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You do realize that battery swapping stations would also have to charge the batteries from the same grid?

• CamperBob2 13y ago
  You do realize that battery swapping stations would also have to charge the batteries from the same grid? Sure, but not at the household 120V/240V "leaf nodes," where much of the power is wasted before it ever reaches my car. Ideally, EV batteries could be swapped at any gas station. Just as gas stations don't need their own oil wells, the batteries they lease could be charged and maintained at centralized plants with minimum electrical losses and optimized load scheduling, and trucked to the service stations. At some point, probably very soon, the energy-management advantages will exceed the energy used by the trucks. This scheme will ultimately require mandatory standardization of battery form factors, much like fuel standards are already legislated. Fortunately, with modern power conversion technology, only the physical sizes of the batteries will need to be specified. Manufacturers will be able to compete with each other on chemistry, pricing, weight, and other factors. In engineering terms, migrating to EVs any other way is insanely goddamned stupid, and that's why I just bought a new fossil-fueled car. I keep my cars a long time, though, so I'm optimistic that by the time I'm ready for my next one, it'll be a Tesla. That will happen only if I can spend less time refueling it than I do now, and not more. And that, in turn, can happen only with swappable batteries.