No Battery Swap For Tesla After All
A few years ago, Tesla announced that it was working on adapting a concept that is as old as the electric battery itself: swapping them out. If your vehicle was out of charge, you could simply go to a Tesla centre and roll up to a swap spot to start a system that would automatically swap your batteries for fresh ones. The operation would only take a few minutes and cost about the same as a tank of gas.
That technology seems like it is dead in the water, though, and the culprit is easy to find. According to Elon Musk, the Supercharger stations are so efficient (and free, which helps a lot!) that it would be hard to justify spending money to develop a viable swapping system.
As an example, Mr. Musk said that every Model S owner was invited to try out a fully-working swap station in Coalinga, CA, but only a few ever did.