Japan gets battery swapping electric taxis You'll soon have a one-in-15,000 chance of hailing an all-electric taxi when in Tokyo. The electric-vehicle entrepreneurs at Better Place have announced a partnership with Tokyo's largest taxi fleet, Nihon Kotsu, to conduct a pilot project that will supply "up to four" prototype electric cabs to a city that currently houses 60 …
This seems a pretty good thing for the Japanese government to support.
Given the time is money / time off the road costs money thinking behind taxi firms the swappable pack would seem the right way to go. Better chemistry comes along all packs upgrade in a day. Accept vehicles will (for the time being) outlive the pack and swap it out as it fails.
Break down failing battery into its cells and re-cycle good ones back to new batteriers?
Its a start. A small one, but the Japanese have shown they like to start that way. Japanese cars first appeared in Sweden and Finland. They are rather more widely available now.
Seriously, this is the sort of use that electric vehicles are ideal for. lots of stop-start motoring in heavy congestion with long periods sat at idle waiting for the lights to change.
Add into this a potential to improve air quality in the city it really is a no brainer.
proof of concept has been around for 50 years in the form of the milk float.
The only trial here is the quick change battery pack. If that proves reliable and has enough capacity for continuous use without having to go back to base every 5 minutes, I can't see any cab driver having any problems with this at all
Paris? Well it would work in that city as well
"We need to find a better transportation energy platform...one that does not depend on magic liquids bubbling up from the bottom of our oceans and spews the carbon so neatly stored in the ground back into the atmosphere."
Thus, we conclude that we now have a magical way of obtaining electricity for charging those swapped out batteries that does not depend on magical carbon storing liquids or solids. Or without even inundating vast tracts of land under water.
Certainly, this would clean up the air in the cities. But I disagree with the founder's sentiment there.
</rant>
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