The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Yes all of that, plus even if you made the battery bank modular and removeable without jeopardizing the vehicle's structural integrity, you'd still have the simple logistical and mechanical issues of replacing these battery banks "at the pump."

Self-serve would be gone, and the amount of human interaction required "at the pump" would increase dramatically, as would the execution time and the wait time.  Presumably, eventually, robots could be used, but I'd say that's a very long way off in practical application.

Compared to building conventional roads it would be extremely expensive and therefore likely cost-prohibitive for the foreseeable future.

I'd imagine they'd eventually be able to cost-down enough to implement it, but by then we'll all have flying cars as promised on The Jetsons and there will be no need.

Or maybe not...

The concept of battery swaps has been tested and does "work", but the weight problem is inherent.

This Is the Decade for Smart, Portable Power for All - Gogoro

How Is This A Good Idea?: EV Battery Swapping - IEEE Spectrum


Here in 2021, Battery swapping in EVs has become an especially bad idea. It’s a technical and market dead-end that seems more about separating green investors from their money than providing a solution. That’s despite credulous media reports that coo over the (admittedly cool) spectacle of robots switching car batteries like greasy Rube Goldbergs—but tend to avoid asking tough questions about how it’s supposed to work in the real world. 

The technology’s troubled history traces to Better Place, or Exhibit A in the case against battery-swapping’s future. The Israel-based Better Place—founded in 2007 by smooth-talking Silicon Valley entrepreneur Shai Agassi—promised to change the world with robotic service stations that would pluck a battery from a car and pop in a fresh one, extending its driving range in a matter of minutes. In those quaint EV days, with Tesla taking baby steps with the Roadster (built from 2008 to 2011), battery swapping seemed to hold hazy promise. Most newfangled EVs (Tesla excepted) could barely get beyond city limits on a charge, including the 2011 Nissan Leaf and its 73-mile range. Once range was depleted, reliable public charging barely existed, as I recall from my own anxious drives in San Francisco when I tested the original Leaf and BMW i3. When you did find a working plug, batteries took forever to charge. 

how bout we just jump into our rebuilt 57 chevy and just enjoy life

I'm game if it has an LS7 up front, and a Tremec on the floor.

nope just good ol original American

Sheesh! My musings on a football board aren't meant to be patent applications. I do those on the music boards. =)

If you're gonna do it right, just nationalize transportation. Use your phone or other app to summon the car (or other vehicle). Tell it where you want to go, and let the autonomous driving AI coordinate on the roadways with all the other traffic. You won't feel much but G-forces from smooth acceleration, but outside, the vehicles could operate inches away from each other at 100+mph speeds. They'd enter and exit as appropriate. Overall optimized trips. Low pollution.

Heck, even the inevitable disasters would be optimized.

I used to spend quite a bit of time on my '73 Nova keeping it running "right".  I don't even check under the hood any more unless it's out of wiper fluid.

I admire those older cars a lot, but they were maintenance hogs, relatively, worse with a 4 bbl.

I watch the Mecum auction when I'm bored, some of those restos are pretty cool.