Battery Swap Overcomes Charging Times for Electric Vehicles

One of the common concerns with electric vehicles (EV) is the limited range provided by the battery. Electric vehicles run completely off of electric energy provided by a battery, unlike hybrid electric vehicles which include a gasoline powered engine and only use the battery and electric motors for assist or to recover energy while braking. Modern and likely future battery technology cannot store as much energy as a gasoline tank can. The result is that EVs have a limited range. Coupled with this limited range is the fact that it takes hours to recharge the battery. Translating these restrictions to a gasoline powered car would be like having a vehicle with a small gas tank that took hours to refill!

One potential solution is to swap out a depleted battery with a fully recharged one. This does not increase the range provided by a fully charged battery per se, but it does reduce the recharging time to the time to swap a battery, which could be about the same time as it takes to fill up your car's gas tank. There would be battery swap stations which would function much like the gas stations of today. The video demonstrates one scheme for how these battery swap stations could work.