Quote:
Originally Posted by joveblue
I saw something recently where the "gas station" was a battery swap station. Drive in, swap your depleted battery over for a full one. Can't find it now, but could be a good solution.
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It theoretically could, but consider a couple of things...
Until there's a battery swap center on every corner there's now a gas station... you have to carefully plan your routes and nearness to a swap center. That's going to reduce adoption rate, which reduces incentive to create swap stations, which... you see the problem.
Secondly, gas is gas is gas. Battery technologies have vastly different discharge profiles. Each car would have to know about each kind of battery technology and know how to best take advantage of it.
Third, battery formats. Consider how many kinds of batteries there are for just cell phones... can you imagine a swap station having to have a couple of every kind of battery out there for every possible model that might pull in? Oy.
Finally, you'd have to design the car around a quickly removable battery. They're big (.5mx.5mx2m), they're heavy (600-800kg), and from a vehicle design perspective, best buried deep in the car's center of gravity, under a bit of armor for crash safety. And those are the *forty mile* batteries! How are you going to just swap one of these things out in a few minutes? Heck, again, look at the cell phone. A non-user-replaceable battery in the iPhone means it's thinner, simpler, and a better functional design. Adding quick swapability adds weight, size, and distracts from creating a *car* instead of a battery holder on wheels.
I just don't see it being practical.