Before the Electric Car Takes Over, Someone Needs to Reinvent the Battery
Maybe the solution is to have better business practices around the technology that we do have. Why does the battery needs to be part of the car at all? It clearly depreciates and is technologically disrupted on a different time frame than the car itself. A Tesla Roadster is a fine car and will continue to be for decades, if you can only refresh it&#x27;s battery pack every 10 years or so.<p>I&#x27;m thinking of a modular battery that is hot swapable at the charge stations and where you only pay it&#x27;s depreciation based on what you actually use. This would significantly lower ownership costs for light users and drastically increase efficiency and flexibility for heavy users who are no longer dependent on charge times. Since it&#x27;s modular, you load the number of units you need, say one battery unit for a Leaf, two for a Model S or 10 units for a light truck, all in standardized format and with their own computing that tracks things like life span, charge cycles performed by the user himself for proper billing etc.<p>I know Tesla experimented with and later abandoned battery swap, but that&#x27;s predictable without the proper business structure in place, no one is going to leave the most expensive part of their car back at the charge station. If you were to purchase a Model 3 at $15 - $20K and have the option to pay for &quot;battery as service&quot; at prices comparable to gasoline, people would flock to buy electrics.