30 minutes to charge...still puzzled why Tesla has gone with the recharge model rather than the battery swap model ala Better Place.
Quicker may be true, but "better"? Swap stations are more expensive, they constrain vehicle design, battery shape, and battery technology upgradeability. This makes the vehicle some combination of heavier, less safe, or more expensive (pick your poison).
People don't seem to realize that the limiting factor for charge rate isn't current. It's cooling. A far simpler solution would just pump coolant through the charging port so that a large off-board cooler can be used. The cells in the Leaf and Volt could be fully charged in 20 minutes with adequate cooling. Independent (though amateur) tests by RC hobbyists have demonstrated hundreds of cycles at that charge rate with little loss in capacity.
cooling
The Roadster has a water-cooled battery pack, and I assume the Model S does too.
What makes you think this is not a viable solution?
This seems to be a perfect use case for Israel.If you are a regular office goer, charge once and may be use it for a whole week and half.
In any event, New Jersey would make a really small country. I know of people in this country who have to drive further to do their shopping.
video: Drive Switch Go - Better Place
short video http://youtu.be/VR3oLV4fdcE longer video http://youtu.be/S3Os25gP4yA
//edited to add video links
While I think the battery swap idea is a good one, it has many problems, not the least of which is getting all the manufacturers to agree to a myriad of standards. And agreeing to many of those standards means delegating part of your design process.
It also seems as thought there should be more partnerships involved in reaching the type of scale there going to to want to achieve. It seems like there would be a perfect opportunity to team up with Better Place to scale there infrastructure. Tesla should focus on building the best cars possible while letting Better Place handle the charging and/or battery switching infrastructure. I love the idea of Solar City getting involved as well. Those three companies are on my list of the few companies to watch in clean tech.
That would be covered under warranty like any defect on any car.
or mis-charging them
As long as you don't let them get completely empty, this is impossible.