It's a reasonable idea if car batteries become easily swappable.

maliker · on March 16, 2018

Swapping does solve the charging time problem. There was a pretty big effort to build out a swapping network, but it ran in to business issues:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Place_(company)

xyzzyz · on March 16, 2018

Not likely any time soon. There's absolutely no way humans are going to pull >1000 lbs worth of batteries out of the car every day, and put the same >1000 lbs worth of batteries into it. With a unit of work of 50 lbs (reasonable for fit people), and a minute to pull out each pack, stow it away, take fresh pack and put it back in, it would take half an hour of hard physical work every day. No way regular people are going to do that.

ddnb · on March 16, 2018

Ofcourse this would be automated, you don't see a person hauling jerrycans to fill up his car in gasstations do you?

xyzzyz · on March 16, 2018

I definitely carry jerry cans when I want to fill up my vehicles at home, which is the context we are in — we were talking about home rooftop solar installation, and how it can or cannot be used to charge cars overnight.

adrianN · on March 16, 2018

You don't put gas in your tank with a laddle, why wouldn't you use a machine to swap batteries?