Posted: Oct 14, 2016 11:03 pm
A Tesla Model S battery weighs over half a tonne, so I'm not sure that "trivial" will ever be the right word for swapping one out.
We're currently looking at getting our home office off-grid, and we'll have a solar setup that will be specced to deal with long blackouts during periods we're flooded in, which usually aren't very sunny. So most of the time we'll have overflow, and we're planning to use it to charge batteries for a swap-in swap-out system for both small golf-cart-style vehicles for getting around our property, and also some 12/24V powered outbuildings, such as a small riverside cabin with a small camping fridge, lights, and outdoor shower - rather than put panels on each one, we'll just run fresh batteries down there with a golf cart as required, and bring the old one back for a recharge. But that's about the scale limit for that sort of tech, I think. Much as it would be nice to swap out a car battery, and be back on the road in minutes, I think fast charging tech will get there before mechanical swap-out, unless batteries get a LOT smaller and lighter.
We're currently looking at getting our home office off-grid, and we'll have a solar setup that will be specced to deal with long blackouts during periods we're flooded in, which usually aren't very sunny. So most of the time we'll have overflow, and we're planning to use it to charge batteries for a swap-in swap-out system for both small golf-cart-style vehicles for getting around our property, and also some 12/24V powered outbuildings, such as a small riverside cabin with a small camping fridge, lights, and outdoor shower - rather than put panels on each one, we'll just run fresh batteries down there with a golf cart as required, and bring the old one back for a recharge. But that's about the scale limit for that sort of tech, I think. Much as it would be nice to swap out a car battery, and be back on the road in minutes, I think fast charging tech will get there before mechanical swap-out, unless batteries get a LOT smaller and lighter.