An Israeli company in 2010 collaborated with Renault to develop a car with swappable batteries [1] and they had automatic battery swapping station that could fit new batteries in about a minute [2]. The venture went bust mostly due to mismanagement and questions about the sustainability of its business model due to the high infrastructure cost of building these stations.
Telsa entertained this concept and specifically designed the Model S with floor-mounted batteries to enable easy swapping [3], but then abandoned the idea.
Telsa entertained this concept and specifically designed the Model S with floor-mounted batteries to enable easy swapping [3], but then abandoned the idea.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Fluence_Z.E. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place#Battery-switching... [3] http://www.autoblog.com/2009/03/26/tesla-model-s-50-000-ev-s...