Now, I know that a roll-out drivetrain wasn’t invented by Renault – in fact, I wrote about another van that did this with a rear-mounted drivetrain, the White Horse, and that one came out in 1939! But, it was when I saw that picture up there that I started to think about it.
So, as you can see, the whole longitudinal FWD drivetrain is an integrated unit up front there, and it just rolls out the front of the Estafette. So, let’s just play with this idea, what if that drivetrain was a big battery pack and an electric motor drive unit? And when the battery was drained you could just pull into a swap station, maybe the car drops some spring-loaded arms to support itself, and the drive unit, using a small amount of remaining electricity, creeps out of the car on its own power (stabilized by maybe a little drop-down caster), and then you can guide it to some recharging stall (that also checks things like the motor condition and tire wear) and a fresh, charged one then creeps out, ready to be guided to your car, where it backs itself into position and locks in, automatically? You could have one of these units at the front and rear, and you can choose the type of units: full batteries and full motors, just battery, just motor, or just wheels and suspension. You could transform your car from AWD to FWD or RWD three times a week, if you wanted. Or, you could put motor/battery-less ones in both ends and be stranded, if that’s your kink.
This double-end approach may lend itself to some kind of underfloor cargo area, like a tour bus, where most EVs carry their batteries today.
You’d pay some sort of monthly fee for this privilege, but you’d also pay a lot less for your car, because you’re buying something without all of the complicated battery or motor or suspension parts. Hell, technically you wouldn’t even own wheels.
In return you’d get battery swapping and zero maintenance worries, because all of the major mechanical parts are swapped out, maintained by whatever companies – and I’m imagining these types of cars as an open standard, so any number of companies may make compatible drive/battery/wheel units that fit. A cheap entry into EVs, plus a monthly fee, plus battery swapping (I bet you could plug these in, too, if wanted) and zero maintenance or repair worries.
Sure, there would be some drawbacks, like not getting to pick your wheels or maybe not getting access to exactly the motors or batteries you want, but because it’s so easy to swap, it’s not that big a deal.
Maybe most days you just have the low-end FWD battery and motor pack, but then you decide to drive to Tail of the Dragon, so you splurge and get the most powerful RWD package you can get and – oh! – a motor and battery-less front end, but it has a weatherproof frunk built in instead! And then if the weather gets bad on the way home, you can stop and get motors/batteries at both ends for an AWD setup, though you’ll have to figure out where to stash all the stuff you had in that frunk.
The beauty of EVs is that this sort of thing is actually possible, and I suspect many, many possible EV owners would love something with mechanicals that they just don’t have to think about at all. Plus, as new battery and motor tech develops, that could be deployed into the pool of swappable drive units.
Who wants to fund a startup? You can pick any title you want, even King/Queen Emperor/Empress or whatever. It’ll be fun!
I like the idea of a fully swappable drivetrain, but I fear you’d get into some severe logistical issues.
People are (rightly) not happy with manufacturers charging subscriptions to activate features like heated seats, but for the modular motor/battery approach you describe it makes sense.
Beat!
Adding on nlpnt’s comment. I think subscribing to a battery service would be more practical. The station would probably just use a forklift to insert and remove batteries from the side of the vehicle. The concept would be similar to switching batteries in a rechargeable tool, just on a bigger scale.
There were two versions. The first was a 36V system that topped out at 40 mph and got a 40 mile range. The next iteration used a 72V system, and could top out at 60 mph, getting a 60 mile range. A 7 horsepower GE series-wound DC motor was used, with a contactor controller running it(not a true controller, but a series of contactors, relays, and diodes that switch the battery configuration around depending upon position of accelerator pedal to adjust speed). They had a weight between 2000 lbs and 2135 lbs depending upon variant.
All the pieces of technology were there. With help from Renault, there could have been an electric Renault with a swappable battery back then.
Release would be a two-person job, one of whom has to have access to the car interior; at an official swap station only one tech would be needed with the car owner releasing the latches from inside, but theft would be made as clumsy, time-consuming and conspicuous as possible to deter it.
This concept is far from new though.
The major issues most will spout abut is the cost of the battery being the majority of the value, so who is ultimately responsible for it in a crash or if stolen (these would likely be the next cat converter to crackheads). there is also the question of home charging and how to properly handle that. then there is the liability should the battery catch fire? Car MFR, Battery MFR or Fuel Station?
I think easier and better would be to have all car companies make a standard range extender slot, kind of similar to a cordles power tool. you could put it on the bottom of the car so you can back into it and connect it or something, or just have a rolling cart. but the car should have enough programming to either pull that power to it’s battery or reserve the plug in battery for when the main battery is below a certain threshold and then flip to the aux battery. I think 50 miles for pack like that without water cooling or whatever would be ideal.
Get your minds out of the gutter!
People like the idea of flexibility, but they don’t actually want to pay for it.
It’s an interesting thought… but seems far more complicated than it would need to be to be practical.
Seems the ideal solution would be a battery chemistry that allowed extremely fast charging. That way manufacturers would be constrained by “standard” battery sizes.
I’d be happy if we just had torpedo batteries, like giant AAA cells that get shoved in through a port on one side, and perhaps even ejected from opposite side. Or inserted and removed from the rear.
It can’t be that hard, and cylindrical cells wouldn’t require any special alignment when putting them in.
Batteries would then be seen as the gas/petrol/diesel ( so an operational expenditure in corporate terms ) and not a part of the car ( a capital expenditure in corporate terms ).
If you manage to get all the car maker to standardize battery size ( small, medium large and even XL ), location and wiring, you can get semi-automated refilling stations that will replace you battery in a matter of minutes ( like refilling a gas tank ) for a fee ( the fee to recharge the battery you’re leaving behind. )… It would even keep motorway station and stops relevant as they would move into the battery swapping/refilling business. ( they would have to have enough power to refill many batteries and have enough batteries to meet the needs, but there’s market experts on that kind of thing that can probably give hard numbers for each battery size at a given location )
Now on the Estafette side. While I didn’t know about the roll out drivetrain, though it explains why our alpinism club mechanic was able to replace the right front wheel ball bearing in less than a week on his own and in his garage. ( the cage around the balls broke, and I drove it from Gavarnie to Clermont Ferrand with crunshing/gratting noise every time I turned the wheel… Interesting time )
