This one is best post of electrical battery switch of taxis.I like this one idea to launches switchable battery on Tokyo city.This one is very nice interesting facts of electric battery of taxis.

Taxi operation is predestinated for EVs. There have been several studies on that before, and we are developing a system to work with taxi companies and with city governments in order to find potentials and implement the system.

From the technological and practicable point of view, EV-Taxi operation is just great. London got that, and it's going to be funny (http://www.green-and-energy.co...

Thank you!
Olmo - Blogger at http://www.green-and-energy.co...

good to see you are still greasing the wheels Fujii

have a nice day will make our body healthy,i also like travelling .

As a blogger that has been traveling the world for the last 7 months documenting efforts towards environmental sustainability, I will be looking for one of these taxis when I arrive into Tokyo 10 days from now. Is there anyway to increase the odds of getting one of the EV taxis, going to a specific terminal, etc.

How many switchable battery taxis in Japan :
-- Are there today ?
-- Will be there in 2011-may ?

You like to see brake-even; please jump to http://d3dhemmer.com/ICE2EVcal/
please adjust to your need. We are sorry not to support you with better information.

I see the NY Times reported the taxis carry a 17 kWh battery giving a range of ~50 miles. Does this mean one could not take an EV taxi from Roppongi Hills to the airport, and back, with even a fully charged battery? (That's the new airport - Tokyo Narita).

I have not found the source which states that the battery has 17 kWh capacity. I have found instead this photo (http://bit.ly/bGOJPJ) of the iPhone app used to monitor the condition ans SOC of the batteries.
The display shows ~85 km for a battery with SOC 99.5%. I have no idea, if this range is a first guess assuming worst case energy consumption or the typical range. The remaining range might then be calculated during driving based on the real energy consumption depending on the driving habit of the driver, the route, the traffic patterns (constant high speed, stop and go etc.).
But this value is far below the 100 mile target which seems to be the magic bar which need to be met by the BEV.
So one can say: Better Place did not disclose the naked truth about the range in the real world. Maybe the test need to run several weeks to see the typical range which is possible with the given battery. After that I would expect that Better Place shows some statistics about the real world range.

I'm an optimist and would say: The Nissan Dualis may be not the perfect car to be used as an EV because of weight and maybe limited space for accommodating a battery with higher energy capacity (e.g. 25 kWh).
If cars would be used which are constructed from the beginning as EV like the Nissan Leaf or the Renault Fluence Z.E. the performance would be better in terms of miles/kWh.
I see two conclusions out of this:
- The car manufacturers targeting the EV market need to drive down the weight of the car to improve the ratio between the car weight and the "payload", the passengers. BMW is already planning to introduce carbon fiber into the manifacturing of their first EV.
- If the battery technology improves, Better Place is able to silently replace the current used battery packs with higher capacity ones. and this is the real beauty of this technology. Try this with your GM Volt...

So I would recommend BP to play with open cards and to communicate real world values as soon as available about the range of the EV-Taxis and how much energy they use up per mile/km/hour etc.
No one will beat them when these hand made EV do not hit the 100 mile range bar, when the switch technology works just fine.

One interesting question is, if the switch mechanism in the Tokyo station is the same which will be rolled out in Israel. Hope we see the next milestone in Israel.

Sorry wasn't the NYT:
http://www.allcarselectric.com...

"""
Modified Nissan crossovers

The cabs are specially modified versions of the Nissan Dualis (sold in the U.S. as the 2010 Nissan Rogue compact crossover). Each carries a 17-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack that will provide roughly 90 kilometers (56 miles) of range.

That's a smaller pack than the 24-kWh versions to be used in the electric Renault Fluence vehicles that will be the first Better Place cars in volume production.
"""

Which is fine - these are only converted vehicles for a trial. I am curious as to why they opted not to go with a full size 25 kWh battery. Several reasons come to mind, but I'm guessing in a converted EV there's not enough space between the stock frame members to fit the full size battery. Of course, BP might have made it clear these taxis would be shorter range given Agassi uses the 100mi figure nearly every time he speaks.

Congratulations on this social feat.

I'm curious to see how BP handles depleted batteries in taxis on the road in this trial. That is, inevitably some driver will go out a little far and get caught. One can't walk to the gas station the next block down and fetch a liter of electricity. I'm sure BP has planned for this eventuality, but what have they settled upon? They could a) roll a temporary charge truck out just as is done for dead 12V starter batteries, or b) supply each taxi with a charge cable compatible with local utility outlets, or c) supply each taxi a 12V converter capable of 'jumping' off other conventional vehicles, etc.

It is unlikely with networked taxis that we'll see one of these three taxis stranded in 90 days, but no doubt BP realizes it can not afford to have a dead battery stranded taxi out on the street for even a moment if the press catches it in that state.

I wonder if BP has chase vehicles to eliminate any negative possibilities?

How about EV to EV charging ?
I wonder if the EV engineers have implemented some Vehicle 2 Grid (V2G) or Vehicle 2 Vehicle (V2V) energy transfer capability. In this case they could use the 4th EV to be the "blue angel" for an EV with depleted battery and transfer some of its energy to the stranded EV. If this is a DC transfer, this would allow a transfer with high rate because the source EVs battery is able to deliver high current to the empty battery. If you will every EV could be a potential mobile quick charge station.

