Originally posted by WPRESTO Comments on two of your posts, both of which hit the nail:
1) The notion of a universal, standard, drop-in, lift-out battery would absolutely solve the problem of long-distance travel with electric cars. Essentially you would exchange batteries at a "filling station," plus a fee to cover the cost of the service and the charging of the battery. Car design would have to be standardized (=when the hood/bonnet is opened the battery is right there, and some kind of power lift would be required as the batteries are and almost certainly will remain far to heavy to be muscled by hand. It would be akin to multiple kinds of hand tools operated by one design of rechargeable battery. I will note that multiple tool manufacturers all use different batteries, just as camera makers cannot agree on one battery design much less one lens-mount design (excepting the semi-successful M42 mount, but is it possible to patent a screw-thread or a registration distance?). A downside: you might be exchanging a brand new battery for one that is how old? Would you be OK with that?
2) Precisely correct in objecting to the "how often do you drive more than 400 miles" argument. Perhaps I do that only once a year, but do I need to keep an "old technology" gasoline car for that two week period? Must I rent for a trip, which means the local rental agency must offer a fleet of gasoline-powered cars? Perhaps. It would be akin to renting rather than buying an "RV" or "camper."
I was imagining battery packs something like a pallet which fits under the car (low c of g) and the change done by driving over the right robotic bit of the forecourt.
Battery makers would be free to make new battery technologies, which would hold more usable energy per pack, but the eternal interface must remain standard.
Since I would not own the batteries, it is not my risk if the battery I get is older, it still belongs to the energy dealer. The range would be a bit less, but that might mean I need to pull in to a refill station sooner than theoretical range - probably need a toilet or a drink anyway. I am not even renting the battery, I am using the battery and paying for the energy I take from it. Until the battery gets to the next fill station the battery and the energy in it are the property of the vendor, and on return the battery physically goes back to the vendor, in exchange for the drive away one, and I settle the account for the energy. Obviously the amount I pay for the energy will have to pay for the life cycle cost of the batteries and the infrastructure, in addition to the energy itself - but that smooths my cash flow to a bit every week rather than a replace the battery cost, and the cost of the car up front would be sans battery - much more attractive for new buyers! That would probably tip the balance very quickly without subsidies, all the batteries would be funded by business that sees profit in providing the service.
Also it would make the electricity grid have a few clearly defined heavy load points, rather than need to provide for every house to recharge batteries, and every carpark to have recharging too. Think of all that cabling to most of the parking spaces in a large car park! Expensive.
And batteries would be well maintained and replaced when the cost of power in to the supplier exceeds the revenue from metered power out sold to the driver. It would be in the battery owner's interests to keep the quality of their fleet satisfactory - especially in winter. And environmentally the special materials in the batteries (which include hazardous) would go back to the factory for recycling, which with the input of manufacturing energy would turn into the right quality of refined materials for a new battery. (Just like the lead in lead acid batteries)