I really do not understand why the batteries aren’t slung under the car so you could pull into a station and just swap the batteries out in a couple of minutes. Low batteries could then go to a rack to be recharged. I guess the stations would need a lot of batteries to swap out making the expense prohibitive.
The cost of batteries replaced in an EV runs into the 10s of thousands.
Batteries degrade. If you just bought a new one, would you exchange it for an unknown?
Propane tanks don’t degrade.
I remember thinking something like this in 1980 during the second oil shock.
I guess the issue is the inventory of batteries and their cost, and the deterioration of batteries over time - incentive to swap your old one for a new one.
The average gas station sells a few thousand gallons per day. That would be an inventory of several hundred batteries at ($15K ?) each.
The batteries are heavy. How do you get them and replace them from underneath the car?
But it does have merit imho. I’ve seen this done in China with scooter batteries. These are small enough to handle, so you just deposit the old one into a slot, make a payment, and another pops out for you.
You can at least easily imagine it being standardized. I’m sure there’s ‘challenges’ - always is but it does make sense.
That was how many ev makers sold the idea how their cars would work. Tesla promoted these battery swap stations. Ome othe car company did too.