How much does connector wear affect swap-pack reliability over hundreds of cycles?

[charlesbianchi]

@yuki71 Speaking from personal experience here, Fast charging accelerates capacity fade over repeated cycles, so fleet operators generally have to choose between minimizing downtime (fast charging) and maximizing pack lifespan (slower charging or swap-based approaches) rather than getting both for free. Battery placement (torso-centered vs backpack vs distributed through the limbs) is a real tradeoff between center-of-mass/balance considerations and thermal/cooling access - a torso-centered pack helps balance but is harder to cool than a more exposed backpack placement.

[benjaminsanchez]

@charlesbianchi Small correction on one detail: Idle/standing power draw is often surprisingly close to a meaningful fraction of active walking power draw once you account for onboard compute, sensors, and balance-holding torque - 'doing nothing' still costs real energy on a humanoid.

[carol.robinson]

I'd push back on this a bit. Distributed power architectures (multiple smaller packs or local capacitor buffering near high-draw actuators) can reduce peak current demands on the main bus and improve fault isolation, at the cost of added complexity versus a single central pack.