https://evbite.com/french-startup-offers-towable-ev-battery-to-quell-range-anxiety/ French Startup Offers Towable EV Battery to Quell Range Anxiety February 19, 2020 Denis Gurskiy
[image https://evbite.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/EP-Tender-Towable-EV-Battery.jpg EP-Tender-Towable ] Range anxiety is and will continue to be, a large hurdle for consumers to overcome if they want to get an electric car. Aside from the standard solutions of just putting larger batteries in cars or having more stations available, French startup EP Tender is going with a different solution. The company is looking to bring a rentable and towable EV battery. What does someone with a gasoline-powered car bring with them if they are worried that there won’t be any gas stations at their destination? Gas cans. Unfortunately at this point, there is not anything analogous in the EV world. The space that a backup battery would take would be much larger than your simple everyday gas cans. However, EP Tender CEO Jean-Baptiste Segard believes that he is on to something that could give EV owners the same peace of mind, stating: “We are solving the issue of making EVs which are affordable convenient on long distances,” As you can imagine, the ‘Battery Tender’ as its called, hooks on to the back of your EV as a precautionary backup in case you run out of juice in the middle of nowhere without a charging station in sight. The current battery tender has a capacity of 36.5 kWh but the company hopes to reach a capacity of 60 kWh within the next year, more than doubling the total battery capacity of something like the Renault ZOE. EP Tender is taking an interesting approach in having their towable EV battery be available for rent. There are many EVs sold that have a perfectly adequate range for city driving but would require a lot of stops if you wanted to go out on a road trip. With the battery tender, it would allow these people to comfortable buy their relatively low ranged electric cars and not worry about how little range it has in the context of road trips. EP Tender is envisioning a maximum rental cost of about $37 for the trailer. The company states that each trailer will cost about $11,000 and that a profit can be made by 2024 with 60,000 customers renting 4,150 towable EV batteries. Of course, not every EV has available tow hooks, especially the small Renault ZOEs and Nissan LEAFs of the world which EP Tender is presumably targeting with this product. The company states that they can retrofit a towbar and connectors for about $650. Overall the idea sounds interesting, but there are many hurdles considering the timeline of the product. Namely, will this product be necessary in five years? Electric cars continue to be released with larger batteries and longer ranges. Electric car charging station infrastructure will continue to expand, and who knows how abundant they’ll be in five years. The product can make sense for those people who have an EV with a range of less than 200 miles, but how many of those cars will be on the road in five years? New EVs will all have adequate ranges and I am skeptical that there will be a large market for used Nissan LEAFs. Report this ad Until we get batteries so energy-dense that a gas can sized battery can recharge an electric car, I don’t know of the success of any ‘spare batteries’ that come to market ... [© evbite.com] https://www.carsuk.net/is-your-electric-car-giving-you-range-anxiety-you-need-a-battery-trailer/ Is your ELECTRIC car giving you range anxiety? You need a Battery Trailer. February 21, 2020 Range anxiety in electric cars still exists, despite the constantly growing EV charging network ... It seems likely a similar ... https://www.carsuk.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Renault-Zoe-EP-Tender.jpg https://europe.autonews.com/blogs/french-startup-uses-battery-trailers-cure-ev-range-angst French startup uses battery trailers to cure EV range angst February 19, 2020 Nick Gibbs [image https://s3-prod-europe.autonews.com/s3fs-public/styles/width_792/public/EV%20trailer%20web.jpg EP Tender says it is in talks with Renault and PSA to factory fit the necessary tow bar and connectors to their EVs ] Customers who want to buy an electric car face the dilemma of either paying more to have a big battery pack and a long range or being forced to charge up their EVs more often. Paris-based start-up EP Tender believes it has eliminated the need to choose between cost and range. It's plan? Battery trailers. "We are solving the issue of making EVs which are affordable convenient on long distances," CEO Jean-Baptiste Segard said. EP Tender is named after small tender boats that service big ships. The company wants to locate compounds of rentable trailers on major holiday routes. EV drivers will pull up, wait for the trailer to autonomously hook to the back of the car, and then benefit from an extra 60 kilowatt-hours of battery power to take them to their destination or the next trailer compound. The maximum rental cost would be 34 euros ($37) for one trailer, the company predicts. EP Tender's initial idea was to put a combustion engine in the trailer to create hybrids out of electric cars and the company currently has 20 such trailers in use with customers, all of whom drive Renault Zoes or electric Kangoo vans. But the falling cost of batteries persuaded the company to make the switch. "The combustion engine version is still used by our clients, but we are not developing it as we have a lot more traction on the battery tender. Batteries have progressed a lot," Hugo Basset, the team's data science and simulation engineer, told Automotive News Europe at the recent MOVE2020 mobility show in London. Basset said the company is in talks with Renault and PSA Group in France to factory fit the tow bar and connectors to their EVs. Right now, many EVs are not homologated for towing, but EP Tender says that will change from 2022. Until then it can retrofit a towbar and connectors for 600 euros. Renault was an early pioneer in the quest to solve the problem of long-distance charging when it collaborated with Israel's Better Place in 2008 to introduce swappable batteries into its EVs, starting with the Fluence sedan. The gamble failed however, and Better Place was dissolved in 2013. A trailer carries far fewer risks, Basset argued "We're not spending millions on battery swap stations, for one thing," he said. The company is working through potential downsides. The trailers for example are being redesigned so the aerodynamic penalty is minimal. The trailers also incorporate a second set of smaller wheels that drop down to make reversing easier. There is another advantage. When not in use, the trailers can be linked to the grid to return energy at peak times. The target cost for a trailer is 10,000 euros, and the company's business plan predicts it turning its first profit in 2024 with 60,000 customers renting 4,150 trailers. In the still fluid world of EVs, range-extending trailers could be part of the armory that helps smooth the path from combustion engine to a more expensive electric vehicle. It might look ungainly, but the upsides could more than compensate. 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