| What if the battery pack was standard and could be swapped out quickly using a small forklift or something?
Come home, switch packs, go. Other pack gets charged at home. Go to service station to swap dead cells once in a while.
or...
Go to a charging station, switch packs, go. They bill you based on the difference in pack charge. Your car determines if the replacement pack is good or not before you leave the station. The station sets enough profit to recoup average dead cell replacement.
This would extend the driving range of all standard pack electric cars to wherever charging stations exist.
A popular station would have to stock up more replacement packs, of course, but they'd also make more profit. If they have enough packs, they can do the charging off peak hours. Also, they might coop for better rates.
Seems to me the packs/tools could be designed to make swapping faster than waiting for a pump to fuel a gas tank. Standard packs might include guides that allow simple robotic tools to handle them.
Now imagine this: the driver buys a car with no battery pack. This car is very cheap. He rents the pack from the dealer or maybe a separate pack renter. The rental terms transfer to any standard pack replaced at any station (which are regulated of course). This would allow consumers with less money (up front) to enter the market. Of course, insurance would be needed to protect the renter.
This system would allow someone to take a road trip for thousands of miles in one day. It's just a matter of taking a pit stop every 200 or so miles. |