If everyone were driving new, perfectly maintained vehicles, this might work. But in the real world, an automated system that can move around huge battery packs

If everyone were driving new, perfectly maintained vehicles, this might work. But in the real world, an automated system that can move around huge battery packs, remove and install them correctly, and do so consistently and reliably with all the variability of regular people’s cars is an engineering nightmare. That type of system is already introducing a ton mechanical complexity and failure points, which is the opposite of one of the selling points of BEVs, lower maintenance cost and higher reliability. The system has to work at basically 100% reliability for it to be realistic. If your gas car had a 1% chance of not being able to fill up, and you had to bring it into the shop to find out what part of a complex gas cap system wasn’t functioning properly, that’s probably not a car you would buy. Then there is standardization. Distributing batteries based on the individual vehicle shape and size is hugely beneficial. Forcing it into a standard removable “pack” brick would reduce capacity, handling, etc. And are you going to regulate all cars use the same pack? Otherwise every car manufacturer would have to build out their own battery pack stations across the country and you would have to find your car brand station. Also, the whole idea of driving your fuel down, then going and refilling it all at once is a very ICE vehicle thing. 90% of people use their cars for daily commuting between home and work/shopping/activities and back home. If your car refuels every night and you start each day with 300 miles of range, why would you need to stop anywhere to refuel? Obviously this doesn’t cover all scenarios, but the roadtrip is a pretty small use case.