Can small smart swappable battery EVs outperform gas powertrain economics?

This paper presents a traffic simulation model to explore an alternative to the EV industry bet for “large battery packs” (i.e. tens of kwh) which continues to suffer from two fundamental lethal flaws that prevent it from getting a significant penetration as compared to gasoline vehicles: range anxiety and unused battery life sunk costs. The model integrates driver roaming decisions, infrastructure layout, and battery pack characteristics to study the performance of a different system approach that could lead to EVs being significantly cheaper than ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles, simply by using what we call “smart small swappable batteries (SSSB)”. The basic idea behind our conjecture is to use small (on the order of 10kwh or less) and cheap packs and to swap them as often as possible so that the per mile cost falls below current gasoline price levels while the approach has neither of the two flaws above.