You arrive at the gas station, but instead of looking for a plug, you look for a hook. Two minutes on the clock: the time it takes for a mechanical "click" on the back of your car, and you're off again. While other drivers are still staring at the charge percentage on the display or arguing with an app that doesn't want to know, you're dragging energy away. A bit like carrying a gas tank, but silent. More or less. It's the pragmatic and decidedly cumbersome vision with which a French startup wants to solve the number one problem of electric vehicles using an external battery.
The weight of freedom
The concept is disarmingly simple, almost brutal. If the internal battery technology isn't enough (or costs too much), it's removed. Far-A-Day, the startup born from the genius of Jean-Baptiste Segard, has decided that aerodynamic elegance can wait: the priority of this external battery is only to eat up the miles.
The result is a wheeled module that weighs 500 kg, is 1,25 meters wide, and adds 1,3 meters to the length of your car. It's not exactly an invisible accessory. But inside that shell lies the promise many have been waiting for: 60 kWh of extra energy, capable of providing approximately 300 km of real-world range on the highway. No long stops, no forced coffees at the service station while waiting for the charging station to do its job.
External battery: the logic of "on-demand rental"
Let's be clear: the idea has a rational foundation that's difficult to dismantle. Today, the market forces us to a crossroads. Road one: You buy a light and efficient city car, perfect for the home-work commute but unsuitable for long journeys without breaking out in a cold sweat. Road two: You spend a fortune on an armored SUV with a 100 kWh battery, which you drive around every day pointlessly, consuming more energy to move a weight you need twice a year.
It's a bit like going to the office in ski boots because "you never know, it might snow heavily." It makes no sense.
Unpopular opinion: these boxes should be banned at least in historic centers, as someone already does.
The Far-A-Day proposal reverses the paradigm: You buy the car you need 90% of the time (small, light, economical) and rent the extra range only for those 10% of long trips. If you look at it that way, it makes sense. The startup plans to launch the service in 2026, starting with a strategic corridor between Paris and Bordeaux, then expanding to 30 interchange stations by 2027.
The numbers of the Far-A-Day project
* 60 kWh: the additional energy provided by the module.
* 300km: the estimated extra range on the highway.
* 2 minutes: the time required to dock or undock the module.
* 500kg: the weight you carry around.
Yes, but it's as bad as a heartbreak
Here's where the problem (or cable) falls. As ingenious as it may be, we're talking about attaching a trailer to your car. Sure, the company swears that its patented technology allows for smooth reverse maneuvers and a smooth ride, but anyone who's ever driven with something attached to the back knows that the dynamics change.
The car gets longer, the perception of space changes, and parking in the city becomes a herculean undertaking. Imagine arriving in a small Ligurian village with your half-cubic-meter energy backpack. Best wishes.
Among other recent studies, like that of Chalmers University, confirm that "range anxiety" is often more psychological than real. Perhaps physically seeing the energy reserve attached to the bumper is the only anxiety reliever that really works for the average driver.
Then there is the technological paradox. While giants like CATL are working on built-in batteries that recharge in seconds Or they're replaced robotically, we're going back to the towbar. It's a bridge solution, a "hack" of the current system that implicitly admits that fast-charging infrastructure isn't yet ready for everyone.
External battery for city cars: will it really work?
Honestly? “I don't know, Rick…” The idea of turning every city car into a tireless traveler is fascinating on paper. It solves the initial cost problem of electric cars and optimizes resource use (why produce giant batteries for cars that average 12 km a day?).
But between saying and doing lies homologation, the availability of towbars (not all electric cars support them, in fact), and, above all, people's willingness to ride a choo-choo train. Perhaps this external battery will remain a niche experiment for pragmatic pioneers. Or perhaps, in two years, we'll see highways filled with small cars with their trusty wagons in tow.
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