Musk Sells Crowd On the Future of Electric Vehicles With Battery Swapping

Battery swapping is fast, but the economics are still uncertain.

For a dose of how Elon Musk is selling the vision of electric vehicles, check out this video of the new Tesla swapping station in action (see “Why Tesla Thinks It Can Make Battery Swapping Work”). In the video–which was taken at a gathering of mainly Model S owners in LA–a Tesla Model S pulls up on stage, and an automated system removes its depleted battery and replaces it with a fully-charged one. Meanwhile a video runs in the background of someone refueling a gas powered car. The battery swap is finished faster than the refueling. Indeed, while the gas-powered car continues to fill up, another Model S drives on stage and has its battery replaced.