Photo: Better Place
You may remember Better Place, a company operating battery swapping stations (mainly) in Israel, and more recently in Denmark, using Renault EVs since the start of their program. Now, their entire fleet of vehicles has successfully surpassed the 1-million km (625,000-mile) mark - it seems that EVs can be successfully integrated in the lives of people in very different places.
So far, their 55 swapping stations have operated more than 15,000 successful swaps, ever since the company was founded, back in 2007. They are trying to prove that battery swapping is an easy work-around the problem of battery capacity and range, since swapping a battery takes minutes, rather than the hours it takes to charge, so it is far more practical to swap the battery, than it is to charge it - a very basic principle which seems to work well in practice, as well.
While skeptics may argue that the system is too cumbersome, we say that with a bit of refining, it could be made even more practical, by swapping the battery pack in seconds, rather than minutes, as the technology advances - we will have to wait and see if the trend catches on elsewhere, or if the recent advances in battery tech will render battery swapping useless sooner, rather than later.
While skeptics may argue that the system is too cumbersome, we say that with a bit of refining, it could be made even more practical, by swapping the battery pack in seconds, rather than minutes, as the technology advances - we will have to wait and see if the trend catches on elsewhere, or if the recent advances in battery tech will render battery swapping useless sooner, rather than later.
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