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Idea for Super Charging Locations

I posted this comment earlier under the Replacing Your Battery Pack thread, but the more I thought about it, I feel compelled to start this idea as new topic:

Thinking outside the box, it would be an interesting side business for someone or Tesla to have locations, perhaps at the Super Charging spots, where you could pull in, have your battery swapped out in 5-10 minutes, and get back out on the highway toward your next pit stop. This would be like an ICE car filling up at a gas station and leaving. This battery rental system would make traveling across multiple States fairly stress free, at least from a range-anxiety standpoint.

Granted the devil would be in the details, but something like temporarily renting a battery pack and then on your return trip you could revisit the rental location to pick up your personally owned battery, which they would have fully charged by then, for getting back to home base.

I am close to retirement, or I'd look hard at developing a business plan for this concept, so feel free to take this idea and make your fortune. If Apple can spawn a mega after market industry, then so can Tesla. Go for it.

What prevents someone from handing you a dud pack with less than70% recharge capacity and driving off into the sunset with your new pack? Exchange makes sense for travel but may not be feasible in the real world. I doubt you'd have success tracking and demand customers drive back and claim their original at the start point but that would be the only way around this.

It is my understanding that “swap depots” were an original idea by TM several years ago but the cost of equipment to quickly and safely change plus the cost of the extras battery packs themselves was prohibitive to a viable business model. I found that disappointing but understandable. That being said, I do think is is viable for a fixed base operator (if I may borrow an airport term) for a taxi company or a police department, etc. (can you imagine cops with the performance and handling of a S?)

I was thinking the same thing a few weeks ago as I moved over to the right as a State Patrolman was racing to catch up to a speeder (faster than me) way up the road.

Again, I believe a Battery Station is in the cards somewhere down the road (pun intended), but to be economical there needs to be an unknown % of EVs on the road first.

But let's don't thwart any of the forward thinkers here. It will require innovative thinking to work this out.

Ain't no one gonna be removin' my ($30,000+) 85kwh battery pack and substituting someone else's "mystery" battery pack of unknown age and health.

Think about it... You're dreaming if you imagine a "battery swap" station would be like some sort of lightning-fast Indy pit stop. Or that it would be free. No way.

In the real world you'd pull in, wait for an attendant, complete the authorization paperwork, then cool your heels until Gomer gets around to pulling your car unto the rack and swapping the battery. Before you could leave they'd have to charge a hefty fee on your credit charge to pay for the facility and 24-hour (trained) staff.

Compare that to an UNATTENDED Supercharger station where you can get an extra 150 miles in 30 minutes FOR FREE (even in the middle of the night) while you enjoy a snack and stretch your legs.

Tesla is spot on with its Supercharger stations. What an elegant, simple solution to all the complex alternatives.

I would like to see TM license the technology for the SC stations so that others could install them, even if it meant the energy was not free. I assume this would make economic sense only if the stations could be modified to quick charge other vehicles in addition to the Model S, and if they were not required to have a solar generating component.

The Supercharger network is an elegant, simple solution, but it need to be ubiquitous as well.

Bill in Austin, It is Goober (Gomer's brother) who does the service work not Gomer! ;)

it's true, bill. goober does most of the work.

Actually "Gomer" is a leftover from my days as in intern. Working the Emergency Room late at night we'd have to deal with the dregs of humanity - winos, druggies, crazies. We bone-tired young doctors sometimes referred to them as "Gomers" (Get Out of My Emergency Room!)

Quadruple Charging Speed To 7 & 1/2 Minutes

If you redesign and divide the tesla battery into four separate sections, is it not possible to charge four times faster with four plugs, (2 x 2 car charging ports), going into four different batteries ? That's 2 hrs for home charging and 7 & 1/2 minutes for the current supercharger station. And charging times decrease exponentially any newer faster supercharger times that are developed in the future with this quad battery plug-in system.

That is much faster than a swappable battery system. Something to think about for future designs, if feasable.

So far, the only business model that makes any sense is if all the batteries are owned by the swap/rental company or the manufacturer. Which itself is a huge capital expense.

There may be work-arounds for that, but nobody's come up with a good one yet.

The story is gone, unless you search and navigate thru to the audio replay. It was about Better Place, which is going thru CEOs like soda crackers, and may be about to fail.

Israel is a minute territory; about 5x the size of Rhode Island. What works there would be horrendously expensive to replicate even in a European country, even Denmark. As it is discovering.


No, if you want to charge faster you need more voltage and amperage. Regrouping the batteries into four sets instead of one changes nothing.

A battery swap installation only makes sense when there is only 1 owner for all the battery packs.

Delivery vehicles, USPS, UPS, FEDEX....
Motor pools - military, corporate
Car rental companies

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