Maybe ten years ago I watched Bob Kennedy Jr or 3 or something talk about having battery swap stations instead of charging stations. Seemed interesting but I don't know much about batteries!
1) Essentially requires a standard battery form factor. Tesla alone already has between 8 and 13 batteries (not bothering to check if e.g. the Model S 60 is the same as the Model X 60). Throw in other manufactures and any future Tesla sizes and this becomes infeasible pretty quickly as your "gas station" begins to look like a warehouse.
2) Warranty. When you're swapping out the most expensive part of the car several times a week, what happens when you get a dud? Is it covered by Tesla's warranty, the swap service, or are you just screwed?
Or, what if I trade in my 8 year old essentially depleted battery for a brand new one? Obviously I should pay some sort of "upgrade" fee, but tracking that will be a headache.
Gogoro is doing quite well with scooters, because the battery pod is small enough to swap by hand.
I get that switching in $10,000 of hardware is kind of a big thing, but the question is like asking about how can I be sure every station has real gasoline (which hey, with ethanol, they don't!).
https://www.fastcompany.com/3028159/a-broken-place-better-pl...
I think battery swap doesn't make sense for passenger cars because as the guy said once you hit 200 miles of range charging isn't an issue. And having to stop and charge for an hour and a half every three hours on a long distance trip isn't the end of the world. Especially since you could roll those into lunch and dinner stops.
But likely makes some sense for large trucks.
The hour sure matters to me, I hate being in the "travel" part of a trip like that.
Unless the battery isn't owned by you, it won't work as well.
Compressed gas cylinders sort of work this way. When you 'refill' a cylinder you just swap the empty one for a full one. You can even swap different sizes as needed. Which might also be useful for trucks.