit any car, such as CATL’s Choco-SEBs or Ample’s shoeboxes, offers more advantages than a battery pack that can only be used by vehicles from one brand.
What the video shows is that the EV world is not set in stone yet. We’ll see many propositions until one of them becomes mainstream. As long as the automotive industry realizes consuming resources as if they would never end is a lousy deal, any solution is more than welcome.
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