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Comment by fletchowns | Hacker News Reader

I wish every gas station in the world turned into a battery exchange facility overnight. Or if there was some mass produced battery that charges instantly. Throw in some massive clean energy projects for generating all that power. So many problems facing this country would be eliminated. I hope that day comes soon.

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I share the sentiment, but am wary of thinking of battery powered cars as a panacea. The real problem is the design of our cities, and our lack of funding for public transit. In my city, our bus service is partially funded by a _gas tax_. Talk about perverse incentives.

Batteries are made from hard to mine and produce minerals, and unless we start reducing our reliance on cars, we'll have replaced one problem with another.

It's not the batteries, it's the power grid. The Model S charges in less than an hour at ~90kW.

[http://idealab.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/breaking-tesla-...]

An hour is a lot longer than it takes to fill a tank of gas though. It's gotta be either cheaper or more convenient for most people to consider switching.

In France they are building batteries-switching facilities every 200 kilometers along a major highway axis. However their main target is trucks.

It's a reasonable amount of time to stop for lunch, though. Since these things are primarily going to be charged at home, you'll almost always be starting long trips with a full charge, and 4-5 hours is more than most people want to drive before taking a break anyway.

Taking a break generally means getting out, stretching your legs, taking a piss, perhaps drinking a cup of coffee, not settling in for a full 3 course lunch.

That's like saying, car payments are more expensive than horse payments. You're just thinking of the problem wrong.

You're not stopping for gas. You're plugging your car in while shopping and at night or whenever. The only use case where this stuff doesn't work is on long hauls or roadtrips. In that case you are acting like a gas car owner. You stop at the rest stop, wait 20 minutes for the battery to get to 80% and go on your way. Or if you're a long distance driver, stick with gas or a hybrid.

It is interesting you should mention that. There is actually a standard that the Japanese are developing for fast charging cars. It provides for high current charging with the charge station communicating with the car to ensure it does not blow the batteries. Supposedly you can get a decent charge for 10 min or so.

However the previous Tesla (the roadster) did not support that standard. Lets hope this one does.

The batteries in this car are not easily replaceable I believe. This is one of the problems of this solution - coming up with a size and spec standard.

There has been mention that the Model S will have a swappable battery. How that works (since it's a sizeable percentage of the cost of the car), I don't know.

Sounds like BetterPlace[1]. I think they are planning to build fast battery switching stations where you just get a new battery and you don't have to wait for recharging. They're supposed to setup some stations here in Denmark but it's been awhile since I've heard of them.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place

So many independant stations are struggling trying to sell gas. If there was a market, and an easy system for someone to buy then it would do really well.

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