Yes good idea, essentially today's common jumper cables carry enough current (though not suited to the high voltage for EVs) to give an EV a quick kWh or two; enough to limp on to a standard charge point or switch station. Unfortunately this won't be practical until there are many EV's on the road. Meanwhile, one would could make do with the 14V alternator/battery from the common starter electrical system of combustion vehicles, _given_ a DC/DC (14 to 160) voltage converter in the circuit.

When I moved from Detroit to Bangkok I was amazed at how cheap taxis were. When I found out they were about $.03 per km because they ran on CNG I was so angry that I had never seen a CNG or LPG station at home (I left in 2000).
I wonder how outraged people will be in Detroit when they find out how cheap commuting is with a Better Place EV!

Great! Hope this happens soon in Israel.

What an achievement, congratulations!
Just hope Nissan will ramp up battery production rapidly for expansion in all markets.
Wolfgang

I wonder if anyone knows how much would it cost to buy a complete "tunel" such as the one used by better place to replace battery from below part of cars in gross figures (gross numbers). What I need to know is materiel plus handworking to install it.

Also, if it would be possible to know which is the standard weight for the battery that this system is considering for such operation.

Thanks everyone!!

Check out this video of an one1one interview with Shai Agassi in Tokyo today
http://youtu.be/0py6bnpW7wY

He states that the taxi project is a "huge movable demo center" and a great opportunity to introduce EV driving experience to the public.
If the cost of operation is lower than for traditional ICE taxis - and I bet it is - then Shai might be right with the outlook that such EV taxis will be introduced in large urban centers around the world.

Thanks for the video link net_worker. I note Agassi mentions temperature - the first time I've ever heard him address personally it:

"Q: What is the range of these cars?
A: [...]again we haven't tested all driving conditions in all temperatures"

He goes on to say production cars, I assume that means the Renault Fluence, will get 5 miles per kWh. That's remarkable, better than the Tesla sports car reports. Renault BP could still manage 100 miles from a 25 kWh battery in the 20% derating Winter.

net_worker said: "If the cost of operation is lower than for traditional ICE taxis - and I bet it is - then Shai might be right with the outlook that such EV taxis will be introduced in large urban centers around the world."

No doubt you are correct for a fuel cost comparison: Electric miles should be 2-3 cents/mile and well over 10 cents/mile in Japan for gasoline miles. Battery and switch station capital costs will consume some of that difference.

Taxis are a perfect fit for the BP model. EV-Taxis w/ BP avoids the wide spread installation of charging stations, avoids the out of area problems, avoids residential installations, avoids battery standardization issues. It is such a good fit I think BP should forego a big push to individual EV owners until the battery technology a) improves a bit and b) more of the auto industry comes on board with battery switching.

Agree that taxis are a perfect application for EVs. There are other fleet type vehicles like delivery trucks (UPS, FedEx, USPS...) or short range delivery (Pizza service, medicament distribution to drugstores) which will benefit from electrification.

One difficulty with the taxi project could be to manage that the EV-taxi is near the switch station at the end of the battery capacity. So the taxi service center need to schedule the passengers in a way that the EV-taxi does not end up at the other side of the city with a depleted battery.
If the EV-taxi project is continued after the test period, additional switch stations, placed at the right spots in the city, would eliminate this remaining small issue. It should be no problem to find the optimal locations for the additional switch stations by analyzing all taxi routes during a year and place the switch stations at those places where taxis are most likely will have a depleted battery. Nice optimization problem...

Yes, that kind of routing control is bread and butter for taxi operators every day. To service the individual vehicle owner, there's little choice but to evenly distribute charge and switch stations geographically. But for taxis a hand full of switch stations could be strategically placed, and the taxis routed to fairs that would bring them close to one at low battery capacity.

This is another breathtaking milestone delivered by Better Place.
Congratulations to the team which made this station a reality. I'm totally excited!

I which you that the station is operating without flaws during the test period and far beyond. A rough calculation gives a total of 800-900 switch cycles for the test period - this should be no problem at all for such a station.

Tokyo might be the first city where taxi passengers ask the driver to take a longer route to the destination when they are lucky enough to get into one of these EV taxi:-)

Why the delay from the original announced date of January? Don't want to demonstrate anything in the Japanese winter?

Have you ever heard of a project with the complexity like the 1st public battery switch station of its kind to be ready on schedule ? I don't.
Do you seriously believe they have delayed the construction to avoid the operation in cold weather conditions ? This is ridiculous.

Well the switch station is not open to public vehicles, the trial is just for these three taxis, and it is only the first in Japan. As an aside, NYC had a battery switch taxi service some 95 years ago, city wide.

Perhaps the delay was due to complexity. Perhaps not. Do you know how much depends on the range predictions of these already limited range vehicles? GM and the other 4-500 range PHEV makers will hammer the EV people unmercifully if given a chance by hyped range info. Do you have any idea of how many EV trials of various fleet services like the US Post Office and others have been tried in the last two decades only to have the performance found wanting resulting in cancelled programs? I think it is very likely BP knows very well, and utterly naive to expect BP won't do everything it can have their trials take place under the best of conditions.

Working the kinks out of battery switching with a taxi service makes a great deal of sense.

However, I don't see how that two story, thirty meter long, twelve battery switching bay shown in the photographs is repeatable across an entire country like Israel? The figure commonly quoted by BP for deployment in Israel is $500,000 per station. First, $500k won't buy a prototype station such as the one shown in Japan even larger quantities (100). Second, stations that size are not compatible with the smallish Dor Alon road size gas stations with which BP has contracted for switching stations.