Michel Jullian wrote:
Battery swapping has been mentioned, why not just empty the "gas"
station's full one into the car's empty one?
That is what we have in mind when we talk about a "bank" of supercapacitors.
With something like a lead-acid battery which takes a long time to
recharge, swapping battery packs is probably a more practical
technique. This is an old idea. I recall reading about schemes to
swap batteries back as 1960s, in Popular Science. Compared to 1960,
it would be easier and safer to implement a battery exchange scheme
nowadays, now that we have RFID tags, computer networks and so on. I
doubt that many people would steal the battery packs, any more than
they steal propane tanks today. (No doubt a few drunk high school
kids do steal propane tanks.) A battery pack might be damaged in an
accident, but this sort of thing could easily be checked for with
computer testing systems. The propane tanks are also dangerous when
they have been damaged, so they are checked with automatic equipment
to ensure safety.
I think electric cars would be easier to implement than people
realize, and most of the concerns about limited operating range are
either unimportant, or they could easily be fixed. If the world had
run short of oil back in 1960, you can be sure we would have
implemented electric cars with battery exchanges by 1975, and
everyone would take it for granted.
- Jed
