Comment on What's going to happen to gas stations as cars electrify?
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 1 week ago
I suppose we could also see in the future more cars that can swap their battery in charging stations.
IMO that’s the more long term use of these stations. Instead of buying gas you would swap for new batteries.
Gas stations are often well placed for refuelling so might as well repurpose them to do that but for electric cars.
Electric scooters with swappable batteries work super well in urban areas. I’m convinced once this tech is deployed on most cars it will trivialise long trips in electric cars.
This and electrified highways would be amazing.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I know they have been demoing this tech in China, but if you have at home charging a major advantage of electric vehicles is that you don’t need worry about refuling during normal usage. So I think battery-swap technology is going to be limited to long distance trips (which are kind of only a major thing in the US & China due to the way both isolate their workers from their homes to prevent them from organizing).
I was going to say if people are comfortable renting the battery in their car, they might as well be comfortable renting a space in a larger vehicle such as a train, but I think Americans do regularly rent their cars (or at least only pay interest on the loans they take out to purchase the cars), so maybe it’s not so crazy, but I personally wouldn’t let anyone swap the battery in the phone or laptop for one that is likely less well taken care of.
We already have those: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railway_electrification
Tyres are a major source of microplastics that doesn’t stop when they go electric: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5664766/
This sounds cool though