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The Model S and X were designed so that the battery can be swapped from below, and Tesla ran one station for several years where you could get this done. That s

• paranoidrobot 7y ago
  The one battery swap station was never really 'open' so much as trialled. It was a closed invite-only program, you had to book an appointment, and then come back and collect your original battery at a later date. Saying they ran it for years is a reach, since it doesn't seem to have opened even for pilot programs until sometime in mid/late 2015[1], and was already seemingly closed in May of 2016[0]. It didn't work anywhere near as slick as in their stage demo suggested. Taking up to 15 minutes for a pack swap the first time, and 5 minutes thereafter. There's suggestions that it was, at least in part, a tactic to get a greater share of credits[1] which Tesla sells to other car manufacturers[2]. Whether it was intended to be a real program or not is unclear, but they did give up on it pretty quickly in favour of a greater deployment of their Supercharging program. [0] https://electrek.co/2016/05/10/tesla-battery-swap-program-supercharger/ https://electrek.co/2016/05/10/tesla-battery-swap-program-su... [1] https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096570_about-that-one-tesla-battery-swapping-station-an-update https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1096570_about-that-one-... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla-sold-carbon-emissions-credits-to-general-motors-fiat-chryser-2019-6 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/tesla-sold-carbon-emissio...