Like all newspapers this article is headline grabbing.
How will ‘the man in the street’ afford to buy a Duracell on wheels when the day that ICE’s are banned from sale finally arrives which I suspect will be much later than governments suggest.
The article concludes:
However, they are not an option for everyone. Hasty said: “There is a significant upfront cost of buying an electric car and installing a home charging point which will prevent many drivers from being able to afford this option.”
I would disagree, LG chem, panasonic and CATL make most of the battery cells to regular sizes as fittiled to most of the EV’s and therefore by default will be available and indeed are for replacement cells. Going from one manufacturer to another may be difficult for the reasons you mention but for the same reasons fitting the brakes from a mini to an Audi would be bad, they are just brakes but …
The upfront affordability issue can be handled by subsidy schemes as it is in Norway (where, for example, a new VW e-Golf is cheaper to buy than a conventional Golf and cheaper to run) - Norway is intending to stop all new fossil fuel car sales by 2025.
Some will no doubt at this point want to rehash the Tory Myth that such subsidies ‘cost taxpayers money’, so let’s be clear straight away they don’t: good investments in green technologies that save money in the long term neither necessarily increase taxes nor contribute to inflation. (Although there is an argument that investment in subsidised public transport would be even better.)
Incidentally, as I commented earlier in the thread, most people don’t need rapid charging points at home - really, they’re something you only need out on long journeys. Most people charge overnight at home and it’s fine to do this with a normal domestic socket. (Although of course this can be tricky for some - people that live in flats, etc.)
It’s old news now but did we discuss this?
Not necessarily the best look if you want to persuade people EV tech is mature.
Remember though that there have been many, many recalls of fossil fuel cars over safety issues - including fire.
I saw over the weekend that CATL has hundreds of battery swap stations in China and there are a couple of other battery swap chains too. Multiples of cheap electric car models across manufacturers are being launched in China too.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, from 1 July this year every new model of car launched must have driver-fell-asleep detection and other utterly essential safety, or surveillance, features. And from 2024 every vehicle sold new, even if it’s an older model, must have these safety expenses, sorry I mean features, added to their price.
Frankly, with all this nannying, I can’t wait for a car that I can reliably jump into, tell it the destination and settle back to read a book.
Interesting…
“Most of the extra energy you need to go faster than 80kph (50mph) is involved in getting the air out of the way of your car as you drive. It is not the only thing that is affecting you, but it is the dominant one,” says Downes [Professor of Mathematics & Astrophysics at Dublin City University].
And as you drive faster, the amount of air resistance increases. “If you go twice as fast, your air resistance goes up by a factor of four. If you go four times as fast, it goes up by a factor of 16, so it is really bad,” he says.
“That is why it makes such a significance difference what speed you go at, once above 80kph.” In the case of a 2014 Golf GTI – which has a fuel efficiency of 37.2 miles a gallon – a five-mile journey at 50mph on a motorway can cost £1, based on the current average price of petrol.
If you increase your speed to 60mph, that goes up to 1.22p; at 70mph, £1.48. This amounts to an extra 50%. Break the law, and drive at 80mph, and it will cost £1.78 for the same journey.
I thought that this was pretty common knowledge, having been amply demonstrated years ago.
The inverse square law. Same thing I use to reduce the power for a pool pump and filtration whilst only marginally reducing the flow (otimising the flow)
The Bugatti veyron needed an additional 80hp to make it go a couple of mph faster to retain its record
Not so much inverse square law, just square law - air resistance rises with the square of speed.
In the same way kinetic energy (mass x velocity2) rises with the square of speed so a 60mph crunch packs twice the energy of a 30mph crunch.
Use a (marginally) bigger pipe 
Flow resistance is inversely related to the fourth power of the radius! (I forget the exact equation).
Yep! But many other improvements to reduce the friction and the saving is massive. Hard to believe pool and other industries just dont evolve.
All the cells will be uniform, well cylinders with cylinders with for example (though I think I read Tesla is developing larger cylinders that will be cheaper, but less efficient?) but is it possible to open up the actual battery if it forms part of the chassis, are the cylinders replaceable items or is the battery pack a sealed unit?
It will be possible to open up to change out cells.
plus the 135 fine and points 6 weeks later. So that journey cost all in around 136.78 plus the points. Cheap at half the price really. 
He’s going from 18650 (18mm x 65) to 4680 (46mm x 80), or trying to.
The new cell has a larger volume so the ratio of “energy storing stuff” to “other stuff” is better.
However with a smaller surface area to volume ratio getting heat out of the new cell is harder.
It’s not especially revolutionary.
From memory, the new cells conduct via the edge of the layers rather than the top and bottom as you have with a regular battery so more effecient in the charge/discharge cycle.
Could be tempted…
Haha, I posted that a while back.