Future Battery Upgrade?

[trainsafe]

The charging speed (assuming you mean total charging time) = charging rate X battery capacity.

The battery capacity is fixed, but varies based on how depleted the battery was when you plugged it in (i.e. was it still half 'full' or completely empty).

The charging rate is programmed into the software. This is based on the safety of the battery. Better (more expensive) lithium cells can be charged faster. Jeep would have programmed the charger to match the cells that they purchase and install.

So an aftermarket battery that is twice as large would take twice as long to recharge, unless you got a different charger, or reprogrammed the existing charger.

Sponsored

 

[timuh60]

To add onto my last post. . .

I'm certain that Jeep is fully aware of this limitation. I suspect that they know the expected lifespan of this model in the marketplace. It will get replaced with a 'bigger and better' model. Jeep will entice all of us to trade up to the newer model in a couple of years. They come out ahead by getting us to buy/lease new models. They don't profit by having their engineers rewrite software for a three-year-old model just because somebody wants an aftermarket battery. The only software upgrades that I'd expect would be for recalls or safety issues.

Rewriting software for older models to give improved or completely new features is one of the main attractions of Tesla.

 

[blueweb]

How much less cargo space do you want? The 17 kWh battery is already protruding ~7 inches from underneath the rear seats. Any bigger size battery is either going to take up more trunk space or you'll have to remove the rear seats altogether to allow additional space for a larger battery. Plus with a bigger battery, you are adding more weight to the vehicle, which lowers the payload capability.

 

[Sboden]

How much less cargo space do you want? The 17 kWh battery is already protruding ~7 inches from underneath the rear seats. Any bigger size battery is either going to take up more trunk space or you'll have to remove the rear seats altogether to allow additional space for a larger battery. Plus with a bigger battery, you are adding more weight to the vehicle, which lowers the payload capability.

Into the future, there is nothing that says more kWh equals larger batteries. They could just get more efficient.

 

[Raylan Givens]

How much less cargo space do you want? The 17 kWh battery is already protruding ~7 inches from underneath the rear seats. Any bigger size battery is either going to take up more trunk space or you'll have to remove the rear seats altogether to allow additional space for a larger battery. Plus with a bigger battery, you are adding more weight to the vehicle, which lowers the payload capability.

I assume people are talking larger capacity, not larger in physical size. Based on technology improvements you should be able to produce a smaller physical footprint while still having "more power"

 

[TDangelo1219]

No.

 

[dudemind]

Few paths to future "upgrades", but you guys are being a bit optimistic if you're thinking it'll have any real-world significance for people buying EVs/hybrids today.

The easiest route is by swapping out the individual cells themselves. Batteries in nearly every large electronic device consist of an array of cells in common standard formats (the two most widely-used are the ancient 18650 and the newer 21700). While this is a simple plug-and-play swap in most cases, the problem stems from the fact that higher capacity comes with necessary tradeoffs in longevity and stability. It isn't as simple as cramming in the highest-capacity cell you can find. Furthermore, for a given physical dimension, the rate of "trade-off free" improvement in capacity occurs at a painfully slow rate, we're talking low-single-digit percentages per year. The whole reason the 21700 form factor was invented was because companies (like Tesla) were hitting what they felt were theoretical maximum efficiency levels with the 18650 -- and you would hope so, given that the form factor is over a couple decades old now.

The next route is by swapping out the traction battery entirely in favor of one built to use better cells. I don't know what type of cells the 4xe uses right now, but I'd guess it's the 18650. A logical "upgrade" would be to switch to the 21700. Tesla is moving in this direction with their newer cars, but there's an important point here: Tesla isn't producing upgraded 21700-filled packs for their existing vehicles, only putting those cells into the batteries of new ones. Jeep is absolutely, positively, not going to produce a newer-architecture pack in a decade to help us 4xe owners retrofit our 2021 models. It's just not happening. Instead, your hopes would be banking on some niche third-party to come around and do the legwork for us. This isn't impossible. In the e-bike world, for example, there are a lot of providers who do exactly this type of thing: they use existing packs and strap/weld a bunch of newer/better cells together into the proper configurations in order to "trick" the battery shells into accepting the internal upgrades. But, again, as of today, these very often are random dudes with soldering irons doing the work in their garages, not professional organizations/entities governed by any sort of authority figure. Now, there are a few companies who are attempting to modularize the battery pack and turn it into a quick-swap ordeal. Tesla tried their hand at it, but abandoned it in favor of their Supercharger network. Nio (a Tesla-competitor in China) has successfully done thousands of swaps in their market. And very small startups like Ample are working with the OEMs to develop manufacturer-supported third-party packs that can be easily swapped out. In theory, if this becomes more popular, there could be a bunch of Ample-like players who jump into the space. But we're talking at least five years out, by which time most of us will likely be shopping around for whatever is next, not trying to fix up our first-generation 4xes.

