[quote=AN][quote=afx114]Tesla’s working on a system to swap out the entire battery system in less time than it takes you to pump a tank of gas: http://www.teslamotors.com/batteryswap
Watch the video, pretty interesting. Imagine your charge is running low — you simply drive up to a replacement station (similar to how gas engines force you to drive to a gas station), get new batteries, and are back on the road in under 90 seconds. Granted, you’d need plenty of replacement stations within range, but that’s the eventual goal.
So imagine the consumer being able to offload battery replacement/wear/degradation/maintenance to GiantBatteryCo(tm). As the batteries get swapped, GiantBatteryCo(tm) can run diagnostics on each pack and fix/replace/recycle as needed in a centralized location/process. The EV consumer no longer needs to worry about batteries in the same way that combustion engine consumers no longer need to worry about oil extraction/refining.
Batteries are one of the biggest sticking points for EVs, but if you remove those from the equation, it changes the outlook quite a bit.[/quote]
I read up on this proposal, but as I said earlier unless all electric cars uses the same battery design for all kinds of cars, so that any EV can go into this battery swapping station and swap out their battery, I don’t see it feasible to have a lot of these battery swapping station, due to the fact that there’s not a lot of Tesla cars out there. With gas, any car can go and refuel. In order for EV to replace ICE, it needs to solve that problem too. This is one of the reason why I’m more optimistic about FCV than EV as a long term solution of replacing ICE cars.[/quote]
I haven’t read this thread (or the board for that matter) as I’ve been crazy busy. But I thought I’d take the time to post a follow up post. I still LOVE driving the car as much as when I got it. It’s been perfect with no problems (or fires..haha).
As much as I love driving it, I don’t see this rapid battery swap happening any time soon. Like many things with Tesla, there is a lot of gimmicky type marketing. Read some of the serious TMC posts (http://www.teslamotorsclub.com) and you will read from people that know cars VERY well that this isn’t easy.
Plus, how will Tesla have the supply to have all of these batteries? I just don’t see it happening anytime soon (i.e. the next several years).
I absolutely love the technology and love love love driving the car. They are all over the place now. Just driving around Rancho Santa Fe the other day I saw 4 of them in the span of 15 minutes.
I was in at the San Diego Service Center the other day. And I asked the guy about it and he joked that RSF has TONS of owners. It’s one of their biggest zip codes he said for Tesla owners…
