Battery company R2EV and Fuel 2.0: Changing the electric vehicle paradigm?

November 19th, 2009

If you’ve followed coverage on R2EV, you already know that some are skeptical about the company’s battery, designed to be swapped out in a network of “Greenbox” facilities nation wide.

Perceived problems with interoperability, improper installation or short circuiting and decreasing life cycle of a fleet of batteries have all been cited as reasons to stick with a more conventional battery pack. Talking to chief executive Alex Livingston, though, one gets the impression he’s already thought of all this and has a solid plan to prevent such mishaps. In an interview at GreenBeat 2009, he clarifies some key points about his company’s product.

First, R2EV batteries aren’t some proprietary formula only available from R2EV and compatible with their Fuel 2.0 products. R2EV will be sourcing their cells from any battery manufacturer able to produce them within some basic parameters controlling the voltage and physical form for compatibility’s sake. The initial launch will be at the larger storage level and the primary consumer is expected to be the military, at least at first.

As the day-to-day realities of using Fuel 2.0 energy systems are figured out by the military (probably the toughest customer R2EV will ever have to deal with), the company will start expanding into the automotive market. This is where the real fun begins — because if battery change stations are strung out frequently enough, you could drive across the country with no more charge-time than an average ICE car would require fueling-time. Expect major cities and strategic transit stops on interstate highways to be their first locations opened. With time R2EV will adopt next-generation batteries with greater capacity.

This leaves a few questions about safety, though. After all, if Jiffy Lube can burn up an occasional engine with the wrong oil filter, could a similar type of station blow up a battery? Probably not, says Livingston. First, there will be only one way to plug a cell into the pack’s receptacle: the correct way. Second, there will be testable relays and display lights to indicate whether or not a cell is safe and fully charged. If a cell was showing substantially decreased capacity, Livingston says it would be taken out of automotive circulation and probably sold twice more for less demanding uses before it was recycled or disposed of.

This still leaves problems of adoption. While automotive companies are contracting their battery production to major cell makers it remains unclear which path to adoption R2EV is taking. They could sell their design to automakers and operate the swap facilities. They could also hit the after-market and offer a swap kit similar to their products for commercial fleet vehicles. This seems less likely to make it into the mainstream for personal commuter vehicles. According to its site, R2EV is “working with the world’s largest electric vehicle manufacturer to change the customer experience.”

Hopefully we’ll see the fruit of this labor soon.