The last path to future upgrades is the holy grail: solid state batteries. The battery tech in use today is very much ancient. Lithium batteries have slowly evolved, gaining mid-single-digit-percent improvements per year or so, but the core underlying chemistry has been around for half a century. For the past decade or so, various parties have been researching solid state batteries, which would result in more power, less weight, faster charging, and less-volatile batteries. Many have also been successful in demonstrating the viability of solid state in laboratory settings. The problem is that none of them have come up with a way to turn it into a scalable, mass-produced, affordable alternative to lithium technology. It'll get there, eventually, but companies have been saying "in the next few years" for quite some time now. If we make the assumption that somebody does produce a mass-market-ready solid-state solution in the next five years, we still have the same problem as in the previous paragraph: somebody else then taking that newer battery tech and creating the physical packs, along with figuring out how to make existing vehicles play nice with the newer, unexpected packs. Realistically, I'd say it's a least a decade before anybody even comes up with a partially-working solution for us. Furthermore, there's also the problem of where competing lithium technology is today. Manufacturers aren't necessarily compelled to spend a ton of money in an arms race to be first-to-market with solid state. Their benchmark is actually much lower: beating traditional ICE-powered vehicles. But we're already at the point today where, for most people, an EV is comparable in cost, performance, and range to a gasoline-powered vehicle. This means that alt-energy vehicles are finally seeing more widespread adoption, even without the promise of solid state tech. Will manufacturers continue to research newer battery technology anyway? Of course, and most are invested heavily in many separate companies dedicated to next-generation battery research. But that'll play second fiddle to the problem at hand: selling vehicles today. For what it's worth, Tesla and Fisker (among other companies) have already taken this exact view: that existing lithium tech has improved to the point where investing in solid state just doesn't make sense at the moment.

Long story short, it's true that there will be a constant improvement in battery technology; and it's also true that there probably will be at least some potential upgrade path for owners of today's EVs and hybrids. But, barring any massive industry-shattering breakthrough, none of those upgrades will be meaningful enough, nor arrive soon enough, that they're actually worth looking forward to for your current vehicle. To believe otherwise is either insanely hopeful or positively delusional. Save your hopes and dollars for whatever car you'll want to buy five years from now.

 

[digimark]

I'm watching JK Gear & Gadgets on YT fit a 6.4 Hemi into a 2010 JK. And converting it to AT from MT. Seems to be working out OK. I supposed someone down the line could delete the 2.0T and convert the motor/transmission to full electric with enough motivation. Plenty of room for a new battery pack if you remove the ICE.

 

[dudemind]

I'm watching JK Gear & Gadgets on YT fit a 6.4 Hemi into a 2010 JK. And converting it to AT from MT. Seems to be working out OK. I supposed someone down the line could delete the 2.0T and convert the motor/transmission to full electric with enough motivation. Plenty of room for a new battery pack if you remove the ICE.

Sure, with enough motivation and budget, you can do just about anything. Plenty of fantastic classic EV conversions out there. But the original question wasn't merely if it can be done, but whether there'd be a simple way to swap out solely the battery for a meaningful upgrade "in a few years". It specifically mentioned the apparent ease of removal on the 4xe, versus on a vehicle where said battery acts as a load-bearing member of the frame, like, say, a Tesla.

I have a feeling that the idea of a battery swap, in the context of potential performance upgrades, is going to become the EV/hybrid equivalent of the famed "LS Swap": plenty of people will talk about it like it's a simple drop-in mod in any application, but there'll be very few people who understand the time, headache, and budget involved in actually getting it done in practice.

 

[JandS]

Unless you’re driving a 1966 vintage vehicle with a distributor and no computer an EMP will fry the electronics on gas and electric cars alike.

Back to the OP’s question. I hope battery density improves and costs go down in the next few years. That said, assuming battery costs drop from current rates of $200 per kw to $100 per kw and assuming any additional weight could be accommodated, doubling the current capacity would only get you 25 miles further at a cost of $5,000 for the new battery. I don’t see the math working except on new models.

Leave the facts elsewhere, I just want to knock EVs because it boosts my low self esteem.

 

[MissAnnThorpe]

Now we are past that silliness, any real thoughts?

My AOE is embedded systems programming, so I'm not a battery expert, but I'm wagering (heavily, since I bought a 4xE), that there will be an aftermarket battery upgrade at some point. It likely won't be cheap ($10k range), but it's not impossible. The harder part might be getting the car to recognize the new capacity. That could be as simple as the battery reporting a new value to the car or it could be hard-coded somewhere, which might require flashing.

Re: FCA lawsuits, they don't actually have a leg to stand on here if they did start suing people for reverse engineering their software or protocols. It used to be (more) true but not anymore.

Sponsored