I wonder if this is motivated by ZEV credits; I think rapid refill zero emission vehicles qualify for a lot more credits--possibly even if no owners take advantage of the feature. So just having a few rapid recharge stations that nobody uses could be a huge financial windfall for Tesla, allowing them more profit on each car sold--again, even if owners never once swap a battery.
If we're going to be swapping things at charging stations, why not use a technology like this:<p><a href="http://www.phinergy.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.phinergy.com/</a><p>Takes a refill of plain water every ~200 miles and a swapping of aluminum at larger intervals. Aluminum is common as is the recycling of it. It's also a lot easier to handle than battery packs I would imagine -- lighter, safer, etc.<p>Not sure about the range but early press suggests it to be at least 1k miles between changes. I put around 4k miles on my car a year (much lower than average, I know). I take my car in at least twice a year for service so it would get half of them "for free".<p>Even at 12k miles per year that's only once a month. If it could be done in 15 minutes (a number I just made up) that's not much of a PITA.<p>I wonder what the cost would be vs gasoline vs the cost of buying a car packed with LIBs.
I don't think battery swapping is a great idea. The problem is that the battery is such a huge part of the car's cost. I can only guess, but I would estimate $15,000-20,000. Getting someone else's poorly treated battery could drastically effect the resale value of the car. The other company in the article tried to mitigate this problem by actually owning the batteries, but that isn't Tesla's model.
Though I'll believe it when I see it in (user) action, this would make a huge difference, IMHO, in the usability of the car. It would make it truly feasible to drive to Tahoe from the Bay Area, for example. <i>That's</i> something I'd pay for.
High overhead, but if it can be done quickly and for a not exorbitant price, probably a winning idea. I imagine they'd charge people a yearly service to be in such a program.