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Comment by planb | Hacker News Reader

I had the same idea a while ago and talked with someone working in the automotive industry about this. The problem is that battery technology is an important differentiator in the e-mobility market so there's no chance all car markers would agree on one standard - at least not in the foreseeable future.

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What good are standards bodies (think SAE, ISO, DIN) in the automotive world if they won't solve this? Also, what ever happened to driving down cost by partnering with other automakers on expensive assemblies? Having a proprietary battery is completely the opposite of what every automaker has been doing for the past 2 decades.

It's insane and is delaying the mass acceptance of electric cars.

It would not be beneficial to standardize such s young technology. It is likely that the best car battery design hasn't been invented yet. Standards bodies are there to codify best practices and not to decide things by themselves.

But you don't have to standardize the internal battery tech, just the form fit and interaction. For example, the shape and electrical connectors the battery will use. Then everyone is free to make their battery hold 2x as much as the reference design and that's OK as long as it fits and talks the same language to the car and charger. Same way I can buy AA batteries with lithium inside that last 8x longer than the generic store brand.

There's no reason to dictate the battery chemistry or internal cell layout. As long as a standard is set for slow-ish charging (i.e.: the battery tells the charger, "give me X amps at Y volts"), we're good to go.

Except, you are not going to keep your hight tech battery's after the first fill up. When things settle down it may be reasonable to have 3 or 4 grades of battery's at every station, but good luck going to a random station and them having an apropreatly aged 2013 honda civic battery in 2026.

> What good are standards bodies (think SAE, ISO, DIN) in the automotive world if they won't solve this?

Which standards in the gasoline world are comparable to the standards that you want for electric vehicles?

SAE has standards for lubricating oil properties, horsepower measurement, etc, but nothing that will let me move significant components from one gasoline car to another.

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