Battery swapping is the mechanical replacement of a drained battery. This is a less orthodox way to recharge an Electric Vehicle.
The most (in)famous battery-swapping venture was the Israeli company Better Place, which was founded in 2007 and went bankrupt in 2013.
A demonstration of Better Place's battery swapping:
A Tesla doing the same kind of battery swapping, but with infinitely more razzle-dazzle:
This technology is not established, and thus involves the old conundrum of the-chicken-or-the-egg. Which should come first? Swapping stations? Or the EVs built swappable batteries? Neither the auto makers or the station developers want to assume the risk of being pioneers in a non-existent market that would be so dependent on other players to develop.
Also, what would be the uniform standard for batteries between various developers and auto makers?
It could be that battery swapping would work better among fleet vehicles. This is because there would be a certain uniformity within a company. That is, a business with fleet vehicles would have its own swapping stations and vehicles and its own standards.
For example, here is battery swapping for a van. The mechanism is a guy using a forklift. The swap is quick and efficient.
No, it's not as glamorous as when Tesla does it.
It's not just the forklift that is banal. So is the delivery van.
But the banality of a delivery van as an EV resonates with the notion of "disruptive innovation". This is when a cheaper, inferior, less glamorous product finds a niche, improves over time and comes to dominate the mainstream of a market.
Rather than electric cars -- especially high-end luxury electric cars -- the EVs that fit the description of disruptive innovation might be electric buses and electric scooters.
Here is an electric bus getting its batteries swapped out.
A scooter getting its batteries swapped.
One option for electric cars is a battery-loaded trailer that serves as a range extender.
One problem with a trailer for a car is that it is awkward, both aerodynamically and in terms of maneuvering, especially while parking.
Another problem is that the battery trailer just doesn't look cool. Tesla has the right idea putting elegance first
when it comes to cars.
But a battery trailer just might work for electric buses and certain trucks.
Swapping a trailer full of batteries would take seconds. It could be done manually by almost anyone.
There might be a more interesting way to attach a battery trailer to a truck or a bus.
This would be “truck platooning”, in which a lead truck controlled by a driver is followed by a series of self-driven trucks that are synchronized with the lead truck.
The battery trailer in the case of truck platooning would not be latched onto a vehicle. Rather, the battery trailer would itself be an autonomous truck following behind the lead bus or truck. There would be a recharging cable linking the two vehicles, but nothing more.
In the case of buses, following peak morning traffic hours, some buses would remain in commission, picking up and dropping off passengers. As the buses went about their rounds, an autonomous truck would recharge one bus at a time. This would recharge those buses in preparation for their deployment during peak evening traffic hours.
