re: #94 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Whatever happened to the scheme to produce standardized batteries so you can just pull into a fuel station, swap batteries out and pay for the charge?

When the first Tesla cars hit the road the company set up a battery-swap station in California. It was used something like seven times in 18 months, only one car owner came back twice apparently. The others tried it once and didn’t like it. The battery tech and other car engineering has improved since then with fast charging and the like, the range between charges has increased for higher-end models while the number of street-side and home chargers has also increased obviating the demand for battery swap.

There’s a whole series of engineering reasons why battery swap isn’t really practical, at least for cars. Trucks are another matter but there aren’t any real electric long-distance transport options on the road yet, just a number of shiny futuristic prototypes and lots of PowerPoint presentations.