Battery Swap Program Begins in Tokyo With Taxi Company Demo
By John O'Dell April 26, 2010
Converted Nissan taxis line up in front of Better Place's Tokyo battery exchange station to kick off 90-day demonstration of the technology at work.
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By John O'Dell, Senior Editor
TOKYO - The launch today of the world's first commercial battery swap station for electric vehilces went off without a hitch - no big surprise as the company backing the technology, California's Better Place, has spent thousands of hours testing to make sure there'd be no goofs.
Perfection was important because the 90-day test program - which will utilize three specially converted electric taxicabs - is Better Place's first chance to show the world that a technology that's yet to be enthusiastically received by most automakers does indeed make sense.
A good showing also was important because the project was funded almost entitrely by the Japanese government, which had a lot of manpower in attendance at the opening ceremonies for the sparkling white-and-blue facility wedged into an alleyway near Tokyo's Toranomon business district.
Japan has committed to reducing its CO2 emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels over the next decade and the Better Place demonstration is meant to show that it would be practical to convert the city's 60,000-strong taxi fleet to electric drive systems to accomplish a big piece of that reduction.
While the taxis make up only 2 percent of Tokyo's automoibile popultion, they account for 20 percent of the city's CO2 footrpint, said Minoru Nakamura, head of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry's crude oil distribution unit - one of the agencies backing the project in hopes it will mark the beginning of a period of reducing Japan's need to import oil.
In the test program - which follows a shorter demonstration of a prototype battery exchange station in Yokohama last year - a trio of battery-electric taxis operated by Nihon Kotsu - Tokyo's largest cab company will ply the central Tokyo streets through the end of July, carrying passengers,collecting fees and putting the Better Place battery exchange system to its toughtest test yet.
The cabs, which average 180 miles a day and carry from 40 to 90 passengers on trips ranging from a few blocks to about three miles, will pull into the exchange station for a few minutes every 50 miles or so to drop off depleted battery packs and pick up freshly charged replacements.
The machinery demonstrated by Better Place today does that job automatically in less than 60 seconds - far faster than it takes to pump 12-15 gallons of gas into a conventional car.
The speed is critical - taxis don't make money when they are sitting still - and the demonstration project shows a new and potentially lucrative directon for Better Place, which also is heavily involved in encouraging private use of battery-electric passenger cars.
Providing a rapid way for electric taxis to recharge and get back out on the streets makes business sense in a way that situating battery swap stations along major highways and hoping the auto industry makes cars that use replaceable batteries still doesn't.
Taxis, after all, are relatively short-range vehicles that don't wander far from a central fueling facility, unlike private cars that may make short trips one day and long trips the next and need a widespread network of fueling spots to ensure continuing operation.
The Tokyo switch station features storage and thermally controlled quick recharging for depleted batteries pulled from the cabs. A battery used up by one cab could be ready to be reinstalled in another in an hour one or less - speed that is key to keeping the taxis on the road with minimal down time.
Better Place founder and CEO Shai Agassi told a crowd of more than 300 attending the dedication that battery switching "is the only feasible" way to solve EV range anxiety.
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Big Deal: Hundreds of Japanese journalists, analysts business exeutives and government representatives turned out for Tokyo press conference Monday announcing opening of Better Place's battery exchange station for taxis.
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It will enable drivers of EVs, whether commecrial vehicles or private cars and trucks, to spend their driving time on the road rather than waiting for long periods during a day's drive for a plug-in battery pack to recharge from the grid, he said.
Neither Better Place nor the Japanese government will disclose the cost of the demonstration station, which was constructed in just one week on a prepared plot using components made by a Japanese supplier.
Agassi has said in the past, though, that commercial stations built in volume should cost no more that $1 milion each.
To cover a city the size of Tokyo wih enough stations to serve a fleet of 60,000 cabs would require about 300 stations, hesaid,noting that stations for private vehicles could be spaced much farther apart than stations for 24-hour, 7-days -a-week cab services.
Better Place's business model calls for it to build andoperate exchange systems along with a network of on-street charign stations drivers would use for short "topping-off" charges for their vehicles batteries while they were shopping, dining or otherwise out of the car for relatively short periods.
The company is urging automakers to design electric vehicles with batteries that are mounted in removable packages. It so far has an active deal with Renault - which is providing at least 100,000 removeable battery EVs for Better Place to market in Israel and Denmark begining next year - and with China's Chery Automotive, whch has just executed a joint EV development agreement with Better Place.
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Israeli busnessman Idan Ofer, Better Place's chairman and a major investor, holds a Tokyo taxi receipt for 1,000 yen that shows he was the company' s first paying customer.
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Agassi and other Better Place executives insist, though, that the company is close to signing deals with several other major automakers and say that early reluctance to participate in a plan that calls for a high degree of industry standardization seems to be slowly evaporating as the need to reduce oil use becomes more pressing.
The Tokyo program, Agassi and others say, could help foster use and acceptance of EVs by exposing tens of thounsads of cab riders to the technology and by demonstrating the reliability and speed of the Better Place battery exchange technology.
The company next plans a full-scale demonstrtion of its entire program - swap stations, networked charging units and charging system control software - in Israel late this year, just before the formal launch there in 2011 of a state-endorsed, nationwide EV and EV infrastructure program.
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