I’ve seen a demonstration of quick swap batteries...and I immediately saw some major flaws. For starters, the demonstration took the car into a two sided ‘shelter’, so the equipment could be inside. This shelter setup would nearly double the footprint of a typical gas station...not an easy feat, in urban areas where land is valuable.
But beyond that - think about how many batteries this would be, in an imaginary world where electric car use was scaled up to a point to make a gas station viable. Remember, the station makes little on fuel, so its really a matter of how many people can get cycled through to buy chips. So, a full scale station may need to average 480 customers in a day (8 pumps x 2 sides x 3 customers per side an hour x 10 hours peak usage)....and I think that’s conservative. So, to account for the ‘churn’ of batteries, and the fact that it takes several hours to charge, you will likely need an inventory of 2.5 per customer...or 1,200 batteries. Now battery replacement costs are estimated between $8k-$12k...using $10k, that’s a $12 million investment in batteries, just to get off the ground. And unlike fuel costs, you don’t get this back right away. People are going to expect a ‘charge’ for less than $10, in line with the cost of electricity. So, the battery (which can only be used once in two days, costs out in 5.5 years...right about time to buy a new one.
But where do you store 1,200 batteries? The footprint just got bigger. And how do you charge 480 batteries every night...50kwh x 480 batteries = 24,000 kwh. That is one very large array of transformers.
Too many downsides.
And a lot of us have become accustomed to 24 hrs a day service. I would imagine that would disappear also.
I started thinking about how many batteries would have to be on hand, and I came the the same conclusion you did. We’re not talking about small battery packs here either.
The only way it could work is if a conveyer system fed batteries to the islands, and you could load the old on one to cycle back through.
It would require a lot of thought and preparation.